It is with great excitement that we invite you to apply for the Northeast Leadership Jam – a five day gathering of about 30 dynamic and diverse changemakers for deep learning, listening, systemic inquiry, and community building at Woolman Hill in Deerfield, MA from March 10-15, 2020.
Why the Northeast Changemakers Jam now?
So much is alive, in flux, and in need of attention and action in this moment. In the face of incredible injustice, pain, rage, numbness, and grief, we are also seeing incredible leadership and transformations occurring across the northeastern United States and beyond. The purpose of this Jam is to slow down together in order to meet the urgency of this moment in our world in a grounded, intentional, and strategic way.
We are hosting the Jam in order to:
- give time and attention to nourishing new stories and new ways of leading and being that are emerging in our lives and work.
- support each of us in cultivating the courage and resilience to take purposeful, clear, and conscious action in response to violence and injustice.
- find the heart wisdom we need to unearth old stories that must be shed – in ourselves and our communities.
- build the kind of connection and community of practice we need to sustain ourselves in the beautiful and heart-bending work of making change.
The Jam is not a retreat from the world, but rather an opportunity to face it. It calls us to show up for exactly what is alive: in ourselves, in our relationships, in our communities, in our world. We jam to meet the world as it is, and we jam to help get closer to the world we want to see.
“The Jam format has been, for me, the most powerful vehicle for change, both personal and systemic, that I have yet encountered. The Jam process is such a visible, tangible model for root cause intervention to systemic crises that are, at their core, cultural issues. A healing salve for the human condition, this Jam has provided me a window into how we might live here on Earth together, forever.”
–Mark Phillips, 27, Hosta Hill, Great Barrington, MA
What is a Jam and How Does it Work?
The Jam is a gathering that is meant to explore transformation on the personal, interpersonal, and systemic levels. It is guided and supported by a team of facilitators, but we say it is co-created because the content of the Jam comes directly from participants’ responses to questions in the application. We have three scheduled sessions a day together, which grow and shift based on what emerges for the group during our time together. We hold the ample time outside of sessions with equal importance: for informal small group conversations, exploring the outdoors, personal reflection, creative fun and the FAOHO (Fine Art of Hanging Out).
Some of the core questions we hope to explore during this Jam include:
- What are your many relationships to the Northeast as a region and how have they evolved? How has this relationship impacted your identities, your relationships, your communities, your work?
- How have your experiences of power and privilege in this region impacted you and the visions, questions, hopes, and fears you hold for the future?
- What questions are alive for you in your life right now? For your community? For this region and beyond?
- What are the core points of healing and transformation for you? For your community? For this region and beyond?
APPLY TODAY!“A Jam is a gift to yourself – of time, of intentions, of creativity, of connection, of possibility. I was nervous about taking so long to be ‘away’ (I’m putting that in quotes because I feel like was still so present to my non-jam life in the sense of the intentions and tools.) but it was the perfect amount of time – to do some really deep work… Before this week I kept telling people that I was so excited for this because years of topical conferences left my work feeling stuck and uninspired, and like it needed to be pulled back into the flow of creativity and possibility that is what keeps me “in” the work to begin with. I am ready to step back in to my place in the ribbon between my ancestors and the future, to the flow of encouragement and radical, revolutionary, connections that will build our collective liberation. I am ready. Thank you.”
– Meg Bossong, 36, Williams College, Pittsfield, MA
Why is it called a Jam?
We call our gatherings Jams because we are inspired by music jam sessions. YES! Jams bring together the same creativity, co-learning, and fun for social change. The Jam is not a conference, seminar, training or workshop. When musicians get together to “jam,” they get to share their unique skills and knowledge, as well as learn from the other musicians. They get to hear and experience other styles of music while expanding their own horizons. They are also able to have fun, build community, and use their individual talent, inspiration and skills to create something far greater than the sum of its parts. When musicians improvise, they create music that no one has ever heard before. YES! Jams do the same for people changing the world.
180+ Jams have been held with change-makers on six different continents over the last 20 years. This will be the 4th Northeast Changemakers Jam. Two were in New Hampshire (2015 and 2018) and one was in Vermont (2016).
“This experience provided a safe space for stretching, reaching out, taking in, and strengthening my ‘roots’. It has given me new-found courage to engage and trust in knowing that allowing things to “get messy” at times paves the way for clarity and new beginnings.”
– Elizabeth Cooper, 60, Environmental Advocate and Naturecologist, Vermont
Why You?
First, the basics: If you’re wondering if you’re “qualified enough” to be a part of something like this, or if you “know enough,” “do enough” or are “good enough” to be a part of something this… take a deep breath and trust that you are. Here is a list of some reasons that you might consider attending the Northeast Changemakers Jam…
Are you looking to:
- Leverage your capacities, strengths, passions, privileges, and questions to support your own healing, growth, and leadership and the healing, growth, and leadership of your communities?
- Practice new tools and frameworks to support your changemaking and unlearn old ways that no longer serve you?
- Listen deeply to yourself and others to learn from stories and personal experiences about personal growth, building community, and systemic transformation?
- Restore, renew, and clarify your commitment to your values and your visions for the future?
- Connect deeply with others who are working for change across this region?
- Or, are you feeling moved by this invitation in a different way? Fantastic. We can’t wait to hear about what calls you.
Please know that we are seeking a vibrant diversity for this gathering. This includes bringing together myriad different:
- Identities and worldviews (e.g. class, race, religion, sexuality, gender, age, dis/ability, ethnicity, urban/rural/suburban, etc.)
- Relationship to this region (as you choose to define it: “from here,” living here, native/indigenous to the region, recently relocated, in transition, “from away,” etc.)
- Experience in changemaking (from “just starting out” to “been at it for years”)
- Roles (from “person on the ground” to “founder, director, or board member”)
- Passion or Work Focus (community building, farming and food security, local economies, indigenous rights, education, climate justice, cultural regeneration, interfaith, health and physical well-being, creative arts, community media, spiritual healing, trauma recovery, politics engagement, socially- and ecologically-conscious design, etc.)
“[The Jam] offered a loving and unconditional embrace that helped me relax, slow down, have fun, and remember the joyful heart that approaches even great work with lightness and tenderness. You offered a hearth to gather around to hear the dreams and visions of others, to connect with my own, and to see that they are intertwined. They will buoy me and fuel and inspire me when I grow weary along this journey.”
– Uma Lo, 31, Permaculturist, Green Phoenix Permaculture, NY
APPLY TODAY!
Who is putting this on?
Marissa Barbieri is a highly-sensitive, deeply-listening, patently-ridiculous human trying, in the words of the late/great Grace Lee Boggs, to be more human – a quest in which Jams have played a prominent role! She values the question over the answer and big (or even medium!) talk over small. Marissa seeks work that’s aligned with her personal purpose to disrupt, heal from, and reimagine systems of oppression, especially as they impact young people. Her lifelong residence in Vermont affords her a unique perspective on its strengths and challenges, though she also finds home in Detroit, New Orleans, Prince Edward Island, and wherever Jamily is present. A great lover of books, sender of mail, and collector of houseplants, Marissa’s greatest joy comes from regular exposure to live music.
Jose Cortez is a young artist and student who thrives in community and attempts to provide sparks of in micro doses through his day to day interactions. He seeks to build with love when meeting new folks and loves making people smile. Jose is a photographer and a poet/rapper that works within the Boston area snapping pictures in places that rarely given the spotlight they deserve. He has worked as a Music Artists Assistant with the Botch Center’s Citi Spotlights summer program where inner city youths audition for a chance to gain work experience and develop their artistic voices.
Heather Foran has over 12 years of experience in travel-based education focused on the intersection of social justice, ecology and economics. She is the co-founder of the Field Academy, a high school program that blends popular education and critical pedagogy with travel. She holds a Masters in Transformative Leadership, with a thesis examining travel-based education from a decolonization lens. Heather currently serves as a member and board member of the Southern Maine Workers Center, doing grassroots organizing towards human rights in her home state. Heather has also been an organizer for a permaculture network in Portland, ME, coordinating work parties and implementation of permaculture in residential and community settings across southern Maine. She feels strongly about working where she grew up to undo white supremacy and economic injustice through a heart-centered, transformative approach, while envisioning regenerative ways forward. She is recently loving her new T-Rex costume as an instrument of fun and a political tool, and has a long-standing love of jokes (particularly puns – good, bad, otherwise).
Shilpa Jain is currently rooting herself in Oakland/Berkeley, CA, where she serves as the Executive Director of YES!. YES! works with social changemakers at the meeting point of internal, interpersonal and systemic change, and aims to co-create thriving, just and balanced ways of life for all. Prior to taking on this role, Shilpa spent two years as the education and outreach coordinator of Other Worlds and ten years as a learning activist with Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, based in Udaipur, India. She is passionate about dance and music, organic and natural farming, upcycling and zero waste living, asking appreciative questions, and being in community.
Jen Lazar loves creating experiences that encourage and support deep learning – about self, place, community, and what is possible in our world. Most recently she’s been working with 350VT on developing workshops for climate justice activists and organizers, and helping to create and steer the Field Academy, a re-envisionment of what is possible in education for students and teachers across the United States. In past lives, Jen worked with community and adventure-based mentoring communities, served as a school board commissioner working on community resilience and school integration efforts, and, ran a youth-led summer theatre project. In a future one, she hopes to live in the desert and write fiction. Jen loves cooking brunch, bringing people together around food, creating spontaneous celebrations and dance parties, watching all night movies, and making secret cookie deliveries. She is honored and grateful to be a part of such an incredible and inspiring network of people creating and hosting Jams across the world.
Daniel Shearer has been part of three jams and loves bringing people together to talk and explore in new ways. He is a captain on a volunteer ambulance crew and is actively engaged in helping squad members discuss their interpersonal experiences on their crews to improve retention and team dynamics. Daniel just started practicing Aikido this year, and was thoroughly involved in a fossil fuel divestment campaign with his college over the last several years, organizing hundreds of alumni to learn about divestment opportunities and discuss alternatives to current investment strategies. Daniel is a member owner at Tamarack Media Cooperative, helping environmental organizations tell compelling stories through websites, videos, and publications. He has integrated the skills he picked up at jams into his work team to improve retreats and co-worker relationships. Before Tamarack, Daniel worked as the Development Director at the DREAM Program, a village mentoring program pairing college student groups with families living in affordable housing communities. While raising money to support program expansion, he also helped convert a school bus to run on waste vegetable oil and drove mentoring pairs on adventures around the east coast.
Vivian Stein lives in Montpelier, Vermont where she is the Farm Educator at the Maplehill School and Community Farm. She is deeply invested in sharing the experience of growing food and being in connection to nature through community. She was born and raised in Queens , NY and loves holding a little city girl in her bones while also understanding quality of live in rural Vermont fills her soul. Vivian will have a Masters in Leadership for Sustainability through UVM – looking at the relationship between land-based education and youth in alternative school settings. Vivian loves to dance and move her body. She is feisty, compassionate, playful, and working on placing vulnerability and curiosity at the center. Vivian has attended the past two Northeast Changemaker Jams. She is inspired by the container held by the Jam and the way it radiates out into her life.
“Northeast Jam, you have taught me that although I didn’t think I could go deeper, I definitely can – there is still so much deeper to go. There is an immense space in my body that has yet to be explored (what you showed me more than anything is my capacity is more vast than I had imagined). I have always recognized my strength, but to know my capacity and to so very distinctly feel it within my body and the space between my bones… that is a beautiful feeling.”
– Rina Patel, 25, Founder/CEO of The Thinkers Global, NYC
Location, Travel, & Costs of Attending
The Northeast Leadership Jam will take place at the incomparable Woolman Hill retreat center in Deerfield, MA. Woolman Hill will be providing us with a wonderful space, shared rooms with incredible views, delicious vegetarian food, and access to beautiful trails and forests. Travel costs are the responsibility of the participants, though we will help in arranging carpools from around the region to the best of our ability.
Tuition to participate in the Jam is offered on a sliding scale of $330 – $1350. We are working hard to make this event accessible to all people, regardless of ability to pay, and the Northeast Jam is operating on a tight budget. If you have less access to money, feel free to pay at the low end of the scale and if you have more access to money or resources and/or you have the financial backing of an organization or institution we invite you into class solidarity, to consider paying more so that someone else can pay less. The actual cost of participation is $1030, of which $400 covers food and lodging costs at Woolman Hill for five nights and $630 covers program costs, including organizing time, honoraria for facilitators, and materials. If you are not able to contribute $400 toward tuition, your food and sleeping arrangements will still be covered. If you pay more than the at-cost $1,030 amount for tuition, that extra amount is tax-deductible. If we have a higher than expected request for financial aid, or fewer than expected full tuition participants, we will provide a waiting list and offer additional aid as funds become available.
We will also invite you, as we get closer to the Jam, to participate in collective fundraising for our Jam through an online crowd-funding campaign. This is a chance for us to break down the idea that access to money is a personal success or failure and instead to build collective responsibility to making this event financially accessible.
APPLY TODAY!WE LOOK FORWARD TO JAMMING WITH YOU.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to write us at northeastyesjam@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you!
More reflections and testimonials about the NE Jam:
“[The NE Jam] was so gentle in its way of lifting away the dead scaly skin of this cocoon I have been growing in. Thank you for revealing to me the reality of what once seemed only visionary…Thank you for showing me glimpses into the way of sacred communion free from dogma and doctrine.”
– Bryn Dawson, 31, Teacher, Natural Dharma Fellowship, Wonderwell Mountain Refuge, New Hampshire
“What I think I have come to appreciate as the essence of the Jam is not so much about the ‘what’, but about the ‘how’. When it comes to doing the hard work of change, what the Jam offered me is a foundation of love, resiliency, and capacity for challenging work and self-exploration.”
– Liz Charles, 32, Maine Migrant Health Program, Maine
“New England Jam…thank you for your soul searching, your honesty, your beauty, your uncertainty, and your wisdom. In you, I find both questions and answers – but always love, so much love, to go with both. I want you on toast with peanut butter in the morning, and as a midnight snack.”
– Sophia Rosenfeld, 22, Student, Williams College, Massachusetts
“I appreciate how my body was a part of the Jam, how my creativity was a part of the Jam, how my spontaneity was a part of the Jam, how my inner child was a part of the Jam. The brilliance seems to reside in the fact that the Jam provides time, space, and activity that leads to friendship. And at the end of the day, friendship is what fuels collaboration.”
– Tobiah Sola, 25, Meditation App Developer, Vermont
