Time Management success

Well we had our first time management class on Monday and it was a great success. Heidi, our wonderful facilitator wrote up a few points about the class and here they are:

- the class was a mix of lecture, individual reflection, partner sharing and group discussion

- the group had a lot of energy and shared valuable ideas with each other

- my favorite suggestion was "get rid of anything in your life that is asking more of you than it gives you" ((This is my personal favorite of all of these thoughts too!))

- lots of people were shocked to see how far off their daily activities were from what they identified as their core values - hopefully they were spurred on to make some changes!

- the class ended with action planning and coaching with a partner- there was lots of laughter :)


Hopefully Heidi will offer another one of these great classes again! YAY Heidi!

New Class

Ever wonder what to do with all those plastic bags you still have? Well we've got the answer... turn them into a really cute purse, bag, rug, etc. Clare from the Giving Tree will be teaching us all how to make this stuff into a fiber we can knit and crochet with! I've seen a purse made from this stuff and it's really nice looking and sturdy. She'll be teaching two classes, one in November for a great cheap to free Christmas gift for the folks you love.

Sign up on the classes page!

Laundry Soap

So I've been wondering what I was going to do for the hour the soap "cooks" at the next hot process soap class... the very first hot process class for SFS. But it came to me recently, I'm also going to teach you folks how to make your own laundry soap! For about $3 or less you can have 3-4 GALLONS of laundry soap! How cool is that. Not only do you then not have any wasteful plastic containers to recycle but you've got a few more dollars in your pocket to use in some other non-laundry way!

If you're interested in that but don't necessarily want to go to the hot process class no worries! I'll be teaching this little trick at Sustainable Ballard at the end of September too. So if this interests you get ready (and find yourself a 5 gallon bucket... most groceries have lots they throw away).

TWO parties!!!

Just in case you like to plan your entire year in advance we've got a couple of great celebrations coming up.

The first celebrates the 6 month anniversary of our first Seattle Free School class... so we're having a 6 month birthday/painting party. It will be a potluck and we'll be painting up some signs for the Sustainable Ballard event which happens the next week. So save the date for Monday, September 15th and get ready to paint, eat and party!

The second party is in December... I know, so very long away! We'll be having yet another potluck and this time cutting and wrapping all the soap we've made at Seattle Free School classes so we can give them to folks at shelters for the holidays. A nice way to give a gift of something they can use... and who doesn't like fancy soap!?! So again, save the date for Thursday, December 18th and again, get ready to eat, cut and wrap soap and PARTY! WHOOOO!

Reminder... classes this week!

What a busy week! In what might well be a first in Seattle Free School history we've got three classes in a row! The Home Sellers class is tonight, then Beekeeping tomorrow and to make sure this sort of thing keeps happening there's a facilitators class on Thursday. How awesome is that?

Not to be outdone, and just in case you don't think you have time to participate, next Monday we've got a time management class. More info is on the classes page of course so check it out and hope to see you at a Seattle Free School class soon!

Late breaking class!

Yup folks, we've got a last minute class addition! For those of you looking to sell your home in this tight market this one is for you! Here's the info:

Home Sellers Class- this class will take you through the entire home selling process,from preparation and staging to negotiating the offer, qualifying buyers and getting the deal to closing.
Facilitators- Kirsten Mohan and Dave Nuber
Schedule- Tuesday July 22nd from 7:00pm - 8:45pm
Seattle Central Community College
REGISTER HERE!

Look for more classes from Kristen soon!

our weekly newsletter printed here for your convenience!

Seattle Free School
More Press!
Can you believe it? We've received even more press. This issue of Edible Seattle has a great little spot towards the front that talks about Seattle Free School. Pretty amazing to keep getting such great press coverage and so give yourselves a big hand. If it weren't for you folks there wouldn't be anything worth writing about!
Time Management Class
Folks, we're moving to a sign up for this class (though no one will be turned away at the door unless we max out the library meeting room). Please, if you're wanting to attend the Time Management class, sign up.

Another New Class
Yup, that's right, another class. Clare, our great facilitator from the Giving Tree will be hosting a facilitators class. So if you're looking to facilitate at the Seattle Free School this is the class for you. Mainly we go over logistics of how to have a Seattle Free School class and a tiny bit about teaching. It's not hard, there's just a bit to know.

Our Blog
Folks, there's quite a bit of information that goes into our blog that may or may not ever make it into these emails so please do check it out. Currently we're looking for a place to teach a kayaking class...

Do You Want To Help?
Reminder that our organizers meeting is this Saturday at Allegro Coffee in the U District (it's in the alley, a block down from the U Book Store) at 3pm. We'll be upstairs most likely so come join us.

You can also help by printing the flyer that is attached to this email and posting it at a place you go to already, coffee shop, church, grocery store, you name it. ((for you blog readers just shoot us an email if you'd like to hang a flyer!))

And finally folks, thanks to all of you for being a part of Seattle Free School. Without you we wouldn't even exist! And please, remember to pass this along to your friends, family, coworkers, etc...

kayaking

This warm weather has me thinking about teaching an Eskimo roll class. Trouble is that the best place I've found to practice rolling that's free is up at Rattlesnake Lake outside of North Bend, quite a drive for Seattle folks. If you know of a place that might work let me know. (seattlefreeschool@gmail.com)

What we'd be looking for in a spot is the following...

a good slope from the shore which allows for a person to roll and another to stand beside them to help.... in other words there needs to not be a big drop off from the shoreline.

Safe water... you know, relatively clean or safe for swimming since we're all gonna spend some time getting this stuff in our noses

No big waves!... waay too scary to try this with big tanker waves washing over you... not to mention that it makes the person helping you a little useless.

A place big enough for several groups of people... thinking about 8-10 students, all with kayaks.


Of course a swimming pool works but getting access to one for free might be tricky. Who knows, maybe I'll do one at rattlesnake if we can't find anything else... it's a pretty lake. Of course, while I know I can roll a whitewater kayak we'll all have to see if I can roll my sea kayak!

A week from today....

We'll be having a soap making class and also our organizers meeting. You don't need to be deeply involved with the Seattle Free School to come to the organizers meeting, just have a desire to help out. We're going to be talking about all sorts of things including making signs and tabling for the Rat City Roller Girls table and our booth at the Sustainable Ballard festival in September. If you're good with making signs, creative or even just willing to help out please do show up!

See you there!

PS. We're still really looking for someone to teach a silk screening class... if you have this skill please consider contacting us and becoming a part of the free school!

New Classes and a New Sign Up

Folks, we've got another facilitators class posted. This one will be taught by Clare downtown at the Giving Tree on July 24th from 6-8pm. You can sign up for the class here.

Also we've posted a sign up for the Time Management class... so please sign up for that one here.

Make sure to sign up now before the spaces are filled!!!

Even More Press!

Can you believe it? We're in print again!!! Yup, page 6 of the summer issue of Edible Seattle Magazine talks about Seattle Free School. The folks at the magazine were nice enough to send me a copy. Right now I don't think there's an online link so go check out a copy of the magazine in person... it's a great read especially for folks that like to eat locally.

Crazy to think that the only major publications we haven't been in so far is Seattle Metropolitan Magazine and the Stranger. And news about Seattle Free School has made it's way to Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Pretty amazing for something that's not even a year old!

Today's Newsletter

For folks that haven't received it yet but want to, and for folks that aren't signed up to our email list....

volume 23

Seattle Free School

Good Problem- Bad Problem
Well, I'm sure many of you heard the radio broadcast of KUOW on Seattle Free School and DIY. That, along with our Conscious Choice article and the article in the Seattle Times has really pushed up our email list numbers. I think we're nearing 650 of you folks now. Isn't that great! Yup, it is. Sadly our email provider isn't as happy about it. See, we're not allowed to send that many emails in a day. If you read the blog you'll have heard about this already but basically all ability to send email was shut down last week after I sent out the group email (without warning! Nice!). So while we're looking into other options, and ruling things out (no, we'll probably not be a google group) for now and starting next time we'll be using several email addresses similar to this one. Keep your eyes open for emails from seattlefreeschool1 at gmail.com and the like. For this week we're just splitting things into two emails so some of you will get this a day later then others. Ah the joys of growing pains! Also a good reminder to subscribe to our blog. If we're shut down here we'll let you know about it there.

Organizers Meeting
Saturday the 19th of July we'll be having an organizers meeting. Anyone and everyone is welcome. We'll be discussing Seattle Free School, issues and opportunities and whatever else happens to come up. We'll be meeting at Allegro Coffee at 3pm (most likely upstairs) so come and join us if you'd like to play a bigger role in the Free School!


Volunteers Needed!
Folks, so the nice people at Rat City Roller Girls are letting us set up a table outside of their next bout! We need a few good folks (and bad ones too) to help us talk about Seattle Free School and hand out small flyers. If you're up for it please let us know by responding to this email. The date is August 16th. You don't need to have taught at Seattle Free School or even taken a class to participate. Just be excited about what's going on here and willing to talk about it! And hey, if you are a printer or can print us out a banner or large sign for this for free do let us know that too!

Another opportunity is the Sustainable Ballard Festival in September, the 27th and 28th to be precise. We'll be having a table there too, and hopefully some folks will come out and teach! I'll be learning and talking about it more at a meeting this Wednesday and will fill you all in a bit more next week but in the meantime if you'd like to be a part of this just let us know!


Other places that offer free classes
So since some of you are new to Seattle Free School I'd like to point out that not only do we offer free classes but we also try to provide a clearinghouse of all the other places in the city that might offer free classes too. Nonprofit or not, anyplace that offers truly free classes we'd like to know about and will post on our other free classes page. This gives everyone that visits our site a repository of where they can learn about something without having to pay. So if you know of free classes that aren't listed on our website please do let us know! Click here to see what we know of thus far...


Finally this week I'm not sending out flyers. If you'd like to print out a flyer and hang it somewhere you frequent already please let us know and we'll send you one.


www.seattlefreeschool.org

Our Website

If you got here from KUOW's link we have a website you can check out too... http://www.seattlefreeschool.org/ That's where you can get information about classes, sign up and put your email address into our list so you get our weekly emails. See you there!

our latest newsletter

For those of you that didn't get it...

Volume 23

Seattle Free School

Seattle Free School goes to Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco
Huh? Yup folks it seems that our most recent bit of press may well have made it out of Seattle. Conscious Choice published an article mentioning Seattle Free School. Since they're in these other cities and since this was the cover story it seems we may well have received press in these other towns. How cool is that?

RADIO!
THIS THURSDAY, July 3rd Jessica will be on KUOW with folks from Seattle DIY and the Bikery collective. The show is Weekday with Steve Scher on KUOW 94.9 Public Radio and it will be live from 10am to 11am. The call in number while the show is on air Thursday is 206-543-5869 or 1-800-289-5869. People can also email weekday@kuow.org. So call in or email your questions and comments folks!

Welcome!
As we all know, Seattle Free School was on the cover of the Seattle Times local section this Sunday. Thanks to this bit of press we've got at least 100 new people on this email list and so we'd like to welcome you all and thank you for signing up. We'd also like to ask you for your help... first, please forward this email (or a link to our website) along to folks you know. Seattle Free School started in exactly this way, by passing along emails to people we thought might be interested and we've continued to grow with this sort of support. So please, forward this to people you know. Second... well, see below...

Going Strong
Currently Seattle Free School has over 575 members on this email list! Amazing considering we started with nothing just this January! What I'd like to ask is the same thing I ask every week but with a twist. Attached to this email is a flyer for Seattle Free School.** to blog readers, just email us and we'll send you a flyer** Just imagine what would happen if each person on this email printed out ONE FLYER and hung it up at their favorite coffee shop, grocery, work place, church, community center, business, nonprofit, neighborhood center, etc! Since the flyer is really two flyers printed on one little page this would be over 1000 flyers up in Seattle and that many more people we'd be reaching, that many more people with skills they might want to teach, that many more people with contact lists of other folks in Seattle. It won't take more then a few pennies if that of your resources, and not more then a few minutes of your time since you go to these places anyway, but the power of it would be absolutely amazing. So really, if you believe in what we're doing here I just ask that you take a few minutes to make this something you do today. As a note, while the flyer is printable in full color it prints just fine in black and white, no need to waste your valuable color ink if you don't want to. And of course we have other flyers in larger formats should you want something else, just ask! (please make sure you have permission to post, just ask, most folks are pretty nice about it!)

New Class
I'm not sure how many weeks in a row it's been that I've been announcing a new class but here's two more.

Folks that have gone to my soap making class have heard me talk about hot process soap making but up until now we haven't had the ability to actually make it happen. Now, thanks to the wonderful folks at Cascade People's Center, we do! Our first class in this new space will be Hot Process Soap Making. Not only is this process a ton easier then cold process but you can use the soap right away. August 11th at 7:30pm at the Cascade People's Center. Sign up on the website.

Also another class on how to get your Irish Citizenship, Monday, August 4th at 7:30pm at Allegro Coffee in the U District (class will be upstairs at Allegro, door in the alley). This class is open to everyone but we'll only be covering how to get citizenship for folks with a parent or grandparent born on the island of Ireland (Northern Ireland is fine). Sign up on the website. And yes, we will be holding this class again for those of you that are on vacation that week.

Computer Class
So again, we're looking into teaching some computer classes... and here's the link to the survey you can take to help us know what you'd like to learn... no really, this time the link really is to the computer class!

As always I want to thank every single person on this email list. Without you there would be nothing for the press to write about. Without you there wouldn't be folks signing up to teach, folks signing up to learn and an email list of almost 600 people. Seattle Free School is only successful because of you. So KUDOS to every single one of you!

www.seattlefreeschool.org

On the RADIO this Thursday

Yup, so call or write in with your questions and comments...

On the air live from 10-11, the show is Weekday with Steve Scher on KUOW 94.9 Public Radio.

The call in number while the show is on air Thursday is 206-543-5869 or 1-800-289-5869.

People can also email weekday@kuow.org.

Please do pass it along to people who may be interested!