Cultivator: News for March 28-April 3

Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum, a Mayan K’iche’ woman, activist, and social justice advocate from Guatemala who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, will be visiting San Antonio to share her life’s work. Dr. Menchú has dedicated her life to the struggle for human rights for all of humanity, particularly for the rights of Indigenous peoples around the world and in her native Guatemala.

The Lewis Center at the University of Incarnate Word brings influential leaders like Dr. Menchú from throughout the hemisphere to San Antonio as part of their work to broaden perspectives and ready students to be enlightened citizens of the world.

Visit Deceleration’s Happening Events Calendar.

The Sacred Springs Powwow is a celebration of culture featuring art, music, dance, and food from across Native America. Crowds of over 8,000 attendees will enjoy traditional drumming and dancing, a market of over 50 arts and crafts vendors, and a Native Cultures Tent of storytellers, musicians, and educational programming. The powwow is set on the shores of Spring Lake, which is the longest continually inhabited location in North America and serves as a sacred site to the Coahuiltecan people.

Come enjoy one of the most unique and culturally powerful events in Texas! The Sacred Springs Powwow is organized by the nonprofit, Indigenous Cultures Institute. Click “learn more” to get your tickets.

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Join The World Heritage Office for the 2023 Farmers and Artisans Markets every first and third Saturday from March through November!

The market will kick off with a FREE community Zumba class hosted by local Zumba instructors for all fitness levels at 9 a.m. After the class, find fresh, locally-sourced foods and explore handmade crafts and products from local pop-up vendors. The City of San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department will also host seasonal Tree Adoptions. Trees will be given away on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 9 a.m.

The San Antonio Food Bank Mobile Mercado mini-grocery store will host healthy cooking demos and nutrition education sessions. Enjoy live music, food trucks, fun family activities, and more! The markets are brought to you by the City of San Antonio’s World Heritage Office and the San Antonio Food Bank. Admission is free! Parking On-site! The venue is pet-friendly!

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Come celebrate with the community at this free, fun, family-friendly festival that will include a variety of activities and engaging opportunities to learn how you can save energy & water, go solar, learn about Electric Vehicles and how to stay engaged with our great city’s local resiliency efforts. We would love to have you there!

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JOIN US, FRIENDS!

For the 8th annual Festival celebrating the monarch butterfly, pollinators, & the ecosystem that sustains both them & us! 🐛 🦋 🦇 🐝 🦜

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7TH, 9AM-1PM

@ Brackenridge Park in the Pecan Grove, by the Zoo entrance. Parking is available in the lot near the train depot and the zoo parking garage

FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!

About the Festival

The mission of the Monarch Butterfly & Pollinator Festival is to celebrate and educate our community about the monarch butterfly, pollinators, and the ecosystems that sustain both them and us. The festival inspires children and “grown-up kids” of all ages to engage and connect with the natural world around them by immersing themselves in an educational playland that cultivates compassion and sparks change for good.

On festival day, over 30 educational partners convene at Brackenridge Park to provide hands-on, nature-based experiences for children and adults to over 3,500 attendees. This community endeavor supports the Mayor’s Monarch Pledge and the city of San Antonio as a Monarch Champion City, and is a partnership with the Brackenridge Park Conservancy.

Produced by Blooming with Birdie, an educational entertainment company that brings learning to life with curated, Montessori-Inspired experiences designed to foster curiosity and compassion, the festival is a unique place to play while learning with friends and family.

Festival Highlights

The Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival is unlike other festivals as it is thoughtfully curated and designed to fully immerse attendees into engaging educational experiences that spark joy, cultivate compassion, and create long lasting memories.

Notable immersive experiences at this year’s festival will include:

• The People as Pollinators Experiment: Pick your favorite wildlife pollinator and transform yourself through face-painting and costume. Metamorphosize to experience a day in the life as your favorite butterfly, bee, bat, or bird!
• Monarch Tagging: Participate in a citizen science project in partnership with Monarch Watch to place a (harmless!) tag on a monarch butterfly wing
• The Monarch Migration Obstacle Course: Become a monarch and fly the multi-generational Spring monarch migration by eating milkweed and metamorphosizing 3 times. Then, overcome obstacles like hail, hurricanes and taggers as you make your way back to Mexico for the Fall Migration
• Pollinator Procession: Join our friends from Bexar Brass as we dance, flutter, and buzz through the festival in true pollinator style
• Dia de los Muertos Altar: Connect with the spiritual aspect of the monarch, celebrate Dia de los Muertos, and the return of the monarchs to Mexico
• PLANTS, TREES, & MORE: Adopt a tree, plant a plant, and get your hands dirty as you learn how to do your part to take care of our ecosystem.

Visit Deceleration’s Happening Events Calendar.

Come Celebrate Indigenous People’s Day at Brackenridge Park and learn about the efforts to protect the birds, trees, and river. If you would like to be a vendor, please reach out to Matilde Torres at Torresmatilde432@gmail.com.

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San Antonio College (SAC) Commemorates “Indigenous People’s Day. The event will be held in the “Sac Mall Area” on the back side of the Moody Learning Center. See you there!

All Indigenous Tribes, communities, and dancers are welcome to join and celebrate Indigenous People’s Day at San Antonio College. Society of Native Nations in collaboration with AIMCTX, Carrizo/ Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas, and the Tehuan Band of Mission Indians of San Antonio will “Host the Southern Drum Ottertrail.”

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The farmers market, happening every Wednesday at Woodlawn Pointe, offers farm fresh produce, local baked breads, pickles and other pantry staples. All produced or grown in our area. Vendors joining every week.

Contact 01farmersmarket@gmail.com for inquiries.

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Every Saturday, they invite the public to Los Patios for the Garden Hangout and Volunteer event. The goal is to transform the space into a beautiful and thriving garden nursery, and they need your help to achieve this vision.

This a local cooperative, and they’re dedicated to building a thriving community through sustainable gardening practices and community involvement.

During this event, participants will be installing infrastructure and cleaning up the space. They are making compost on-site. Long sleeves and closed-toed shoes are recommended.

As a cooperative, they’re committed to fostering community involvement. In addition to weekly events, they offer a variety of landscape and garden workshops throughout the year. These classes cover everything from sustainable gardening practices to plant care, and they’re a great way to expand your knowledge and improve your gardening skills. 

11:00am – 11:15 am Sign in and Intro
11:15am – 12:30 pm Garden Volunteer Day
12:30pm – 1:00 pm Seed Starting Activity

Visit Deceleration’s Happening Events Calendar.

Join Gardopia Gardens on Saturday mornings to volunteer on the 0.5 acre Eastside Micro-Farm to practice healthy living and sustainability!

On Saturday morning Gardopia invites community members to get their hands dirty and cultivate San Antonio’s little slice of a garden utopia! From composting, chicken care, planting, crop rotation, organizing, and more! We are open to individuals, friends, families, beginners, experts, and anyone else who wants to help cultivate an educated, health, and environmentally sustainable city!

COVID-19: In order to help keep volunteers healthy, we offer free masks, have an open air space to allow for ventilation, and are currently keeping volunteer groups to 25 people or less to allow for optimal physical distancing.

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Citizens’ Climate Lobby is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy organization empowering people to experience breakthroughs exercising their personal and political power. The climate change solutions we support are a carbon fee and dividend, healthy forests, building electrification and efficiency, and clean energy permitting reform. To connect with the San Antonio chapter, contact Stuart Birnbaum (stuart.birnbaum@gmail.com).

Zoom meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88997588055?pwd=Nm1xWmowSDc4N1l1enkvb2lQbVNKQT09

Meeting ID: 889 9758 8055
Passcode: 874038

Local meetings typically follow a national call at noon, which you can join here: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/monthly-speakers/

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The farmers market, happening every Wednesday at Woodlawn Pointe, offers farm fresh produce, local baked breads, pickles and other pantry staples. All produced or grown in our area. Vendors joining every week.

Contact 01farmersmarket@gmail.com for inquiries.

Visit Deceleration’s Happening Events Calendar.

Sign up for Deceleration’s weekly newsletter.

CPS Energy’s Board of Trustees meet the last Monday of every month (w/ some variations due to holidays, etc.). Deceleration will maintain this page with the current agendas and updates. For more about the City-owned electric and gas utility, see Deceleration’s CPS Energy Resource Page.

September 25, 2023

Meeting Agenda

August 28, 2023

Meeting Agenda

July 31, 2023

Meeting Agenda

June 26, 2023

Meeting Agenda

May 22, 2023

Meeting Agenda

Past Agendas

Full April 24, 2023 Agenda (PDF)

February 27, 2023, Agenda (PDF)

January 30, 2023, Agenda (PDF)

Special Meeting called meeting to vote on the future of the JK Spruce coal plant and future energy generation. Details Here.

December 19, 2022, Agenda (PDF)

On Monday, board members received the future energy generation recommendation from the Rate Advisory Committee. RAC members were strongly divided on their recommendation: 13 members recommending a pathway supposed to hit our 2030 carbon-reductions target (but failing 2040 and 2050) by swapping out coal for gas; seven members voted instead for plans much stronger on renewable energy.

BACKGROUND: Read Deceleration’s report:

“CPS Energy’s Rate Committee Readies Recommendation to Swap Out Coal for Gas.”

LIVESTREAM: Catch meetings online here.

PUBLIC COMMENT: Requests to make public comments must be received the week before the meeting (ie. Wedesday to Friday). Details at the CPS Energy Public Comment FAQ page.

SEE: Deceleration’s CPS Energy Resource Page for more about the utility.

Visit Deceleration’s Happening Events Calendar.

Sign up for Deceleration’s weekly newsletter.

FPCSA welcomes everyone to join in the monthly conversation as we work to build a strong and viable local food system. Learn about hot topics, relevant announcements and how you can be a part of the this growing movement. Sign up on their webpage.

Meetings are normally held at noon on the third Wednesday of every month at: EcoCentro 1802 N. Main Avenue San Antonio, TX 78212.

Click here for agenda.

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Bandera Market is a state-certified farmer’s market open every weekend Saturdays 10 am-5 PM, Sundays 11 am-5 PM, and the third Friday night of every month 2-6 PM for a special event. The market offers to produce, eggs, honey, artisan bread, German & Puerto Rican baked goods, plants, planters, custom wood products, CBD, boutiques, artisan crafts, jams, jellies, and much more. Come support small and local San Antonio businesses.

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Our general meetings are on the third Tuesday of each month at William R. Sinkin Eco Centro. They are free and open to everyone. Socializing begins at 6:00 p.m., program at 6:30 p.m.. Presentations last about an hour. 

Our June general meeting features Jennifer Barron, Ph.D., discussing the ethics of historic skeletal collections, how we view them, and our stewardship of them.

Tuesday, July 18^th
6:00 pm

Meeting schedule

Venue

This meeting will not be webcast on Zoom.

Program topic

Historic skeletal collections in the US that were assembled during the 19th and early 20th centuries have recently come to the forefront of ethics discussions in biological anthropology. Most, if not all of these collections were amassed prior to landmark guidelines such as the Nuremberg Code, or the Belmont Report in which research subjects are afforded voluntary participation, beneficence, justice, and informed consent.

Knowing that these collections do not follow today’s bioethical guidelines for research, and are contradictory to today’s theoretical paradigms, how do we view these collections and our ongoing stewardship of them? What steps do we take to mitigate the ethics within a collection if they also provide and educational component?

Within American institutions, an unknown number of human remains reside in historic skeletal collections, amounting to above-ground necropolises. Currently, there is no existing best practice industry standard for the treatment of non-Indigenous historic human remains used for teaching, research, and display within institutional collections.

By recognizing that these collections are composed of disempowered individuals who were dissected and studied without their consent and working to produce an applicable best practice policy, this research produces the first document offering tangible solutions for the museum, biological anthropology, and bioethical fields.

About our speaker

Jennifer Barron is a career museum professional who has worked within academic and institutional settings interpreting collections for over 15 years. Current and past projects include collaborating with a team of scholars, educators, and museum professionals to complete the transformation of the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas (2011-2016), collaborating on forensic casework for Operation Identification, and NAGPRA repatriation.

Education

PhD, Applied Anthropology, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX
MLitt Museum and Gallery Studies, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland
BA Anthropology, University of Missouri- Columbia

In 2017, with the guidance of Dr. Michelle Hamilton, Barron curated the Grady Early Skeletal Pathology Collection in the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State (FACTS) which led to her doctoral research in ethics and informed consent within human remains collections. Barron received her BA in anthropology from the University of Missouri- Columbia and her Master of Literature in Museum and Gallery Studies from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She recently completed a PhD candidate in the Applied Anthropology Program at Texas State University.

Zoom meeting access info

• Meeting ID: 966 5254 0606
• Passcode: 377093
• Link: https://sierraclub.zoom.us/j/96652540606?pwd=UUVISUw3OHluQ2xsQk5IeENxeXFZdz09

Eco Centro is located at San Antonio College, 1802 North Main Avenue @ Locust Street. There is a parking lot adjacent to Eco Centro which is entered from Locust Street. We can also use SAC parking lots 14, 15 and 17 (map of parking lots) to the north, west and south of the STIC building across North Main Avenue from Eco Centro.

Parking is also allowed on the residential streets to the east, north and south of Eco Centro.

Visit Deceleration’s Happening Events Calendar.