Big Ol Update!

Well folks, as most of you know Seattle Free School's first class was a week ago Saturday and thanks to your efforts to spread the word it was a huge success! 45 people showed up for the class which is absolutely awesome (and a bit intimidating)! Fortunately there were several folks at the class with Chicken knowledge who helped answer questions and give more information... just the way the free school is intended... a facilitator only helps lead the class but everyone participates!

Radio Spot! Yup, that's right, Seattle Free School was mentioned on the radio! The 5-6 minute public affairs feature aired last Thursday between 6 and 7PM (usually about 6:20 or 6:30) on KBCS's One World Report (91.3 on the FM Dial) - that's their Thursday night compilation of local, national and world news -- more local if they've got more local material. It can also be listened to online by going to kbcs.fm and finding the Green Acre Radio site on the Friday after it originally airs.... or by clicking here. It's a spot on Urban Hens and Sustainably Raised Chickens so our mention is small but hey, mention of our classes on the radio is great no matter how large!

Next Class! Just a reminder that the next class of Seattle Free School is quickly approaching. Getting your Irish Citizenship will be offered at Wayward Coffee House on March 27th at 7pm. While everyone is welcome to attend the class will cover getting your Irish Citizenship for those with a parent or a grandparent born in Ireland or Northern Ireland.

NOTE! This is at WAYWARD coffee house... not greenwood coffee house which I don't think even exists. Sorry for the mistype in the email!

New classes! Lots of new classes posted on the class site and more to come soon so please keep checking back. Included now is our first class not offered by me (Jessica). It's a class by Cecile Andrews founder of the Phinny Ecovillage (and a lot more). Check it out!

Also, currently the auto repair class is FULL! If you'd like to be put on the waiting list let us know via email.


We should be having an organizers and/or teachers meeting coming up soon so keep your eyes peeled for it if you want to be involved!



Also keep your eyes out for a new page on our site... it will be a list of all the skills we're seeking a facilitator for... things like html and css so I can fix our sad free website for example!

OK, that's all for now! See you all soon at a Seattle Free School class!

Press!!! And our Soap Project!!!

For those of you not on the email list here's a bit of what's going on at the Seattle Free School...

Press!!!

There's quite a bit of excitement at the school this week. Not only is our very first class this Friday (Keeping Chickens in the City, U Dist Library, Saturday 10:30 am) but we've managed to get a ton of press. Check out our press page here:http://seattlefreeschool.googlepages.com/seattlefreeschoolinthepress
Not only that but we're getting into another paper soon... Jessica is interviewing this week!

If you are from the press or have press contacts and would like to do a story about Seattle Free School please contact us, we'd love to talk to you.

More Classes!!!

Also look for an announcement coming soon about a bunch more Seattle Free School classes. While we haven't found a kitchen to use, Jessica is going to work on doing the cheese class and soap class without kitchen space. Will prove to be a bit tricky but it can be done.

The Big Soap Project!!!

Finally Seattle Free School would like to announce its soap project. All soap made in Seattle Free School classes will be donated to various shelters as Holiday gifts.

While we normally don't really take donations we will accept soap making supplies to help with this project. Making soap requires the following... so if you'd like to donate these please feel free... just reply to this email and we'll figure out a drop space:
Olive Oil
Palm Oil
Coconut Oil
Essential Oils (please no perfume oils as some folks are allergic to these)
Parchment paper (used stuff from a local bakery works fine as long as it's not too dirty... thinking of the stuff used to wrap baguettes for example)
unused coffee grounds... once we find a kitchen we'll be able to use used coffee grounds but for now...

You'll notice we didn't include Lye. Yes, soap making does require that but we don't want to get any of you in trouble by asking you to buy large quantities of lye! We'll provide that.

As a note, the project will move forward donations or not so get ready to make some soap as we hope to have A LOT of classes and make a lot of soap to give away!

And for all you crafters out there (and anyone with usable fabric scraps... old clothes with good spots?) save your scrap fabric and yarn for our wrapping party to come during the Holiday season. We'll be cutting up the soap, packaging it up with fabric, yarn and labels and taking it to the shelters! This should be a very fun time. Maybe we'll have a potluck.. if so I'll bring my homemade Tiramisu!

Also please sign up here to get updated when we posts a new post to the blog... it's down at the bottom... Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

See you all at a Seattle Free School class soon!

Soap Making Class

So tonight I saw the wonderful movie What Would Jesus Buy? A great inspiration and something everyone should see. And yes, it inspired me too. In fact, I've decided that all soap made this year at Seattle Free School (well, and probably forever as long as I'm the teacher) will be donated to local shelters at Christmas. Often folks at these shelters are short on personal care items and hopefully a bar of really nice soap will be something they can both use and enjoy.

Eventually we will be taking donations to help with this project. What? Donations? I thought Seattle Free School didn't take donations?? Well, we don't take cash donations, but should someone want to bring soap making supplies to class or help later in the year when it comes time to cut and wrap the soap we'll sure take that. Start saving your scraps of fabric and bits of yarn to use as wrapping (works better on soap then paper and can be reused to wrap other stuff or craft with). A full list of things you can donate will be posted when we finally find a kitchen to use for this project. As a note, most everything needed for soap costs less then $10 each, often even less, so again, we're not looking for any huge handouts here, just a bit if you can afford it. Of course, we will never charge even a donation for any Seattle Free School class... it's up to you if you want to (or can) bring stuff.

To become inspired yourself check out Reverend Billy's site here...
http://www.revbilly.com/

FÁILTE

Yay! Not only is the first class of Seattle Free School scheduled but the second is as well. Following fairly closely on the heels of the first, we'll be offering Getting your Irish Citizenship on Thursday, March 27th, 7pm at Wayward Coffee House in Greenwood.

If you have a parent or grandparent who was born in Ireland you can get your Irish Citizenship for a bit of cash and a bit of effort. As an interesting political note, your relative can be born anywhere on the Island of Ireland... yup, even in the North!

So get yourselves ready and show up for this class or one of the many to come!

On a completely different note, we had a wonderfully successful meeting of folks interested in helping with the free school and being a part of planning and running it. Sadly I was still feeling a bit under the weather and didn't bother to take down people's names (and I'm horrible with names!) but thanks sooo much to all who attended for your efforts and your energy!

Alright, that's it for now. See you all soon!