REQUEST FOR VOLUNTEERS THIS SUNDAY

from Terry LaPlante

On  Sunday August 11, 2013, from 10-12, there will be another Save The St. Lucie River Rally in Stuart. The Florida Water and Land Legacy is going to be collecting signatures for their petition and need volunteers. Any TCPA member or friend who plans to attend the rally is invited to help out in this endeavor. The tentative schedule is shown below and subject to change. Terry LaPlante is organizing the volunteers and can help set people up with petitions. If you can't make it for breakfast, look for her or other volunteers at the rally.

 Here are the latest plans. Meet at Bagel Break 8 am which is just before the Stuart Bridge across from the Fresh market. There I will make sure everyone has petitions, we will divide into teams, car pool if feasible and head out to set up.


It would be best for everyone to have 6-10 clipboards and pens. I will have signs for people to wear etc. We will discuss whether to divide all volunteers between these two locations and place cars at other smaller access points for people to walk the beach to collect to the access point where their car will be. Or place 1 volunteer at each access point with the remainder at main locations. We will set up main site at Stuart Beach and Jensen Beach. 


Afterwards we will meet at Conchy Joe's for lunch in Jensen Beach and everyone can turn their petitions in and celebrate maybe around 12:30. Please let me know if this plan works for you.. This is a tentative plan only and final plan is still to come. Please feel free to contact me directly. My phone and email are listed below. Thanks! 

(SEE UPDATES IN COMMENTS' FIELD BELOW)

Terry LaPlante

Field Organizer

tel: (321)543-2156

Terry@floridawaterlandlegacy.org

From NOW's Meredith Ockman

from Meredith Ockman

Good afternoon, John and Progressive Friends!

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Treasure Coast Progressive Alliance this week about an introduction to NOW.  I always look at such meetings as a learning experience for myself when I leave with so many true stories that underscore the validity of the concepts and priority issues that I presented.

The group members asked some particularly thoughtful questions and the conversations that followed make me think they plan to use the information to do some good things in the Treasure Coast area!  After you have had time to talk with others in the group, please feel free to contact me in any effort to institute change!  I have included the members of Treasure Coast Progressive Alliance on this email (if they included their emails on my sign-up sheet) so they have my contact information and are able to contact me.  I am including Mindi Fetterman, the President of TC NOW and CEO/Founder of the Inner Truth Project, as well.  She is well connected and versed in the issues, too.

As I promised and for your convenience, these are the websites I mentioned during our discussion:

1)      Your NEW local NOW chapter is www.TreasureCoastNOW.org

2)      Florida leads 35 chapters.  The website is www.FLNOW.org

3)      The Inner Truth Project is the sexual abuse survivors community center that I spoke about:  www.InnerTruthProject.org

I am excited about the passion in your group and the potential leadership for women’s issues that affect everyone in our community that I see in each person who was in that room!  It was such a pleasure to spend the evening with and meet your group!

I look forward to being in touch, soon!

Sincerely,

Merideth Ockman

UPCOMING MEETING AUGUST 27, 2013

from John Debus

Hi Everyone,

Great event at the American Legion with TCPA and another good group turn out. We are getting many new, first time guest, which is good, however our membership is not growing. If you enjoy our programs, please consider becoming a member and supporting us, that is our main financial income to pay our bills. Meredith Ockman gave a very good presentation and followed it with a great discussion and question & answers session.

Our next Event will be "Labor & Union Movement" on 27 August 2013. We will have some local union leader speak on where we are in Florida and why they are so important to our middle class and our country's future. We will have plenty of time for questions, answers, and discussion. If you know people interested in these issues, please invite them to come. Hopefully we can pack the house and awaken the movement here on the Treasure Coast.

There will be another protest this weekend for our River and Lagoon. Our group will not meet this week at the Library in order to support the rally on Sunday at Stuart beach at 10:00am. Please check the web-site for more information.

As always, feel free to contact me at ANYTIME, if you need anything or have suggestions.

Hope to see you all at our next event.

Take care, John

JULY 30 MEETING OVERVIEW

from John Debus

Hi Everyone,

A reminder of our event this Tuesday evening, 6:30pm to 8:30pm, July 30, 2013  at the  American Legion Post  #40, 801 S US1, Fort Pierce, FL. 34950. Please use the front entrance (on US1) and it is the large room on the right side of the entrance as you come in the front door. Plenty of parking is on the side of the building.

We will be hosting Meredith Ockman, Florida’s Vice President of National Organization for Women to speak on women issues and where we are in Florida as well as nationally and locally. What the six main issues are, how you can help and where you can join this great organization. Do we have a Wendy Davis (with pink sneakers) here in Florida? We will have plenty of time for questions, answers, and discussion. We will also have a quick discuss/plan for our River movement after the NOW event.

Our events are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, so bring and/or invite friends and family. Donations are welcome, but not necessary. Thanks to one of our loyal and dedicated members, we will be giving sets of Occucards to all donations of $3.00 or more to our brochure fund (they sell for $5.00 a set on line) . They are a set of 18 cards on all the top progressive issues with a very colorful picture on the front and all the information on that issue on the back. Their purpose is to educate people on the issues. Great for yourself or a gift to those less informed, "May" turn Tea Party people into Progressive people. If you care to join and support our organization (not required) our membership fees are $15 per person and $20 per family annually. This is what helps maintain our programs, reach out to our community and helps make them aware of our issues and get their support. To join, see Erika at the Event or go to our web-site.

Our group that has been having protest/rallies at the farmers market in downtown Fort Pierce have gathered hundreds of signatures for “a call to action” for our Indian River Lagoon. They are planning on more protest/rallies and working with other organizations in demanding that the Army Corp of Engineers and our elected Representatives take all necessary steps to clean our rivers and lagoon. Bill McNeely has volunteered to be contact person for this group and to chair our committee for environment and conservation. Our board has confirmed this position, appointment and welcomes Bill to TCPA board. Please contact Bill if interested in this action and a sign-up sheet will be on the action table at our events.

The action table at our event is set up for groups information, sign-up sheets,  up coming events, and petition. All groups will also have 1-3 minutes at the beginning to tell us about yourself. You can also contact Kathy or myself to have your events posted on our web-site.

Anyone needing to car pool to the event can contact me and I will do my best to get you a ride.

We are planning on having a fall picnic, tentatively 29 September 2013 at Pepper Park on the North Island of Fort Pierce. Please give us feed-back and suggestions on this.

Our NEW banner has arrived and will be on display, come and check it out.

"My Opinion" program is on going, choose a subject, limit it to 300 words or less and submit it to be read at the end of our event. We want to know how you feel on issues and what you are passionate about. There also is a group in our area that is supporting progressive write-ins to local newspapers, hopefully a representative will be at the event to tell us about themselves.

Our next Event in August will be the Labor & Union Movement. We will have representatives from different local unions to explain where we are in Florida as well as nationally and locally. Where they are going and why they are so important to the working class and the future of Florida, our country as well as the World. We will have plenty of time for questions, answers, and discussion. Come and pick-up some flyers and past out or post to/in areas where people need this information.

We have invited the River Coalition to come and speak at our September Event. Check them out at RiverCoalition.org We have pushed back our plan for Renewable & Alternative Energy Event to take place in October.

There is also a plan for a Keystone Pipeline action to take place in the fall. Jerry and Richard is organizing this action and there will be a sign up sheet at the event.

We are also looking for someone to co-chair our Move To Amend committee (get the money out of politics). We may have someone willing to chair but will need assistance or will assist if someone will chair.

Please come out, we need your support to make a difference. We also would like your feed-back on our Events and Organization. So feel free to respond to this e-mail.

CHECK OUT OUR WEB-SITE; tcprogressivealliance.com

Take Care,

See you Tuesday,

John

How Do Florida Estuaries Respond to Change? Perspectives from the Bottom of the Food Web

from  Dennis Hanisak

Hola,

The next Ocean Science Lecture, which is part of our public lecture series at Harbor Branch, is at 7 pm Wednesday July 24, 2013.

Lectures are held in the auditorium of the Johnson Education Center on the Harbor Branch campus, 5600 U.S. 1 North, Fort Pierce.

How Do Florida Estuaries Respond to Change? Perspectives from the Bottom of the Food Web

By Nikki Dix

FAU Harbor Branch

About the Speaker

Nikki Dix grew up in the sunshine state, went to Florida State University for her B.S. and the University of Florida for her M.S. and Ph.D.  In graduate school, she was introduced to the beauty and complexity of estuarine ecology and she has been exploring it ever since.  For seven years, she managed a water quality monitoring program for the Guana Tolomato Matanzas (GTM) National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) in St. Augustine, FL.  She used that monitoring data in her graduate research, along with laboratory-based experiments and oyster reef sampling, to investigate the impacts of hurricanes and nutrient pollution in the GTM estuary.  Nikki has spent the past two years as a postdoctoral researcher at Harbor Branch investigating the relationship between phytoplankton and zooplankton in the Indian River Lagoon.  At the end of August, she will return to St. Augustine to become Research Coordinator at the GTM NERR.

About the Lecture

In this lecture, Nikki will summarize her graduate and postdoctoral research in the context of understanding how estuaries respond to change.  Coastal environments are transition zones, naturally dynamic regions of constant change.  To ultimately understand how an estuary responds to sudden events and long-term stressors, we first have to understand the inherent variability in the chemical, physical, and biological components of the estuary through long-term monitoring.  We also need to identify how the different ecosystem components interact, often with experimental manipulations.  Nikki will give examples of these monitoring and experimental efforts from her research of water quality, plankton, and oysters in two Florida estuaries and hopes to leave you with an appreciation for the beautiful complexity that drew her to estuarine ecology originally.

July 30 EVENT: NOW

Treasure Coast Progressive Alliance Monthly Event

NOW—National Organization for Women

Meredith Ockman

Come listen to Florida’s Vice President of NOW speak on Women’s Issues and where Florida stands on these both nationally and locally. Learn what the six main issues are, how you can help, and where you can join this great organization. We will have plenty of time for questions and answers.      

“WILL WOMEN GET EQUAL RESPECT?”

Our Events are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

They are Social, Networking and Educational Events.

Come out, listen, voice your opinion, and join us.

The Event will be 6:30 pm, July 30, 2013, at the American Legion

Post #40, 810 S. US 1, Ft. Pierce Fl. 34950

For more information contact: John Debus 772-349-5328 

website: tcprogressivealliance.com

email: tcprogressivealliance@gmail.com  

JUNE MEETING RECAP

from John Debus

Hi Everyone,

Yes, another great event with t.c.p.a. at the American Legion. Even with many of our regulars absent this month, I was very happy to see our turn out improve, as well as a few first-time new people.

Hopefully we are back on our growth track. The documentary movie was very informative and

sparked a very active discussion monitored by Kathy. Much of the discussion lead to talk of unions

and the need for more co-ops. We are trying to plan an event on this issue and invite local union

leaders to come and educate/inform us where they are in this fight and what their plans are with the

working people in the future. Another recommendation from Erika, was to read "Democracy at work,

a cure for Capitalism" by Richard Wolff, for the members that after the documentary had the question,

"where is the solution." As always, we are looking for more volunteers to monitor future

events, and welcome your ideas for subjects, speakers and movies. Our events are so much better with more people participating. There was a complaint of people talking during the movie and we ask you to save your comments for after the movie. 

Our board meeting will be this Tuesday 6;30pm, 2 July 2013 at the Dunkin Donuts on US1 (by Virginia

Ave.) in Fort Pierce. Any member wishing to address the board may attend. Looking ahead to October,

when we will be looking for volunteers to serve t.c.p.a in 2014, any one interested may express their

interest now. I am personally more interested in serving in another capacity, and look forward to helping

others to continue leading and serving t.c.p.a. This is your organization and will only grow and make a

difference if we care enough to make it do so.

We have ordered a banner for our organization. Vickie has done all the work on this project and has

come up with a beautiful design, I can't wait to get it and show it off. Vickie has been a great

asset to our organization, helping with the design and getting our business cards printed, as well as serving as our secretary. We will use the banner at events, march in parades, and at rallies. This will help get our name out in the public so people will become aware of our group and hopefully join us in our

cause of educating and fighting for our issues.Anyone interested in helping with these type of events, please let us know. 

Some of our members have decided to have a protest/rally on the condition of our river this coming Saturday. The purpose is to bring more awareness to the Lake Okeechobee discharges, green algae, brown tide, manatees and dolphins death, etc..  We are also planning to draft a petition or join other organizations and support their petition effort in fighting this battle. If interested, please come out in support on Saturday between 10am and 12pm at the library across from the farmers market in downtown Fort Pierce. Perhaps someone can make some flyers with our representative names and phone numbers, and request people call them in support for our river. 

Our next Event will be on the National Organization on Women, NOW. Meredith Ockman, Florida Vice President for NOW, will be our speaker and we will have plenty of time for questions and answers. I hope everyone has gotten excited with Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, and will be come out in support of these issues and listen with open ears and minds.  Let's pack the house in support for NOW. Invite all your friends, co-workers and family members.

Hope to see everyone there,

Take care,

John