[Dance Spree] Support our Local Living Economy - Event Wed Oct 18th at Look Park

[Prakash Laufer]

Dear Dancing Friends and supporters of a local living economy.

I am working with a local progressive business group:
The Pioneer Valley Business Alliance for Local Living
Economies (PV BALLE) - who brings you the Buy Local Campaigns,
along with  CISA, Shays2, and Highland
Valley Elder Services to bring  Michael Shuman to
town for a talk and a book signing on Wednesday
October 18th from 6:30 to 9pm at the Garden House at
Look Park.  Michael Shuman helped to found BALLE, sits
on BALLE's national board, and also wrote the book
Going Local and more recently wrote the Small Mart
Revolution. Anyone who has ever heard him speak knows
of his commitment, knowledge, and passion in
supporting local, living economies.

Please invite any friends, colleagues,
employees, or co-workers so we can expand the movement
and energy in Western Mass. to support our local
living economy.  To all of you who are in the media,
if there is anyway to help in publicizing this event
that would be greatly appreciated.   I look forward to seeing
you on the evening of October 18th.
Sincerely,

Prakash Laufer
PV BALLE Organizer

P.S.  Here's his bio: Michael Shuman, an attorney and
economist, is Vice President for Enterprise
Development for the Training & Development Corporation
(TDC) of Bucksport , Maine .  He has written,
co-written, or edited six books, including most
recently, Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant
Communities in the Global Age (Free Press, 1998).   He
has written over a hundred articles on community
economics, federalism, foreign policy, and
philanthropy for periodicals like The Washington Post,
The Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Parade, New York
Times, The Nation, and Chronicle on Philanthropy.
Shuman also has appeared on numerous television and
radio shows, such as the Lehrer News Hour and NPR's
"Talk of the Nation," and is a periodic commentator on
NPR’s “All Things Considered.”   He has given an
average of a talk a week for 20 years, including
invited lectures or paid consultancies in eight
countries, 26 cities, and at 27 universities.

In recent years Shuman has been promoting the concepts
in Going Local  through a variety of projects,
including:  creating a small-business venture capital
fund in New Mexico; launching a community-owned
company in Salisbury (MD) called Bay Friendly Chicken;
organizing university-government-business
collaborations in St. Lawrence County (NY) and in the
Katahdin Region (ME) to study opportunities for import
replacement; analyzing the impact of devolution in the
former Soviet Union for the United Nations Development
Programme; preparing a buy-local guide and coupon book
for Annapolis (MD); developing a web site
(CommunityFood.com) to support marketing by family
farmers; serving as a senior editor for a forthcoming
Encyclopedia of Community; and building the Business
Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).

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