Scheduled for Thursday June 19th, 2025
Following the long-held IASC conference tradition, Thursday June 19th will be devoted to “local” excursions and events that have commons/commoning aspects to them. We’ve designed ten of them of differing registration costs — including three free ones (#s 8, 9 and 10). Click on the entry in the index below to learn more and to register.
- Fisheries Commons. A Visit to Gloucester MA – the oldest working fishing seaport in the USA. $100/per person.
- New England History. Visit historic Deerfield and the David Ruggles Center for History and Education. $40/per person.
- Intentional Communities. A visit to Cherry Hill Cohousing and Sirius Ecovillage and Education Center. $30/per person.
- Community Land Trusts, Local Currencies and Contemporary Art. A visit to Schumacher Center for a New Economics and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. $72/per person.
- Building a Local Solidarity Economy with Wellspring Cooperative in Springfield Massachusetts; a nonprofit that incubates worker cooperatives. $20/per person.
- Community Engaged Mural-Making in the City of Springfield Massachusetts on a double-decker bus. $30/per person.
- Medicinal Plant Commons and a visit to the bridge of flowers in Shelburne Falls. $30/per person.
- Collaborate with Positivity: Improv to Improve Team Communication and Innovation. Free (on the UMass campus).
- Governance for the Commons: An Introduction to Sociocracy. Free (on the UMass campus).
- Making Maps: An Intro to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with QGIS – an on campus training. Free (on the UMass campus)
In-conference Excursion 1
Fisheries Commons. A Visit to Gloucester MA – the oldest working fishing seaport in the USA – to sail in the Atlantic and then discuss fisheries policy with local and regional leaders.
In this all-day excursion, hosted by faculty with the UMass Gloucester Marine Station, participants will begin, starting at 7:30 am, with a 2 ½ hour drive across Massachusetts to the Atlantic coastal town of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Upon arrival in Gloucester, participants will board one of two Schooners for a 2-hour sail off the Gloucster coast. Upon return to shore, the group will take a short walk to Gloucester City Hall for lunch. Following lunch will be a fisheries policy panel where participants will hear from participants of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, local fishers themselves, and local and regional policy makers. The trip will conclude with the 2 ½ hour drive back to UMass Amherst with an arrival time of 6:30 pm.
Excursion hosts:
Dr. Jynessa Dutka-Gianelli, Extension Assistant Professor, Sustainable Fisheries and Seafood, Department of Environmental Conservation and UMass Gloucester Marine Station
Dr. Katie Kahl, Director at the Gloucester Marine Station and the Extension Assistant Professor of coastal resilience & sustainable fisheries in the Department of Environmental Conservation
Ticket price: $100/per person (covering only the cost of the bus and the Schooner sail)
Number of seats available: 70
In-conference Excursion 2
New England History: Visit old New England (Historic Deerfield) and then a walking tour at the David Ruggles Center for History and Education
This excursion will leave UMass Amherst at 8:30am, returning around 4:00 pm and will involve two stops. Both include a walking component, so wear comfortable shoes.
First, in the morning, attendees will visit Historic Deerfield, one of the best-preserved villages and rural landscapes in North America. At this stop, participants will be taken on a guided tour that explores the history and culture of early New England and the Connecticut River Valley. The tour will focus on the culture, livelihoods, and politics of the area, with some attention to the history of slavery in this northern frontier town. The visit will include a combination of hands-on activities, lecture, and a walking tour of carefully-preserved antique houses dating from 1730 to 1850.
After a boxed-lunch break, participants will then drive a short distance to the David Ruggles Center for History and Education, located in the neighboring town of Florence, Massachusetts. At this stop, participants will be taken on a guided walking tour of Florence, learning about its history and the individuals who fought against slavery in the Connecticut River Valley as well as the intentional community they created. Florence was home to the Northampton Association of Education and Industry (NAEI) from 1842 to 1846, a radical abolitionist community that promoted equality across race, gender, class, and religion. This community attracted prominent figures such as David Ruggles and Sojourner Truth. Following the walking tour, participants will have time to explore the exhibits and library at the Ruggles Center Exhibits.
This unique day of New England history is especially relevant in honoring the intentional community of NAEI on our Juneteenth holiday – the national holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
Excursion host: Dr. Anita Milman
Ticket price: $40/pp
Number of seats available: 20
In-conference Excursion 3
Intentional Communities. A Visit to Cherry Hill Cohousing and Sirius Ecovillage and Education Center
In this all-day excursion, participants will visit two intentional communities in and around Amherst Massachusetts.
Cherry Hill Cohousing is an intentional community – a self-organized group of ca. 80 people who choose to live closely and organize their community life together. The community was built in 1994 and has residents from 0 to 89 years of age. There are 32 houses and a common house (community building), a wood workshop, an office building, and gardens that are shared and completely managed by community members. The community is governed using Sociocracy (Dynamic Governance), a consent-based, decentralized governance system. In this portion of the day’s excursion, you will be able to see all facilities, learn about how it is organized from residents and ask your questions.
Sirius Ecovillage is a non-profit educational center and spiritual community that aims to live by principles of spiritual attunement, community, and sustainable living. They are an established eco-village modeling principles of co-creation with nature, and permaculture in the design of our homes, organic gardens, year-round greenhouses, and other facilities. Their buildings use natural earth materials such as local wood, clay, or straw-bales and are designed for energy efficiency. As an Intentional Community, members support each other’s wellbeing and personal growth in pursuits of sustainability and mindfulness.
Excursion hosts: Dr. Ted Rau (Cherry Hill) and Marianne Connor, Education Program Manager (Sirius)
Ticket price: $30 per person
Number of seats available: 70
In-conference Excursion 4
Community Land Trusts, Local Currencies and Contemporary Art. A visit to the Schumacher Center for a New Economics and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art
In this all-day excursion, participants will travel through the western Massachusetts countryside to visit the Schumacher Center for a New Economics in Great Barrington, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMOCA).
Founded in 1980 the Schumacher Center for a New Economics works to envision the elements of a just and regenerative global economy; undertakes to apply these elements in its home region of the Berkshires in western Massachusetts; and then develops the educational programs to share the results more broadly, thus encouraging replication. At Schumacher, participants will learn about the Center’s world-leading work in establishing Community Land Trusts and local currencies, and will travel to several local sites in the Berkshire hills.
Schumacher Center team members will provide a guided tour of their extensive library collection, including E.F. Schumacher’s personal library, followed by an interactive presentation of their unique approach to land, labor, and capital. The presentation will feature an introduction to the Schumacher Center’s local community economic initiatives, including Berkshire Community Land Trust and BerkShares Local Currency. The visit to the Schumacher Library will be followed by a visit to a commons-based housing neighborhood and regenerative farmstead site.
MassMOCA is one of the world’s liveliest centers for making and enjoying today’s most evocative art. The museum exhibits art by both well-known and emerging artists, focusing on large-scale, immersive installations that would be impossible to realize in conventional museums. The broad-shouldered, raw industrial character of our soaring galleries (with 250,000 square feet of open and often naturally lit space) has proven both inspiring and liberating to artists.
Ticket price: $72 per person ($50 bus, $22 MassMOCA)
Number of seats available: 70
In-conference Excursion 5
Building a Local Solidarity Economy with Wellspring Cooperative, a nonprofit that incubates worker cooperatives
The Wellspring Cooperative is a non-profit working to assist local residents in Springfield and Holyoke Massachusetts to create and operate community-based, worker-owned companies. Wellspring embraces the vision of the Solidarity Economy, a global movement to transform our economic system of capitalism into one that is grounded in values of solidarity, democracy, equity in all dimensions (race, class, gender, etc.), sustainability, and pluralism (not a one-size-fits-all approach). In this excursion, conference participants will travel down to Springfield MA to hear about Wellspring’s work to build a local solidarity economy ecosystem.
After 30 minute bus ride down to Springfield participants will meet Wellspring Cooperative community members to discuss the ideas around a Solidarity Economy, and then learn about some of the components they are actively building and envisioning, including a Community Land Trust with five components: (1) Housing, (2) a Food System, (3) Production through co-ops and community production, (4) a Fabrication Lab that provides the technology to support all of the above, and, (5) a focus on centering the importance of spaces to build culture, connection and learning. After discussions around these ideas, participants will tour various locations in the adjacent cities of Springfield and Holyoke that are part of this emerging solidarity economy, including Wellspring Harvest, a quarter acre hydroponic greenhouse operated by a worker-owned cooperative, Gran Cocina, a community kitchen for incubating new worker-owned food enterprises, and Energia, a weatherization co-op.
Excursion local host: Dr. Emily Kawano, co-director Wellspring Cooperative
Ticket Price: $20/per person
Number of seats available: 35
In-conference Excursion 6
Community Engaged Mural-Making in the City of Springfield Massachusetts on a double-decker bus
Common Wealth Murals has involved thousands of people of all ages in the design and painting of more than 70 murals in Springfield MA. The murals are concentrated in some of the most under-resourced neighborhoods in the state, where poverty rates are five times higher than the Massachusetts average. Guided by community input, the murals honor histories, celebrate local heroes, inspire bold visions of the future and strengthen community bonds.
In this 4 hour tour, conference participants will take a bus ride down to the city of Springfield, and board a vintage double decker bus to tour more than 20 murals across several culturally distinct neighborhoods. The Common Wealth Mural crew and artists will share the story of each mural and explore with you the “cultural commons” of community-engaged mural making.
Excursion local host: Britt Ruhe, founder and director of Common Wealth Murals
Ticket price: $30/per person
Number of seats available: 37
In-conference Excursion 7
The Medicinal Plant Commons and a visit to Shelburne Falls
In this excursion, participants will travel to Conway Massachusetts to learn about how local herbalists steward plant medicine resources for the healing community. The People’s Medicine Project is a health justice organization that runs free alternative health clinics throughout western MA. They are powered by volunteers – from the practitioners themselves to the folks in the garden and apothecary making medicine.
(Most) herbalists have a deeply connected relationship with the plants they harvest. Prioritizing mutuality, (most) herbalists carefully consider medicine sources, and if gathering their own plant material, practice the principles of “honorable harvest”. Come learn about the honorable harvest, local plant medicine, and get your hands dirty! We’ll all be working together to tend the land that supports our local medicine.
After the excursion to Conway and the lunch and swimming for anyone who wants to do that, participants will then be bussed to Shelburne Falls to stroll through a quaint New England hill town and visit their “Bridge of Flowers”.
Excursion local host: Leslie Chaison, Director of The People’s Medicine Project.
Ticket price: $30/per person
Number of seats available: 37
In-conference Excursion 8
Collaborate with Positivity: Improv to Improve Team Communication and Innovation
“Group mind” is what improvisers call the ultimate collaboration of singular vision and shared purpose. It’s magical!
In this 2-hour event (1-3pm) on the UMass Amherst campus, Pam Victor, president and founder of Happier Valley Comedy, shares improvisation’s masterful tools to support communicating, collaborating, and innovating with more joy, ease, and group mind. You’ll gain immediately-applicable techniques to quiet the inner critic and work with more positive cooperation in order to increase team empowerment, beneficial risk-taking, and productive team spirit. The “Yes, and…” tenets of improv provide a powerful blueprint to share space, information, knowledge, and influence to harness the talents of the whole team (even the quiet ones.) You’ll leave this interactive training with a new vocabulary and approach to innovation to boost brainstorming, problem-solving, and creative thinking. In improv, we believe that what we create together is more beautiful than what we come up with alone. Learn how to use the magic of improv to improve your team’s work. (Oh, and did we mention this event is a lot of fun too?!)
Skills focused on include:
● Collaborating with an aim to consider all ideas to progress with more positivity
● Learning practical techniques for quieting the inner critic and reducing imposter syndrome
● Communicating using an improviser’s perspective of acceptance of the reality of the moment and agreement to move forward together with joy and ease
● Using a “Yes, and…” mindset for more inclusive problem-solving, brainstorming, beneficial risk-taking, and creative thinking
● Facilitating productive collaborations that invite enthusiastic participation and welcome the input of all participants
Note: This is not an improv workshop or show; it’s an opportunity to learn an improviser’s approach to workplace skills-building using simple improv-enriched (not scary) exercises designed to put the learning into laughter-filled practice. All exercises take place in a circle, small group, or pairs; participants are never “on stage.” Pam Victor specializes in making sure all people along the introvert-extrovert spectrum feel comfy, successful, and have fun learning how to use improv to improve the workplace.
Excursion local host: Pam Victor, President/Founder, Happier Valley Comedy
Ticket price: Free! (on the UMass campus)
Number of seats available: 102
In-conference Excursion 9
Governance for the Commons: An Introduction to Sociocracy
(90 minute session in the AM, 3-hour session in the afternoon)
Is there an effective, egalitarian approach to governance of the commons compatible with the Ostrom Principles?
In this participatory workshop, we will explore sociocracy (aka Dynamic Governance), an inspiring alternative to the win-lose approach of majority rule and the muddled approach of not-well organized consensus. Sociocracy encompasses three core elements: decision-making by consent, organizational structure through linked teams following the principle of subsidiarity (maximizing delegation of authority to the most grass-roots level that is appropriate), and continuous evolution through feedback. Sociocracy is practiced in commons contexts like intentional communities, worker cooperatives, and member/staff-run nonprofits. The primary approach in this workshop is to learn by doing, supported by lectures and question/answer periods. Topics we will cover:
- consent decision making
- practice dealing with objections
- generating proposals
- selection of people to leadership roles
- a template for meeting formats
- workflow design
- designing distributed organizational structures
Excursion local host: Jerry Koch-Gonzalez, co-founder of Sociocracy For All, a nonprofit focused on training and consulting for egalitarian governance. Jerry is a founding resident of Cherry Hill Cohousing (field trip site) intentional community. Both organizations use sociocracy for their governance.
Ticket price: Free! (on the UMass campus)
Number of seats available: 102
In-conference Excursion 10
Making Maps: An Intro to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) with QGIS - an on campus training
In this hands-on 2-hour workshop, you’ll learn about the basics of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), including the geospatial data types and formats, data visualization techniques, and coordinate systems. We will use the free and open-source mapping software, QGIS, to practice importing spatial data and changing the way it looks. A data pack will be provided so that you can continue practicing with QGIS on your own after the workshop without having to find geospatial data on your own. You are invited to bring a laptop with QGIS already installed if you would like to follow along with the demo, but you can also attend without a computer if that better aligns with your learning style. By the end of the workshop you’ll be able to:
- Understand the capabilities of GIS
- Find authoritative geospatial data online
- View geospatial data in QGIS and identify its data type, coordinate system, and other key information
- Use data visualization techniques to tell a story with your data
Workshop host: Dr. Rebecca (Becky) Seifried, Geospatial Information Librarian, UMass Amherst
Ticket price: Free! (on the UMass campus)
Number of seats available: 25
