Alicia Korten - Co-op conference speaker

[Jim Schulman]

Dear colleagues in the DMV Co-op Biz Ecosystem,

I hope you are still rising up daily to the challenge of building community, now, even more than ever, in the face of reactionary despotism (desperation?) at the federal level. To the degree that this moment demands the assertion of values, please meet my friend Alicia Korten (ali...@theculturecompany.com ; 703/362-1613; https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciakortenculturekeynotespeaker/) who has built her career on helping organizations articulate and embrace their deep values. I worked with Alicia and her spouse, Lorne Epstein, at the beginning of the first Trump Administration when Alicia & Lorne launched an informal effort called Freedom is Not Free (FINF) in their living room to push back against both local and federal government overreach. FINF helped stimulate an amazing variety of community activities in Arlington, VA, including to push back against poorly-planned up-zoning (leading to the formation of Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future https://www.asf-virginia.org/ ). They also pushed the County government to seek alternative markets for recycling glass.

 

Lately, Alicia has found a place in the cooperative world, helping energize business gatherings. I've seen Alicia motivate attendees at company events - she is a world class storyteller - so I've attached a 4-page piece that explains her public speaking services. If you happen to know someone in the co-op world who could use a keynote speaker at their gatherings, please connect them to Alicia. Thanks!

 

-- Jim Schulman, Executive Director

631 'E' ST NE, Washington, DC 20002

JSch...@ARCdmv.org

202/544-0069 | https://ARCdmv.org

ARC works with communities and local governments using the powerful tool of community visioning. ARC also works with local small businesses, cooperatives, and social enterprises to promote sustainable circular regional economic development, helping them obtain the goods and services they need to run their businesses from within the Washington Metro region.

“Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. it is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing group adaptation.” -- Octavia Butler

"No magic bullet, not even the Internet, can save us from population explosion, deforestation, climate disruption, poison by pollution, and wholesale extinction of plant and animal species. We're going to have to want different things, seek different pleasures, pursue different goals than those that have been driving us and our world economy." -- Joanna Macy

Note: Jim's e-mail policy correlates with this perspective: "It is normal for me to take 2 days to read my emails and 2 more days to reflect on the matter and respond calmly. The culture of immediacy and the constant fragmentation of time are not very compatible with the kind of life I lead." -- Lucy Hunt, Researcher