Information regarding the 2010 Seminar To Be Announced
How can regional communities regain the power to revitalize the means of production for basic necessities (food, energy, shelter, clothing) in the face of a deepening economic, social, and ecological crisis? The five day Tools for Change Training seminars focus on successful, citizen-driven models for community revitalization and how to take action in applying them to one's own community.
View photographs from the 2007 Seminar:
Image Index
View photographs from the 2006 seminar:
Slide Show | Image Index | Greta's Wedding Photos!
Read the 2006 seminar report
View photographs from the 2005 seminar:
Slide
Show | Image
Index |View
Rainbow photograph
Read the 2005 seminar report
Seminar Content
E. F. Schumacher's Philosophy of Small is Beautiful
The philosophy underlying the work of building strong regionally-based economies, shaped by the democratic participation of citizens with discussion of the evolution of this concept through the programs of the E. F. Schumacher Society.
Community Land Trust Model
Using the community land trust model as a means to creating affordable access to land for housing and other purposes while ensuring equity in the buildings for the owners, including legal structure and visits to community land trust sites.
Community Development Financing Systems & Local Currencies
Creating wealth on a regional level through self-financing, micro-credit and local currency issues using Deli-Dollars, Berkshire Farm Preserve Notes, SHARE Micro-credit, and BerkShares as examples.
Community Self-Management & Diversification of Wealth
How a community can become a "social entrepreneur" and the role that producer/consumer associations can play in establishing new business initiatives and community accountability, with an examination of the Mondragon worker-ownership model from the Basque region of Spain.
Developing Action Plans
Presentations by participants of how they plan to apply the tools for community economic development they have studied in the training session to the problems faced by their own communities.
To be informed of future seminars be sure to join our mailing list by sending your name via our membership page
About the E. F. Schumacher Society
The E. F. Schumacher Society's mission is to
create the foundations for a new economy based on the
responsibility to ecological and human necessities, the
decentralization of power, and democratic participation.
We envision a future in which rural and urban villages
around the world attain greater economic self-determination,
providing necessities of food, clothing, shelter, and
energy from regional resources for local consumption in
a more equitable manner. Such an economy will foster non-violent
living patterns, creating the foundation for global peace.
The Society initiates both practical models for change
in our community in Western Massachusetts, and also educates
and empowers others to transform their own communities.
In our region we have created a model community land trust
that provides affordable housing, preserves land for organic
family farming, and conserves important wetland and forest
areas. We have also developed an innovative micro-lending
program, several types of local currency, and an initiative
that saved the first CSA in North America as a working
farm. In addition, we house the E. F. Schumacher library,
a unique collection of books and papers on decentralist
thought, including E. F. Schumacher's personal collection.
Building from our local work, we share our ideas and models
with community-based organizers all over the world. We
host an annual lecture series with visionary leaders and
conduct events, such as our 2004 "Local Currencies
in the 21st Century" conference that attracted 300
people from over 17 countries. We have published our lectures
in over 50 individual pamphlets and collected in People,
Land and Community, from Yale University Press.
