Ross and all,

Thank you for your reply!
Yes, it would be great if your interns might post the stories at our
site, My Food Story. http://www.myfoodstory.info
We work as much as possible in the Public Domain to encourage a culture
of "using your own best judgement". I hope that is fine! Of course, we
credit your interns and the farmers, too.
Do you have an example narrative?
This is very timely as I will remake our My Food Story website so that
it is more useful and response driven. I very much appreciate your
input and examples and stories.
I encourage you and all to join us at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/socialagriculture/ where we might work
together. Send a blank message to:
socialagriculture-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@...
+370 699 30003


Ross MacDonald wrote:
> Hello,
>
> But what a great group of short summaries of people's efforts that a
> you have on your site!! And organized by state to boot! Thank you
> for your email (and to Steve for forwarding it).
>
> I have looked through your links and appreciate both what you are
> doing and the opportunity to connect with you. I am not sure how to
> answer your question about how to work for/with. I have forwarded the
> links you provided to the interns so they can check out the
> summaries. They will be writing lengthier narratives allowing them to
> go in depth about the issues, obstacles, opportunities, solutions,
> values and beliefs of people in the local food arena.
>
> Would it be possible for their stories to be posted on your site?
>
> i can also see the advantage of putting links to your site. Do you
> want to submit a post with these same links onto our site so that
> interested others can see the many people whose summaries you have
> posted on your site?
>
> Ross
>
>
> On Jun 22, 2009, at 11:37 AM, Andrius Kulikauskas wrote:
>
> CC: John Roger's working group Cyfranogi, see Steve's note about
> community currency's relevance in his projects for US Department of
> Agriculture. Andrius
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dear Ross MacDonald,
>
> Steve Bosserman encouraged me to write to you. We chatted today about
> http://localfoodsystems.org and your work with four interns to develop
> and execute a plan to capture stories about local food systems in
> Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
>
> I lead the Minciu Sodas laboratory http://www.ms.lt for independent
> thinkers. In 2006-2007, we collected 2,000 stories online and
> on-the-ground for My Food Story http://www.myfoodstory.info We did
> this work for Greg Wolff of the Unamesa Association and his vision of
> a wiki for the world's food supply chain. Here are some online stories
> that we found in your region:
> http://www.myfoodstory.info/index.php?tag=Ohio
> http://www.myfoodstory.info/index.php?tag=Michigan
> http://www.myfoodstory.info/index.php?tag=Pennsylvania
> and see also: http://www.myfoodstory.info/tags.php for the full set.
>
> We're currently engaging UK online communities on behalf of Mornflake
> cereal http://www.mornflake.com and their online video competition
> http://www.mornflakecompetition.com With Mornflake's support, which we
> ever acknowledge, we are reaching out and helping each other and I
> think they benefit more than if they directly promoted themselves. I'm
> thinking of remaking My Food Story as one way for us to be supportive
> and responsive of online and on-the-ground communities and their members.
>
> How might we work for or with you?
>
> I invite you to join us at Social Agriculture
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/socialagriculture/
> which we organized around Steve when we started our My Food Story
> work. Recently, Ben de Vries of Factor E Farm
> http://www.openfarmtech.org/weblog/ is active there. I share my letter
> there and also with you and Steve.
>
> I'm interested how we might work together! and learn more about your
> values, questions and endeavors.
>
> Thank you for championing local food systems!
>
> Andrius
>
> Andrius Kulikauskas, Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt, ms@..., +370
> 699 30003
>
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> I found this link:
> http://leadershipfortomorrow.osu.edu/BreakoutSessions.pdf
> Dr. Ross MacDonald has a long history of organizing and leading
> broad-based coalitions in the pursuit of social justice, especially in
> relation to higher education and non-profit peace building
> organizations. He is a principal in a USDA grant recently awarded to
> The Ohio State University to build local-food coalitions in Ohio,
> Michigan and Pennsylvania. He holds a Ph.D. in instructional
> communication from the University of California. He is a former
> administrator in the University of California system, responsible for
> securing more than $8M in outside funds for a variety of projects.
>
> Our chat:
> --------------------------
>
> Andrius Kulikauskas: Hi Steve, here's a business award opportunity for
> African diaspora in the US from Western Union
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/holistichelping/message/4248
> … also we're engaging UK online communities on behalf of Mornflake
> cereal http://www.mornflake.com and we might do that for more businesses
>
> Steve Bosserman: Hi Andrius. Thanks for the tip about ADM. There's a
> significant group of African Diaspora in central Ohio. They are
> developing proposals for submission. Linda along with others from Ohio
> State University are helping some groups with the research, ideation,
> strategies, narratives, and partnerships necessary for viable
> proposals. We'll see how it goes.
>
> Andrius Kulikauskas: Sounds good. Please keep us in mind. … We might
> rework My Food Story as a website for engaging communities and helping
> with their projects as we're doing for Mornflake cereal
>
> Steve Bosserman: I've been following the Mornflake project online. I
> have found the exchanges you and others are having with John Rogers on
> Cyfranogi about CCs particularly useful. We will need to tap into the
> CC effort as some of the USDA projects we are doing come to fruition.
> John is in the flow and on the team, so to speak. Will keep you
> posted. … Reworking My Food Story is a great idea! Go for it.!
>
> Andrius Kulikauskas: thank you … may I share our chat?
>
> Steve Bosserman: Sure. But if you wait a minute until I get my brower
> open I will share another link with you that may be useful.
>
> Andrius Kulikauskas: thank you
>
> Steve Bosserman: OK. We started a group on LocalFoodSystems.org called
> LFS Storytellers http://localfoodsystems.org/lfs-storytellers. Four
> interns through another grant are developing and executing a plan to
> capture stories about local food systems in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
> Michigan. I posted a mention about OSE to give them some ideas how to
> proceed
>
http://localfoodsystems.org/use-text-and-video-blog-postings-capture-stories-con\
text.
> It would be easy to bring MS into the picture on a shared storytelling
> strategy. Ross MacDonald is a good contact, if this is of interest.
>
> Andrius Kulikauskas: Yes, we'd be interested. … I'm glad you feature
> Marcin Jakubowski, Ben de Vries and Pamela McLean. That's great. …
> I'll stay in touch regarding how we might make the most of a
> storytelling approach. Also, I will be writing Greg Wolff. … How do I
> get in touch with Ross MacDonald?
>
> Steve Bosserman: OK. Just let me know. Ross's email address is ... I
> can make an email intro between you if you want it.
>
> Andrius Kulikauskas: I can write him directly and CC you, too. …
> Whichever is simpler.
>
> Steve Bosserman: No, go ahead and contact him. He is very approachable
> and is doing really wonderful work with the interns, so having a
> connection with you and what you are doing would fit in nicely with
> his project.
>
> Andrius Kulikauskas: Great! Thank you for linking us.
>
> Steve Bosserman: Awesome!
>
>