July, 2010

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Vegan bake sale for UVic rabbits

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Liberation BC organized a vegan bake sale after UVic announced that it will give activists until the end of July to rescue all the campus rabbits before starting a mass cull.

The bake sale took place at 3G Vegetarian Restaurant last night.  We received three $1000 matching donations from individual donors and a donation of 20% of dinner proceeds from the restaurant.  In total, we collected $8,314.52 from the bake sale.  All proceeds will go to support the efforts of EARS in spaying, neutering and relocating the rabbits to safe sanctuary.

Thanks to a large donation of $50,000 from Fur Bearer Defenders and additional donations from various individuals ranging in the tens of thousands, there is now enough funds to save all of the UVic rabbits.  The only hope now is that the University can halt their plans for a mass cull until the rabbit relocation details can be sorted out.

A huge thank you goes out to our volunteers, bakers, supporters, donors and corporate sponsors: 3G, EIO Kids Store, Organic Lives, Edible Flours & Gorilla Food.  We could not have had a successful fundraiser without any of you!

If you missed the bake sale and would like to make donations to the rabbits, please visit the EARS website.

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“Open Space” at Our Hen House

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Liberation BC’s Glenn recently had a guest post published at one of our favourite blogs, Our Hen House.  The topic?  Open Space workshops, and how we can use them to help animals.

Everyone is invited to write down a topic or question that they would like to address, and post their topic up on the agenda wall. Very quickly, the agenda wall fills up with topics. Fight the urge to control them – just let the self-organizing happen.

Each person who posted up a topic is responsible for leading that discussion, and it is up to them how they will lead it. The space is open and it is theirs. As the host, I’m just there to set it up and then get the hell out of the way. (more)

I was at my first Open Space workshop a couple of weeks ago, and I really enjoyed it.  Some people, I think, are a little concerned that a format like this lacks organization by necessity–that it will become chaotic.  The truth is that with the right guidance (for example, Glenn’s!), Open Space can be a fantastically positive event that brings people together and allows for wonderful, creative ideas.

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Planning fun and entertaining outreach events – wrap-up

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

Over 30 people came out to Radha last Sunday to talk about fun and entertaining outreach events. There were so many great ideas and projects. I’m really looking forward to seeing them materialize in the future.

I hope to post some information about some of these projects and how people can get involved when I receive information from the project leaders. Keep an eye open for it.

One project that was discussed was a bake sale to help save the rabbits who are living on the campus of the University of Victoria. That bake sale will be happening on July 28th at 3G Veg Restaurant in Vancouver. For more information, check out our event page.

I just have to say that I was really impressed with how many ideas were presented and how creative everybody is. It was very energizing and empowering to see how capable the animal activist community is in Vancouver.

The next events in this community dialogue series will be:

  • September 19: Developing a local information hub: who, what, why, and how?
  • November 14: Educating ourselves: becoming better activists through education and practice

There will also be another event focused on “What is our message?” which is yet to be scheduled. This one will likely be a more high-level conversation than these other events, so I’m not quite sure how to hold it yet.

If you have any thoughts or comments about these events or the topics, please leave a comment or contact me directly.

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Liberation BC is on The Change – come join us!

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

Liberation BC has joined TheChange, which is a really cool site bringing together organizations committed to sustainability. Our page is here: http://www.thechange.com/liberation-bc/. By my count, it looks like Liberation BC is the first animal group to join TheChange, but I don’t think we’ll be the last. (On what sustainability has to do with animal rights, start here.) Anyway, take a look here for a list of organizations who’ve already joined–there’s a very diverse mix.

OK, so that’s the site; why do I think it’s cool? The idea is, as I said, bringing together people committed to sustainability. There are a few ways they’re implementing this: when you register with the site, you can pick organizations you want to “follow”, and then you get their updates. What kind of updates do you get? Well, organizations can post events and jobs, and they can integrate their blog posts and tweets with TheChange. But the heart of TheChange–at least to me–is the idea of commitments. Organizations make explicit commitments on the site, in three categories: environment, community, and employees. This puts pressure on participants to actually do things to make a change, not just mouth the word “sustainable”.

And comments are enabled on basically everything. This gives users a chance to give organizations feedback on what they’re doing–to push for the change we want to see.

It looks like TheChange is still in its early stages, but head over, join up, and follow us. This promises to be cool.

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URGENT: Land needed to relocate UVic rabbits

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

The University of Victoria has given activists until the end of the month to remove 1,600 feral rabbits from campus before the mass slaughter begins.

Urgently needed:  Land donation/lease or money donation.

If you or anyone you know has land to lease or donate, please let us know right away!

Since all existing rescues and sanctuaries are at capacity, activists are looking for any plots of land where the rabbits can go to live out the rest of their lives.  This will not be a permanent land donation/lease as the land will only be needed for the lifespan of the rabbits (7-8 years) and can be returned to the donor after the rabbits die.

All of the rabbits will be spayed or neutered. The money donated will be going towards the expenses of spaying and neutering the rabbits as well as leasing land for them.

If you have land or money and are able to help, please contact Susan Vickery immediately at  ears@x-mail.net or 250-538-8003.

To donate by PayPal visit www.earthanimalrights.org.

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Kitsilano Farmers Market

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Sinéad and Joanne

Yesterday we had a table at the Kitsilano farmers market. We do one date each year at each of the markets around town (Main, Kitsilano, Trout Lake, and the West End).

While the day was not the best – it was a bit grey and cold – we still had a very nice time.

Our volunteers were overwhelmed by how positive the reception was. In an email, Layne wrote that “I think it was the best tabling experience I have had. A number of people wanted to be on the mailing list and/or were interested in the veg recipes or nutritional advice.”

Over the past few years we’ve definitely observed a shift in how people react to animal rights and veganism.

Both Layne and Sinéad recounted the same story about a mother and her little boy:

A 2-year-old boy in a stroller, with a toy cow in his hand, grinned eagerly upon seeing our booth and proceeded to exclaim, “COOOOWWWS!!!!!”

(His mother promptly whispering to us not to tell him anything about hamburgers or he won’t be able to sleep at night, that he loves tofu, and is “all about the cows”)”

At first when the mother told us not to tell him anything about meat or dairy, we worried that she was feeding him meat and just sheltering him from the facts, but then she told us that he doesn’t really get much exposure to meat and they’re going to wait a couple years before they tell him about where it comes from (makes sense, he was just 2 and a half!). He wanted to take the “Dairy: A Mother’s Suffering” pamphlet because it had pictures of cows on the front…but we managed to distract him with some of the cow stickers and the colouring book.

To top it all off, just two booths down from us was Edible Flours, a new vegan baking company! We, of course, sampled some of their muffins and cupcakes.

Goodies from Edible Flours

Keep an eye out for us at the Trout Lake market on July 24 (Veganmania will also be there) and the West End market on August 7 (Edible Flours will be there too). If you are a paid Liberation BC member, Christa from Veganmania has generously offered a 10% discount on your purchases of  her delicious vegan goodies.

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Join us for a discussion about using fun and entertainment for outreach

Monday, July 5th, 2010

This coming Sunday, July 11, we are hosting a community dialogue on the topic of using fun and entertainment for outreach.

Some of you may have made it to Animal Advocacy Camp or our first dialogue at Radha. Some of you may have been at Let Live. This event will hopefully continue some of those conversations about creative outreach – and will provide an opportunity to start shifting from ideas into real actions.

Have you got projects in mind and want to find other people to work with? Do you want to brainstorm new ideas for activism? This is the place!

The more perspectives in the room, the better the ideas we’ll generate. I do hope you’ll join us!

For more information and to register, visit apowerfulvoice.eventbrite.com. The event is from 1:30-4:30, but please arrive a little bit early so that we can start on time. There will be some snacks and beverages available for purchase, but this is not a “food” event, so it might be a good idea to eat before you come.

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