Join the team to rebuild the Exchange from its ashes — come to the Redesign meetings, starting on Sunday, June 2. Also, The Exchange Phoenix Fund has been established at the Community Foundation to rebuild The Exchange with increased capacity to better serve our community. (More information below). (Artwork by Lynne McCowan in Ellensburg, WA).
All Orcas Islanders are invited and encouraged to attend Workshops for Community Design of the New Building(s) to House The Exchange, beginning Sunday June 2 from 1-5 pm at The Eastsound Fire Hall. The purpose of the sessions is for participating citizens to propose, discuss, analyze and reach a consensus on a design, the first step in rebuilding The Exchange. Fred Klein will facilitate the sessions, and present the results to the Board of Orcas Recycling Services in June.
Fred Klein
There are four sessions scheduled at the Orcas Island Fire Hall, with the first being mandatory:
- Sunday, June 2, from 1:00 to 5:00 pm
- Tuesday, June 4, from 6:30 to 9:30 pm
- Friday, June 7, from 6:30 to 9:30 pm
- Sunday, June 9, from 1:00 to 5:00 pm
Klein wrote earlier that a similar community design process for the Stage on the Village Green “included teachers, artists, a storyteller, a dancer, and local activists…so don’t think for a moment that you need to be a carpenter, designer, or a builder to be a part of this. All hands (and hearts) willing to engage in a group process are most welcome.”
Full information about the workshops is available at the Exchange/Orcas Recycling Services website, www.exchangeonorcas.org. Pre-registration is requested.To preregister, or for further information, call Michael Greenberg at 376-4118, or email xmichael.greenbergx@gmail.com
The Orcas Island Community Foundation has opened Exchange Phoenix Fund to support the rebuilding of the Exchange on Orcas, ” in the firm belief that a new form will rise from the ashes with increased capacity to better serve our community. As of May 30, 2013, the Exchange Phoenix Fund has $6,208.07.
To contribute to this effort, donate on line at www.oicf.us, or mail a check to OICF, PO Box 1496, Eastsound, WA, 98245. Please make checks payable to OICF with the Exchange listed in the memo field. Contact the Community Foundation, 376-6423, with questions.
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The last operation was a disaster just waiting to happen. This operation requires close supervision and if necessary, forced compliance to standards.
Here’s a thought- jettison preciousness, dream quests and all those vision luxuries. Get a pre-fab or basic timber frame barn-like structure that meets county requirements up as soon as possible. Allow for a strategy of addition and modification. THEN and only then, start building out the dream. Then and only then, use all the vision and all the craft to modify, customize and expand upon the base. But get the base up first.
Take a look at almost any “community” structure Orcas has built in the last 10 years … talk about monuments to conspicuous consumption. Seriously. We can’t even build a small, public bathroom for under $170,000.
Here’s an unpleasant fact and an inconvenient truth: The MORE money that is spent on this process, the LESS it will be an Exchange that has “risen from the ashes.” Remember the Exchange? Recycled materials? Shoe string budget? Grew out organically according need, vision and resources?
Remember it’s place in the community? Helping to redistribute resources to islanders in a way that benefited the whole? Well, ponder this- every week, every month that is taken up crafting the vision is a week or a month of denying the community resources it needs now, more than ever.
Responding to Dave Johnson:
Dave…thanks for speaking up…I haven’t been able to find a telephone # for you…please consider participating in this effort to re-birth the Exchange…we’ll be starting at the Fire Hall in about two hours!
Fred