When you host a traveler or when you are a guest through “Rooms”, these are the organizations from which you choose where the money goes.  Remember, the traveler chooses where some of the money goes, the host chooses where some of it goes, and “Rooms” gets some of the money to run the show.

If your organization is not on this list, you can change that by going to http://roomsforpeace.org/AffiliateApplication.aspx

1/4/’10

* Assisi Retreat Center, www.assisiretreats.org

Central City Concern, www.centralcityconcern.org

*Children’s Nursing Specialties, www.wecelebratekids.org

*City Repair, www.cityrepair.org

*Community Nonprofit Resource Group,www.cnrg-portland.org

Earth Gatherings, www.earthgatherings.org

Ethos Music Center, www.ethos.org

*FUEGO, www.gofuego.org

Garden Partners, www.gardenpartners.org

*Learning to Listen,  www.learningtolisten.info

MEJORC, www.mejorc.org

New Dream Foundation, www.newdreamfoundation.com

North by Northeast Community Health Center, www.nxneclinic.org

*Oregon Network for Compassionate Communication, www.ORNCC.net

Oregon PeaceWorks, www.oregonpeaceworks.org

*Oregon Student Association, www.orstudents.org

The Ride Connection, www.rideconnection.org

*Satori Men’s Chorus, www.satorichorus.org

Sisters of The Road, www.sistersoftheroad.org

*Compassion dba Small Change, www.small-change.org

*Springboard Innovation, www.springboardinnovation.org

Wetlands Conservancy, www.wetlandsconservancy.org

World Musicians and Fine Artists for Peace, www.butterflyspirit.org

Hey Rooms enthusiasts and curiosity seekers!

At least a partial one.  My computer was unavailable for all of last week so there are a few things missing.  I want to get this out now though because there are some time sensitive opportunities coming up soon.

Once again, the year end recap is quite amazing.  At least to me as I many times look at what didn’t get done yet.  I am going from current time backward to the beginning of ’09 because there are some opportunities to be involved that I want you to know about first.  Then you can see how we got here.

• Coming up January 29-31 is our first Affiliate www.orstudents.org sponsored Conference here in Portland.  They host The North West Student Leadership Conference each year.  You can help!

a)      We want 20 – 30 rooms available for some of these students to stay in while attending this conference. Remember, you always have the opportunity to choose to do this or not depending on how you feel.  There are no obligations.

b)      Bring your camera, or use ours and document this event for YouTube. Come and write an article for our blog and yours.

c)      Tell your favorite “Social Change” organization about us so they can get in on the adventure. So register your room now.  An easy step by step process.

We have this opportunity because of a joint project with Springboard Innovation www.springboardinnovation.org , another new affiliate  (See the next news item for more on them.), and Atkinson School of business PACE class.  This is a class that joined us to put together a specific marketing plan to move Rooms forward.  This conference is what they came up with.  What amazing students.

This conference will bring 500 student activists from 50 schools around the NW.  We are presenting a workshop at the conference designing plans for them to take RFP back home to their campuses and put it to work for their local causes.  They will be organizing around campus activities like graduation, sports, culture etc. which parents and friends will be attending and looking for places to stay.  How is this for a perfect match?   You can help!

a)      Table at the event,

b)      Help make sense of our experience.

c)      Encourage your friends to register their rooms for these local campus events as they emerge.

d)     Donate at www.roomsforpeace.org or www.thechangexchange.org (more on them in the next item as well.)

e)      Contribute your ASP.net skills to the next level of site construction.

• Coming up April 26-27, Springboard Innovation www.springboardinnovation.org is hosting a very exciting international conference:  Re-Visioning Values   www.revisioningvalues.org .  You can help!

a)      We will want an even larger pool of rooms for this conference.   Register your room now. (You register only one time to host and/or travel as much as you want.)

b)      Go to www.thechangexchange.org and see how you can financially support Rooms as we move to sustainability.

c)      Check out the other very cool projects listed there.

We connected with these folks late in ’08 and they affiliated in ’09.  We were invited to jump into their program of incubating new social change organizations like us.

These first two events will give us such good information about the continuing development of the web site and other infrastructure developments.

• Then coming up May 28 – June 6 is affiliate City Repair’s www.cityrepair.org annual Village Building Convergence with people coming from who knows where to participate.   You can help! See the first two items to get some ideas.

We hooked up with this diverse and dynamic group of activists last spring.

• A National Librarian Conference is also coming to PDX in ’10.  You can help here too!

a)      Help connect with the key people of this conf.

a)      Think about rooms.

b)      See the above items for more ideas.

Now for a little more of the ’09 history from start to finish!

• We tabled at several events growing our contact list.  Jo Beal joined the party in January and has been wonderful support all along.  Real Wealth of Portland, Bright Neighbor, and Peace Fair events are a few.

• We stumbled a few times with the web site, but it is now up and working well enough to test the concept.  By no means finished but workable if you don’t mind walking around a construction site.  We are now firmly back in ASP.net with room for some experienced contribution here.  Kraig’s detailed 54 page “site manual” continues to be invaluable in holding the image of how the site works.

• In May, six energetic and creative people came together to work on developing outreach/organizing strategies.  Holdups with the website slowed that program a lot.  But, because of these people, we have good ideas of how we will proceed once the site is ready to handle large volumes of people and organizations.  Thanks, Carol, Leah, Alice G, Seth, Jane G, and Jo.

• Ah, yes.  In April my first trip to Hawaii was sponsored by HRF  http://www.holisticresourcesfoundation.com/johnbrown.htm where several HRF ministers (I’m one of those too) converged in paradise to work on a DVD that would be used to help fund the miniseries of each of these unique people.  Stay tuned for that piece.  When Rooms For Peace was first visioned, HRF was going to be the umbrella under which we functioned.  It became evident that “Rooms” required it’s own autonomy, so the 501(c3) route emerged.  But this group has been powerfully supportive all along.  Thank you Aura and all.

• After yet another round of IRS questions, where David (nonprofit support services) said:  “Look, just think of it as a bake sale.  Someone bakes some cookies – that would be the person providing the room – and someone buys those cookies – that would be the guest – with all the money going to the target c3.  That is what Rooms For Peace is doing.  If there are any regulations or guidelines that indicate why they would not qualify for the status, site them.  Other wise grant them the classification!”  It worked and we got the letter on March 15.

• That was the good news.  I was able to give that news to Jae on March 13th.  He attended the Satori Concert on the 15^th where I had a few moments of connection with him.  He transcended his body the next day while listening to concert recording of The Rose.  Susan was there with him all the way.  His support and contributions to Rooms For Peace and many other organizations bring much gratitude to our hearts.  Thanks, Jae for all you are – most of all, a beautiful friend.

• Jackie headed for South Africa to the Peace Corps.   She had her tour shortened because the local program ran out of money.  Disappointing, but now she is back to activate her board position again.  Yea!

• John Sorensen and Janelle Hanson Sorensen of www.n2e.org joined our board in January.  They got married only a few months after that.  Go figure!  I’m not sure if they started a precedent.  There are a few more board positions available.

That’s it for now, but  lots more to come.  If you made it this far, there will be few times where the posts will be this long.

John

New Year 2010

It feels like:
The dawn photons tapping -
“swing the dead-bolt,

slide the chain,
open up to life!
I am here.
Use me up.
I am new year, fresh, eager.
Dream your best into me!” JDB

Thanks for following your curiosity and showing up here.

As the year unfolds, there will be a lot of fun and informative stuff here.

Come back and check in again.