Precious Friends

Please allow me to interrupt your busy pre-election work to alert you to two
very special meetings at the Green House, almost certainly the last to take
place in this location.

First -- my group email function continues to be disfunctional, so please
help spread the word to GH friends and allies.

* Weds. Nov. 17, 7:30 -- Broad-based Media Democracy Summit/Organizing
Meeting


* Thurs. Nov. 18, 7:30 -- The Future of the Green House: Where Do We Go
From Here (Figuratively & Literally)

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Second meeting first -- On Thurs. Nov. 18., you are invited to a special
meeting to discuss two broad topics; the future of our various activist
projects (GH Peace Project, FIRV, Radio Free Ferndale, Team Stacie, GH
Universal Health Care Initiative, etc.), as well as the more fundamental
question of real estate. It is time to say goodbye to our present location
and move to a groundfloor storefront. So we've got a lot to talk about!


About the real estate -- We want to partner up with other interested parties
to move into a much larger facility which will allow for meetings, social
activities including food, presentations and organizing, etc. Jam Rag will
almost certainly be part of this scenario, and we're going to need others.
Whether it takes the form of partnerships or sub-leased tenancy, etc. is up
to you.

Perhaps the key factor in making this work will be in finding the right
person to serve as manager for the building. It cannot be me. We must find a
highly motivated, enthusiastic, competant individual who will work for less
than a princely wage simply hecause they get such a kick out of the whole
circus environment -- and it WILL be a lovely circus!

i think Xhedos' new facilities -- with the addition of meeting and computer
rooms -- makes for a good model of what we have in mind. We are NOT locked
into the 9 Mile strip, although we want to be close.

Settling into our new home will be our fundamental priority for the new
year.


About the projects:

Oh, what is a young, idealistic activist to do?! So many causes to join, so
many worthwhile struggles to which one might lend a shoulder. How do you
choose among 'em all?! Health care, the environment, peace, glbt stuff, on
and on. Of course, we all struggle with this, don't we?

i think we've got the perfect solution, at the Green House, to this
ubiquitous dilemma. The "miracle" of the Green House is that the combination
of the projects exceed the sum of their individual parts.

For example -- we have merely a handful of people committed to each project,
who see through to the day-to-day tasks. But each project often enjoys
support from the others, when the situation demands -- most recently, F-IRV
has enjoyed help from volunteers who are primarily involved with other
projects.

In fact, there is a rainbow of ways the various projects complement each
other. Each project is like a brick in our foundatation -- and ALL the
projects benefit from the successes of the individual efforts.

Perhaps the most important way that each project helps build ALL projects is
in how we are creating a perception in Metro Detroit that things are really
getting done at the Green House! The media is learning to keep an eye on us,
we're developing a network of contacts with virtually every activist effort
in the city, etc. Each project helps ALL the projects. The more we are able
to sustain, the greater success we will have -- all around.

We enjoy some notoriety for our past successes -- and now we're about to put
another HUGE feather in our cap by being the only city in the country to
pass IRV this November (and if we don't win now, we will surely win next
year.).

Next: Radio and health care. The pirate radio station is a natural -- very
controversial, and we need merely to build on our past success. However that
plays out, one can be sure we will drop a lot of jaws.

And health care: What a fabulous project -- and what an equally terrific
team we have in the GHUHCI! We're going to win some big stuff with that one,
too.

By Spring or Summer 05 -- with momentum and excitement with radio and health
care, F-IRV/M-FORE moving on to bigger victories (Ann Arbor is next for us),
and Team Stacie and GHPP lending their voices to the choir -- there is going
to be a lot of excitement in Detroit about the Green House.

We will be a magnet for Detroit's best activists. And then things are going
to explode. It's all coming now.

It will be necessary, for the GH to move beyond five simultaneous projects
and towards 50, for myself to be less directly involved in any of them
individually. Thus, as we need a manager for the building itself, we also
need leadership for each of the projects. Where such leadership has emerged,
we have succeeded. Where it has fallen on me to run things, we've largely
stalled.

Instead, my role in this is to draw in new names and faces, build excitement
and enthusiasm -- and maximize the level of cooperation and symbiosis
between the projects.

If we can make this transition, then it is possible to imagine a day when
the GH serves as an umbrella for 50+ activist projects -- a lovely garden to
celebrate and exercise Human Potential.

It's within our grasp. And it is our destiny and duty. Who will be with me,
for the next 50 years and 50 projects, on this glorious, glorious
adventure?!


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Now, for the first meeting:

On Weds. Nov. 17, 7:30, we will host a critical meeting (very similar to the
meeting which launched MFORE/F-IRV) to launch a broad-range of media
democracy effors in Detroit.

(Following the election and F-IRV, my personal priorites will be this and
the health care stuff).


* WNFC Radio Free Ferndale -- The project continues wonderfully considering
that virtually no one has done anything with it in two or three months! Yet
we continue to receive endorsements and commitments, most recently from our
first state senator (Buzz Thomas) who agreed to go on the air with us.
That's the crux of WNFC -- getting Metro Detroit's most prestigious,
credible and respected leaders to express that the situation with our public
airwaves is bad enough to warrant breaking the law. Civil disobedience
played a crucial role in creating LPFM in the first place, and it must be a
part of fulfilling the LPFM dream.


* Michigan Music Campaign (MMWC) -- We also have some goals which don't fit
within the framework of WNFC, but more appropriately with the project which
started it all eight years ago. As well, MMWC is a good home for our more
timid supporters who are not yet ready to break the law. There must be a
place for EVERYONE in this media democracy movement, and MMWC will help
provide that.


* We've also been asked to take over the leadership of the national org, the
Amherst Alliance. Amherst was the group which filed the initial petition
with the FCC which led to the creation of LPFM, and they are also very
active with LPAM, fighting IBOC digital radio, and a host of other great
stuff.


* Mike and others want to launch a local chapter of ACME.


* And we also want to discuss how we can cooperate effectively with Free
Press -- not the local newspaper, but an emerging media democracy org
founded by Prof robert McChesney. This is the group which recently brought
the FCC commissioners to Dearborn.


* We will also show the documentary, "Out-Foxed," so it will be a full
night.


One final note -- The GH Universal Health Care Initiative will meet both Sun
Nov. 7 and 14, 2-3 pm. Oh, you will wish later on that you'd gotten involved
in THIS sweet mischief! It is a pure delight. (For the December meetings,
perhaps we can meet at our Ferndale home on 739 La Prairie.)

Again, please pass this message along to everyone who should know, as i am
unable to contact any of my email groups right now. i just grabbed a bunch
of names off the top of my head for this initial posting.


On a quick personal note (since you are all among my dearest personal
friends) the hormones are giving my a deep satisfaction, fulfillment and joy
which is just impossible to express in words. It's been almost six weeks
now, and i am beside myself with excitement over how the physical changes
are finally catching up with my psychological state. i am very tired -- it
must be hard work for for my body to rearrange all those cells. But i feel
as if i am being reborn, from the inside out. And i want to share my joy
with you!

i love you all so much...

stacie

Stephanie (Tom) "stacie" Trescott
Founder/Cacophonist
Jam Rag/Green House

* Green House - "The Idea Factory!"
248-336-9241 greenhouse@jamrag.com
www.greenhouseonline.org
22757 Woodward at 9 Mile, Ste 210, Ferndale
MAIL: Box 20076, Ferndale MI 48220

* Jam Rag - "Detroit's Music Magazine."
248-336-9243 jamrag@glis.net
www.jamrag.com
MAIL: Box 20076, Ferndale MI 48220

SW corner of 9 Mile/Woodward, 2nd floor
DOC bldg, above Professional Guitars
Enter off 9 Mile
1-7 pm, Tu-Fr * closed Sat/Sun/Mon

Subscribe to Stacie's Green House News: jamrag@glis.net
Don't Let Your Dreams Get Dusty!

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