TEDxSalem

Ideas worth spreading

announcement

We want you…to join TEDxSalem

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Are you an avid TED fan? Do you watch the videos reli­gious­ly? Do you find your­self ref­er­enc­ing them in con­ver­sa­tion? Are you look­ing for a way to con­nect with the com­mu­ni­ty?

Look no further…(actually, read below)

TEDxSalem is a vol­un­teer-dri­ven non-prof­it event orga­nized through The Mox­ie Ini­tia­tive, a 501(c)(3) non­prof­it in Salem, Ore­gon, and we are look­ing to add new mem­bers to our orga­niz­ing team.

Join­ing our team is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to be involved with an orga­ni­za­tion that has a track record of mem­o­rable events and is aim­ing to grow in both atten­dance and impact on the com­mu­ni­ty.

While it is a lot of work, we believe it’s incred­i­bly ful­fill­ing, both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly. The proof? We’re all vol­un­teers who ded­i­cate our time and ener­gy year after year, with enthu­si­asm, pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion. We are a close-knit team and do this work because we believe in it.

Although unpaid (nobody in our orga­ni­za­tion is paid), efforts are reward­ed with oppor­tu­ni­ties to push your bound­aries, be con­nect­ed to the world­wide TED com­mu­ni­ty and reach out to incred­i­ble peo­ple in Salem, and you won’t be alone, you have the sup­port of your team­mates and the ben­e­fit of our exist­ing con­nec­tions.

We have four open­ings in three posi­tions includ­ing Vol­un­teer Coor­di­na­tor, Part­ner­ship Maven and Social Media Vol­un­teer.

Sound inter­est­ing?

Apply now.

We look for­ward to hear­ing from you.

(PS: Don’t delay! The appli­ca­tion clos­es Sept. 25.)

Say hello to host Mark Powers

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Mark Pow­ers is a per­cus­sion­ist, an artist, an author, edu­ca­tor and men­tor. Plus, he’s no stranger to the TEDx stage. In fact, he has two talks under his belt and played the role of host for TEDxMt­Hood (for­mer­ly Con­cor­diaU­Port­land) three times.

“I’ve long been a fan of TED and TEDx talks, so being invit­ed to step on stage at sev­er­al of them has led to some of my all-time favorite (and, at times, most ter­ri­fy­ing) expe­ri­ences,” Mark said.

The for­mer Salem res­i­dent (he lived here from 2006 to 2012) who has called Port­land home for the past two years, lives by the adage of lots of eggs in lots of bas­kets.

“I’m try­ing to replace busy with blessed in my vocab­u­lary,” Mark said.

Gen­uine and sin­cere, music has been the cat­a­lyst spark­ing many of his adven­tures as he has trav­eled and taught through­out the world.

As a drum­mer, you can see him per­form with the Port­land band Mbras­catu, or with Haley John­son and Aman­da Richards. He’s shared the stage with Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, Devon Evans of Bob Mar­ley and the Wail­ers, Rolling Stones sax­o­phon­ist Tim Ries and Bad Company’s Lynn Sorensen.

He free­lances when­ev­er pos­si­ble and is hap­py for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in record­ing projects, too.

“Two albums I am stoked about are M Ward — I played drums on half — and She & Him. I’m play­ing drums on one track of the Christ­mas album,” Mark said.

He’s been pub­lished in mag­a­zines, com­posed solo/ensemble per­cus­sion pieces and writ­ten numer­ous books on drum­ming. His first children’s board book, I Want to Be a Drum­mer!, was released in Sept. 2016, and his sec­ond book, I Want to Be a Read­er!, will be out in the spring.

He’s an entre­pre­neur, always think­ing about cre­ative ways of mak­ing mon­ey; How he could use his musi­cal knowl­edge to his advan­tage.

“I didn’t think of myself in that way for a long time,” Mark said

Plus, he’s a past Guin­ness World Record hold­er (Longest Drum Roll by a Group: 2003–2005) for play­ing a con­tin­u­ous 12-hour drum­roll.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

Vanessa Timmons: Resiliency throughout domestic violence, activism, survival and revolution

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Some­times, the word “rev­o­lu­tion” brings to mind a kind of vio­lence, the kind asso­ci­at­ed with wars and revolts and mas­sive upris­ings. But for oth­ers, the real rev­o­lu­tion­ary work is the work that goes into pre­vent­ing vio­lence — and help­ing its sur­vivors heal.

vaneesa2bOne such per­son is Vanes­sa Tim­mons, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Ore­gon Coali­tion Against Domes­tic and Sex­u­al Vio­lence, a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that works through­out the state to end vio­lence in all com­mu­ni­ties. Tim­mons is also a moth­er, a grand­moth­er, a sur­vivor of sex­u­al abuse, and one of the speak­ers at this year’s TEDxSalem.

“I real­ly see domes­tic vio­lence work as rev­o­lu­tion­ary work,” Tim­mons says. “Rev­o­lu­tion hap­pens in a com­mu­ni­ty when all indi­vid­u­als are able to thrive.”

For Tim­mons, the rev­o­lu­tion lies in the com­mu­ni­ty, not just in the indi­vid­ual. She sees heal­ing as a com­mu­ni­ty-wide action, not just some­thing that indi­vid­ual assault and vio­lence sur­vivors must do.

“My talk is focused on resilien­cy for activists and self-care as acts of rev­o­lu­tion,” she says. “It’s real­ly look­ing at how we sus­tain brav­ery and be engaged in rev­o­lu­tion­ary acts. How do we keep our brav­ery and resilien­cy and vision vig­or­ous­ly engaged while we’re in that effort of chang­ing the world.”

Tim­mons fur­ther explains that a lot of her work is char­ac­ter­ized as anti-vio­lence, anti-racism or anti-oppres­sion. But it’s also pro- work, too; it’s work­ing toward a bet­ter world for every­one.vanessatimmons

“The weari­ness of peo­ple as we’ve gone through this elec­tion cycle, in a lot of ways that weari­ness inhibits our abil­i­ty to sus­tain and main­tain our efforts,” she says. “I am real­ly hop­ing that peo­ple walk away from my talk with some prac­ti­cal skills that I use to sus­tain my own brav­ery and resilience in times of dif­fi­cul­ty.”

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

Yesenia Gallardo: Save the planet, eat an insect

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yeseniaWhile crick­ets, grubs and insect eggs might not top your list of snack foods, they pop up in cui­sine around the world, and they just might be the key to a green­er plan­et.

“It just makes a lot of sense,” said Yese­nia Gal­lar­do, a TEDxSalem speak­er, envi­ron­men­tal­ist and insect entre­pre­neur.

“The sus­tain­abil­i­ty and the nutri­tion is there.”

Insects are ener­gy effi­cient, so they con­vert what­ev­er they eat to mass much more quick­ly, she said. For exam­ple, it takes two pounds of feed to get one pound of food from insects com­pared to 25 pounds of feed for one pound of beef, she said. There are sim­i­lar sav­ings in water and land.

Gal­lar­do under­stands that insects aren’t for every­one. For those will­ing to try, it seems that crick­ets are the eas­i­est to stom­ach.

“I don’t think they’re the most deli­cious insect out there,” she said. “They are the gate­way bug.”

An even eas­i­er sell might be sam­pling pow­dered insects, which are added to ener­gy bars, chips, cook­ies and oth­er snack foods.

Eat­ing insects wasn’t a gas­tro­nom­ic stretch for Gal­lar­do, a Salem native. She spent her sum­mers in Oax­a­ca, Mex­i­co, and many of the region’s dish­es include insects. One pop­u­lar dip, made with ant eggs, tastes like bacon-fla­vored mush­rooms, she said.

She used to raise crick­ets in an indoor micro-farm. She sold her tiny, tiny live­stock to food man­u­fac­tur­ers, but it was too hard to cli­mate con­trol the space.

Now the Yale Uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­ate is work­ing a dif­fer­ent angle: crick­et poop. Not for food, but for fer­til­iz­er. It’s a renew­able resource that doesn’t deplete nat­ur­al ones strain­ing under the demand for soil amend­ments.

“It has so much poten­tial,” she said.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

Jerry Braza: Sowing the seeds of mindfulness

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This picture was taken in Homer, Alaska where Braza is helping leaders create a more mindful community.
This pic­ture was tak­en in Homer, Alas­ka where Braza is help­ing lead­ers cre­ate a more mind­ful com­mu­ni­ty.

TEDxSalem speak­er Jer­ry Braza plants the seeds of mind­ful­ness one con­ver­sa­tion, one sem­i­nar and one com­mu­ni­ty at a time.

When he talks his words fall slow and steady. His eyes stay fixed on the per­son in front of him. There is nowhere else to be but here, right now.

In Homer, Alas­ka, Braza taught hun­dreds of edu­ca­tors, health-care work­ers, men­tal health providers and par­ents the ben­e­fits of mind­ful­ness and how to cre­ate that still­ness with­in. Once they heal them­selves, he said, they can heal the com­mu­ni­ty.

Braza is an ordained dhar­ma teacher in the lin­eage of Bud­dhist Mas­ter Thich Nhat Hanh, spread­ing mind­ful­ness at retreats, sem­i­nars, work­shops and class­es. But mind­ful­ness didn’t always come nat­u­ral­ly to the retired West­ern Ore­gon Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor.

“I was always in a rush,” he said about his life 35 years ago.

“I always felt anx­ious. I felt like I was always late. I was with some­one, and I was not real­ly there.”

He remem­bers skip­ping pages when he read books to his kids at night because he felt like he didn’t have the time.

Braza start­ed to take class­es on med­i­ta­tion and mind­ful­ness. He trav­eled to India, Chi­na, Viet­nam and Thai­land to study. Then he mixed in his Catholic roots of con­tem­pla­tion and devel­oped a sec­u­lar mind­ful­ness prac­tice that he now shares.

One sim­ple way to prac­tice, he said, is to linger longer on some­thing beau­ti­ful. We often focus on neg­a­tive things. Instead gaze on some­thing of beau­ty such as leaves on a side­walk, the moon, a flower or some­one you love. Stay with that image for a full 10 breaths.mountain

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 …

Catch Braza at TEDxSalem this Jan­u­ary to find a lit­tle more peace in your life and your com­mu­ni­ty.

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for stu­dents. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.

Gina Ochsner: Wielding the power of words for a (peaceful) revolution

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Gina Ochsner is a sto­ry­teller (just like us!).

The Salem native is an award-win­ning nov­el­ist and fic­tion writer. She’s the writer-in-res­i­dence at Cor­ban Uni­ver­si­ty, where she teach­es writ­ing and lit­er­a­ture and directs the annu­al Por­tals Writ­ing Con­fer­ence.

And as a speak­er at TEDxSalem, she’s going to tell you an incred­i­ble sto­ry about a series of events between 1987 and 1991 in Latvia, Esto­nia and Lithua­nia that became known as the Singing Rev­o­lu­tion.

ochsner_gina_credit-annie-beedy_catalog-author-photo“These peo­ple band­ed togeth­er to say to their Sovi­et occu­piers, ‘We’ve had enough, it’s time for you to go home,’ ” Ochsner explains. “They band­ed togeth­er and made a human chain over 400 miles long and held hands. It stretched from the cap­i­tal of Esto­nia to Lithua­nia. They sang songs and recit­ed poet­ry and this made a dif­fer­ence. With­in 18 months, the Sovi­et Union com­plete­ly pulled out and they were among the first to declare their inde­pen­dence.”

Ochsner learned about the chain of singers while research­ing her lat­est nov­el, released just four weeks ago, called The Hid­den Let­ters of Velta B. The book is about a fam­i­ly in Latvia, a boy who hears all, and the pow­er of sto­ries, words and secrets.

“I was­n’t plan­ning on writ­ing about Latvia,” she says. “But I got to know a Lat­vian woman who lives here in town, and she was telling me her fam­i­ly sto­ry and I start­ed doing research there and real­ized this world that has opened up to me that I nev­er knew exist­ed. I was so struck by the rich­ness of the cul­turgina-bwe and the love for song and dance and poet­ry, it just over­whelms me.”

These are all themes that Ochsner plans to explore in her TED talk.

“It’s inter­est­ing to think about rev­o­lu­tion and how big change hap­pens with some­thing as small as words and how we use them,” she says. “I think peo­ple some­times believe they have no voice or pow­er and that’s sim­ply not true. These were ordi­nary peo­ple who par­tic­i­pat­ed in these events. They were just hum­ble, ordi­nary peo­ple who got togeth­er and said, when we are togeth­er, our voic­es are strong.”

 

Get your tick­ets for TEDxSalem IV

Tick­ets are on sale now for Salem’s annu­al TEDx event Sat­ur­day, Jan­u­ary 7, 2017. Tick­ets are $50, $40 for a stu­dent. The all-day event includes talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and a swag bag. Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.us.