1. DISCERNMENT SESSIONS COMING UP

2. LEADERSHIP INSTITUTES IN OCTOBER – REGISTRATION OPEN!

3. MACG LISTENING CAMPAIGN CONTINUES

4. A LISTENING SEASON AT BETHEL

5. HEALTH CARE ACTION TEAM – OUR STRATEGY AND HOW YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE

6. BOB BROWN, MACG LEADER, ONE OF ELEVEN NOMINATED TO STATEWIDE HEALTH CARE COMMITTEE!

7. SUSTAINABLEWORKS ACTION TEAM MAKES PROGRESS – PLEASE JOIN US!

8. ARTICLES / ITEMS OF INTEREST

9. UPCOMING MACG EVENTS

10. UPCOMING INSTITUTIONAL EVENTS

11. PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLES AND EVENTS TO THE NEWSLETTER

MACG will host 2 Discernment Sessions to wrap up this summer’s Listening Campaign on Thursday September 24 and Thursday October 1 in the ballroom of SEIU Local 49, 3536 SE 26th Ave. in Portland.

The purpose of the sessions will be to identify MACG’s energy after this summer’s listening season. Eventually, we hope to determine what action will come out this listening and discernment.

If you have heard a particularly moving story that should be highlighted at one of these sessions, please contact one of the organizers, Bev Logan, Joan Winchester, or Melissa Marley.

The time is now to recruit for the October Leadership Institutes! Registration is now open.

This is a time of rebuilding for MACG. More than ever we need your help with recruitment for these trainings!

They will take place in two counties:

Clackamas County Leadership Institute
Saturday, Oct 3, 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM with Mondays, Oct 12 & 19, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Please Note: Location is now TBA

And

Multnomah County Leadership Institute
Wednesdays, October 7, 14, 21& 28, 6:00 – 9:00 PM
Immaculate Heart Parish
2910 N. Williams Ave., Portland

To register, e-mail MACG Office or call (503-235-6474 x 3) the MACG office with the following information: Full Name, Institution, Email, Phone Number, Full Address.

Brochures and Registration forms are now online for the Leadership Institutes!

MACG’s summer 2009 Listening Campaign is moving right along.

As of this writing, there have been 197 relational meetings, and 2 house meetings with 40 people in attendance. Some highlights:

PHOENIX RISING Transition’s members conducted 28 more relational meetings in August, bringing their grand total relational meetings for the listening season to 81! They also hosted a successful house meeting at enterbeing, with 21 people in attendance. Way to Go PHOENIX!

St. Andrew reports 27 relational meetings as of August. They hosted a 20 person group after mass to share stories about pressures. 4 people attended a house meeting, and they are planning 2 house meetings in September. Finally, they held a core team meeting where they ran a mini-training on relational meetings, and their next core team meeting will focus on reflecting on the stories they have been hearing and preparing for the September discernment sessions. Whew! That’s a lot, St. Andrew!

We are still missing reports from the 15 other institutions in MACG. The MACG office needs your report regardless of whether Listening Season activities have happened at your institution or not. Please send your report of August activities (# of relational meetings, # of house meetings with attendees) ASAP to office@macg.org. If you don’t have any activities to report, please indicate that. We do want a report from each institution.

By Ronda Bard, Bethel Lutheran, edited by Laura Belson, MACG

Bethel Lutheran has been participating in MACG’s Listening Season, but we have adapted the idea to our current needs and have focused on an internal listening to build (and re-build!) institutional strength and connectedness.

We see the Listening Season is an intentional period of discernment, part of the summer 2009 sabbatical process that was set aside in order to deal with other congregational crises. Pastor Glenn Chase has returned from his sabbatical retreat to work with the Church Council in leading this season.

For a framework for this season, we Bethelites are drawing on Henri Nouwen’s insights on listening as hospitality:

“Listening as Spiritual Hospitality: To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements, or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make there presence known. They are free to receive, to welcome, to accept.

Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention to others and welcoming them into our very beings. The beauty of listening is that those who are listened to start feeling accepted, start taking their words more seriously and discovering their true selves. Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.”

--by Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith, entry for March 11.

Approaching this Season as a call to hospitality frees us from worries about psycho babble or scary touchy-feely stuff. Instead we understand that we are facing a period of hard work, when we clear our spiritual centers in order to hear and to welcome each other just as we are, allowing the Spirit to listen through us and to lead us to new ways of being community.

One discernment became clearer as Council worked this past summer: it seems that Bethel is called to become a more hospitable place, not only to strangers, but especially to each other. We are called to practice the radical type of listening that includes safety for disagreement and acceptance of our brokenness. This Season of Listening is a first attempt to answer that call.

After Sunday services, Pastor Glenn is inviting parishioners to participate in brief, one-on-one conversations that address questions related to our individual and congregational journey. Some Sundays will also include shared, angelic wrestling with the stories and patterns we are hearing. October will include several community-wide meetings as a formal discernment process.

What will be the common stories and call to action? Bethel is finding out together!

By Bob Brown, Havurah Shalom

The MACG Health Care Action Team contributed significantly to the big Win we have for State health care reform with the passage of HB 2009 and HB 2116. The first bill addresses health care reform within Oregon and the second bill addresses financing expansion of eligibility for all kids (Healthy Kids), 35,000 additional adults under the Oregon Health Plan, and additional Medicaid coverage for about 50,000 adults who are disabled or otherwise required by the Feds to have Medicaid coverage.

But this is the “end of the beginning” for health care reform in Oregon. Much work remains – particularly around the implementation of HB 2009.
During our retreat, we listened to our Team and developed a strategy that addresses local action, continued State action and ensuring communication about national health care reform.

We are very excited about our local action. We are putting in place plans to ensure all kids in our member institutions are signed up for OHP. We are working with the new Healthy Kids organization to ensure we get trained in how to get kids signed up. We envision we will have a core cadre of Certified Application Assistants who will work with institutional representatives to complete applications for any children who do not have health insurance now. Let us know if you are interested in working with people in your institution to complete applications for children in your institution.

To keep involved and informed with implementation activities we will continue to work with our allied organizations. We are pleased to report that MACG was asked to join the Consumer Voices for Coverage initiative along with eight other allied organizations whose mission is to ensure effective implementation of our health care systems leading to universal coverage.

There was a strong desire to keep information flowing about national health care reform. We have created a new email group focused on providing timely information about activities, actions and status of the national health care reform efforts. If you would like to receive focused and targeted information about national reform, send and email to Bob Brown (rebrown47@gmail.com) and you will be added to that list. Be sure to mention national health care reform. (You can also be added to our general email list. Send and email to the same address about that.)

You are invited to our next HCAT meeting on September 15, 7 PM at St Charles Church, NE 42nd and Killingsworth. We will be discussing details of our planning about signing-up kids for the Oregon Health Plan.

By Jean Eilers, SEIU 49

Bob Brown, MACG leader from Havurah Shalom, has been nominated by Governor Kulongoski to the Health Information Technology Oversight Council. The Council is established by the legislation for Oregon Health Care Reform that the MACG Health Care Action Team worked so hard at passing this last legislative session. Bob is eminently qualified to be the consumer voice on this committee. It is a recognition that Bob and the MACG leaders are held in great respect because of the quality of presence they had throughout the legislative process. Bob’s position will help ensure that the priorities we set at MACG will be included in any decisions regarding implementation of the health care reforms.

Congratulations, Bob!

Read More Here

By Nick O’Connor, Metanoia

The Sustainable Works Action Team has followed up diligently on some of the steps planned at the last meeting on August 10. Bev Logan and Mary Nemmers have attended three Community Benefit Agreement meetings. Recommendations coming out of these meetings will be submitted by September 8th to city officials, and will inform the language on standards and benefits to be contained in the RFQ for the 470 unit Portland City Clean Energy Works Pilot Program. This pilot program is the one from which MACG is seeking to manage a 100-unit neighborhood based sub-pilot.

Ben Nelson attended an EEAST stakeholders meeting, which outlined the financial resources and timeline for Oregon’s future energy efficiency pilot programs. The Portland pilot is up and running and others will follow, but perhaps not quickly. The State’s target goal for home retrofits under this bill is not very high – approximately 1,200 to be done next year. The State is counting on withdrawing $5 million in lottery funds in May to jump start the program, in concert with the commitments of individual homeowners.

Ben notes that “most of those in attendance were public employees who work on weatherization in their local jurisidictions, [including] . . . Gil Sperling with the USDOE . . . He recognized Oregon as a leader in the home energy efficiency effort and the need for this market to grow and create good union jobs.”

Steve Abeling has been working with Laura Belson to adapt a spreadsheet used by the Sound and Spokane Alliances to fit Portland and Oregon conditions. Steve says he obtained “basic power costs from NW Natural, PGE and Pacific Power bills . . .[and] information on current energy conservation incentives from the Energy Trust of Oregon website.” He has research remaining to elicit details on the Energy Trust’s incentive programs.

Our next meeting will be on Monday, Sept 14, 7:00 – 8:30 PM, Redeemer Lutheran Church, 5431 NE 20th Ave. in Portland. There is lots to do, please join us!

For an interesting related article, click here

Stan Bilinksi, Rest in Peace

MACG notes with sadness the passing of Stan Bilinski, a committed member of PHOENIX RISING Transition’s core team and a regular face at MACG events. You can read more about Stan’s life on PHOENIX’s website.

Oregon Prescription Drug Card

Expanding the benefits for the Oregon Prescription Drug Card to EVERY Oregonian was a win for MACG a few years ago. This fact was recently uncovered as MACG office staff were compiling a list of accomplishments. If you or someone you know is without health benefits, it is as easy as filling out your address to enroll in up to 40% discounts on prescription drugs. Enroll here!

Redeemer Listening Potlucks in the Oregonian!

Redeemer’s weekly potlucks and listening sessions have made the Oregonian! Congratulations to the Redeemer core team for some great community building! Read more here.

MACG in Portland Upside

Nick O’Connor from Metanoia has written an article on MACG in the August issue of the Portland Upside! The link is here. You can also find the hard copy paper in coffeeshops and libraries around town.

IAF NW Summer News

This quarterly newsletter talks about the work the regional IAF alliances are doing, including MACG.

SustainableWorks Action Team
Monday, Sept 14
7:00 – 8:30 PM
Redeemer Lutheran Church
5431 NE 20th Ave. Portland

Health Care Action Team
Tuesday, Sept 15
7:00 – 9:00 PM
St. Charles
5310 NE 42nd Ave., Portland

Clackamas County Caucus Meeting
Thursday, September 17
10:00 - 11:30 AM
IOUE 701 Hall
555 E 1st St., Gladstone

Fall Discernment Sessions
Thursdays Sept 24 and Oct 1
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM - Tentative Time
SEIU Local 49
3536 SE 26th Ave., Portland

Fall Leadership Institutes for Public Life
In Two Counties

Clackamas County Leadership Institute
Saturday, Oct 3, 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM with Mondays, Oct 12 & 19, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Please Note: Location TBA

And

Multnomah County Leadership Institute
Wednesdays, October 7, 14, 21& 28, 6:00 – 9:00 PM
Immaculate Heart Parish
2910 N. Williams Ave., Portland

E-mail: office@macg.org
Phone 503-235-6474 x 3

Fall Action Assembly
Thursday, Nov 5
7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Location TBA

Regional IAF Training
Sunday, November 15 – Saturday, November 21
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Cost: $800 plus airfare. Includes single occupancy housing and all meals.
Contact office@macg.orgif you are interested in registering

Alinsky at 100: Community Organizing in the 21st Century

Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington will be honoring Saul Alinsky’s 100th birthday by hosting a Symposium, Workshop, and Training from October 15 – 17. Recently retired regional Lead Organizer Dick Harmon, IAF Northwest Lead Organizer Joe Chrastil, and Spokane Alliance Lead Organizer Wim Mauldin will present.

Please see flyer here

Muddy Boot Organic Festival at St. Philip Neri

Muddy Boot Organic Festival 2009 ** September 11 * 12 * 13
*** A Soulful Celebration of Sustainable Living *** Keynote address by author Bill McKibben of 350.org Music * Food * Kids' Activities * Workshops * Sustainable Products SE 16th & Division, Portland

http://www.muddyboot.org

Have any events or newsworthy items to share? Email them to office@macg.org!