Las Vegas Barter Hours
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Las Vegas Barter Hours "En La Gente Confiamos" |
Barter Hours Memberships are only $5/year—and come with 4 free Barter Hours and a Members' Services Directory (2 Barter Hours for renewals). Do it now!
The next barter/trade exchange will be held September 12th at Faith Hall from 1 to 3pm. The event is for barter or trade only. Barter is an opportunity to trade your homemade food items such as barbeque, deviled eggs, bread, juices, or your own specialty or services. Anything is welcome—just remember you need to accept trade or barter hours. For more info, call Cordia at 426-1468.
The labor exchange groups have consolidated into one group. We met at Bob Wallace and Betty Quick's home on July 24th, and worked on their yard and pond. At that work party everyone agreed to combine the two groups and schedule one per month. Next month will be at Meredith Britt's home on August 29th.
There are 16 people—some have projects, some are more interested in helping on others' projects. It is a co-operative effort and everyone seems to enjoy the chance to work together.
The committee met August 5th and discussed membership meetings. It was decided to continue having Barter/Trade events every other month, but to cut down the membership business meeting to two per year or more as needed. Your comments are encouraged; if you have input on this decision call Dianne at 426-1468.
We are in the planning stage for the club. So far, 12 people are interested in joining. As soon as most logistics are worked out, we will be calling a member meeting to finalize our structure. If you are interested in joining or you have any questions please call Sherrill at 454-1572.
To use the Barter Hours Trading list on-line: go to the website at barterhours.org, then to News in a Nutshell, upper left corner. Click on BarterHours E-mail list. Follow directions in top paragraph. Either click Contact Jack to sign up or if already signed up click link Use this Link to post E-Mail to Trading List. Then type in what you want to trade with BH or BH and some cash in the message box and send it. Good Luck!
Curtis Sollohub is willing to teach a basic computer skills class for BH, please call 426-1468 if interested or for more info.
In these difficult days it is easy to lose hope. Many are depressed because they've been without a job for months—even years—with no chance to be employed at their skill level. There are a lot of experts with ideas about what we can do, but there are times that we feel we can do no more.
Some of us face issues of survival daily, fearing we may lose everything. Others give up because—somewhere inside us—we're aware that we've been living quite well. Our fear is that we'll not be able to rebound to that same level. We may be limiting ourselves with that expectation. We've closed ourselves into a closet. We have no elbow-room. No time to do what we really want to do.
The problem is that most of us have been so busy in our rush to success that we haven't had time to explore the rest of our lives. This is a perfect time to do just that. While we need to continue to contact prospective employers, we can relax from the frenetic pace that our former job demanded.
Whether we know it or not, we may have lost some of our deeper needs. There's actually more to life than work. Yes, really. Certainly responsibilities to us and to our family to find food, clothing and shelter are vital. When these are threatened, we may just hunker down in our closed homes.
Staying in the same place is not as secure, though, as we like to pretend it is. Scientists tell us that everything is made up of atoms Including our bodies. Atoms move. That means that change is constantly happening. Do we really want to spend our lives living in fear of change? We need to allow our world to vary from our expectations, to be open to something new, even to welcome it.
It's good for each of us to measure our own existence. Many questions come to the surface: Who am I? What am I doing here on this planet? What goals do I have? Have I changed them as I've learned and grown in my life? Why am I alive? What do I want to live for? These are all significant questions that we forget when we get busy. This is hard. However, as we stagger around on these questions, we can begin to actually play with the imbalance, as though we were on a trampoline. Then we lose our fear of it, and begin to see that we want to make changes in our lives.
There's a theory that an emergency is really an opportunity for emergence—a chance to bloom. It's time to stop running. Just stop! Get down to basics. Listen to your breathing. Then breathe deeply, slowly. Feel your pulse. Hear your tone of voice. How long has it been since you laughed? Cried? Enjoyed a person? Read a book? Played with a child? Helped someone? These are all motivating actions for our existence. They're what we truly live for. Without such meaning, life becomes humdrum, driven, or futile. One-dimensional. At least we can feel hope as we wait.
There are other things we could do. Be gentle with ourselves and others. Indulge in daydreaming. Remember our younger days and the things we'd hoped to do as our lives progressed. Listen to others' dreams. Share feelings. Tell people we love them-often. Hugs are satisfying, and we need to give them frequently. We also need to get together with others who share our feelings.
Finally we can truly respect ourselves, our families, our friends. After all, there's power in solving problems together. Then we know that life can be a joy much of the time. It's true. Cross my heart and hope—to live!
Come join the Northeast NM Permaculture Discussion Forum and contribute your permaculture ideas to the discussion begun by local permaculturist and barterer Lee Einer in May '09. With a little group effort we can make this a valuable local resource for creating sustainability.
If you're not familiar with the 'Wiki' concept, this is a form of discussion where any member can create new articles, and can add to or edit already-existing articles. In this way we add to each others' perspectives and knowledge—the resulting articles grow out of group dynamics and a synthesis of multiple perspectives instead of being one person's ideas all coming from a single limited viewpoint.
Don't be shy—we want to hear your ideas!
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| Barter Hours E-Mail List |
| Visit this group on the Web |
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or by E-Mail |
The Barter Hours E-Mail Trading List is working, with 44 members participating.
The List allows participating BH'ers to offer and make trades in real time, simply by sending one e-mail (the rest is automatic!).
To join the list, please contact Jack with your e-mail address and I'll sign you up.
If you're already signed up, USE THIS LINK TO POST EMAIL TO TRADING LIST.
Adopt a Legislator! Excellent tips on how to form a more personal relationship with your legislator(s) and have greater input into state and local affairs.
Barter Hours member Bob Wallace has started the Las Vegas Issues Forum. The purpose of the list is "to provide a safe, open, online space for the discussion of issues that matter in Las Vegas and surrounding communities..."
If you're interested in joining the discussion group (we need your voice!), you can sign up for Las Vegas Issues Forum here.
