The Vegan Bus

The Vegan Bus is very excited to announce a very special weekend of concerts and workshops featuring Raquy and the Cavemen in our fine city of Northampton, Massachusetts starting on Saturday, September 13, 2008 .

Raquy and the Cavemen from Brooklyn, NY bring traditional Middle Eastern Music and Modern Drumming to a heady peak. Raquy has traveled to and immersed herself in the musical cultures of the Middle East, Egypt and India. Raquy performs with the Dumbek (Arabic hand drum) and the Iranian Kamanche, which is similar to a violin.

“The love that each band member has for their instrument is especially evident when they are all on stage. Find one of their shows and be enriched, encouraged and energized.” ~MSN Music Review

Dumbek (Raquy) and Belly Dance workshops will also be held throughout the weekend.

Listen to Audio Clips of Raquy

Raquy and the Cavemen in Concert
Saturday September 13 at 8pm
at First Churches 129 Main St, Northampton, MA 01060

Tickets are $13.00 in advance and $15.00 at the door. We will only have a limited number of seats so get your tickets online now to make sure you get in! We will not send printed tickets but will have a list people who got their tickets online, so bring an ID or print your Paypal confirmation!

Raquy and the Cavemen ticket $13.00

Raquy’s Dumbek Workshops
Times & Places TBA Soon!

Belly Dance Workshops
Instructors, Times & Places TBA Soon!

Help us Promote the Show!

Listen to our Raquy Fundraiser Radio Promo (mp3)

Download our 8.5×11 inch flyer: Raquy_poster_8×11.pdf (1MB)

Download our 11×17 inch flyer: Raquy_poster_11×17.pdf (1MB)

A portion of all proceeds will go to The Vegan Bus project. We are now accepting tax-deductible donations through C3, the Commonwealth Center for Change.

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The Vegan Bus is pleased to announce the next phase of our education and outreach efforts - THE VEGAN BUS ZINE!

As we travel from town to town and from event to event we would like to hand out literature that will help open hearts and minds to the benefits of veganism and sustainable living. I have long believed that the best way to do this is artistically. Art is a direct transmission of ideas that can exceed the limits of language. A picture can tell a thousand words, and an artistic image can do even more. And words themselves are of course more powerful when they are crafted together artistically. This is why we are choosing to create zines rather than mere pamphlets and brochures, which sound rather hum drum to me.

THE VEGAN BUS WANTS YOU!

We envision the Vegan Bus as a tribal community, made up of a core group of members who travel with the bus as well as a network of members who support us in our efforts. The Zine project will rely on contributions from artists and writers who believe in what we do. We are now officially asking for contributions of all sorts. We do not want to stifle creative possibilities by stating what we will publish, but here are some guidelines for the types of art and writing we would like to include:

Personal Stories
How did you become vegan? How do you try to limit your impact on the planet’s resources? How does your garden grow? Metaphors and surrealism are welcome.

Editorials:
We are looking for well-written articles about veganism and animal rights. We have an abolitionist approach and believe that the main thrust of the AR movement should be towards converting people to veganism, so keep that in mind. We also would like to feature articles about sustainable living - solar and wind energy, alternative fuels, organic agriculture, etc.

Art:
Photographs, paintings, woodblock prints, collage, anything that will reproduce well in black and white. We may have color cover art as well. Themes that address veganism, animal rights, sustainability, or even the existential angst that capitalism and materialism brings about. The art can be uplifting or confrontational. Comic strips would be really great too!

Vegan Recipes:
Part of helping people move towards veganism is helping them find alternatives to their meat-centric diets. We want the zine to give them the tools, and recipes are a big part of that. We would like recipes that are delicious but also that are easy to make and don’t have ingredients non-vegans aren’t familiar with. Bonus points if the recipe uses ingredients that are inexpensive so that people living on low income can easily prepare them.

DIY Instructions:
We would like to include at least one DIY project in each issue. Things that can help people live sustainably. Examples would be solar cookers, solar dehydrators, worm compost, clothing, etc. Written instruction along with photos or diagrams would be great.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?
The zine will be used to help raise money and therefore we can not pay for contributions. If you are looking for money then you probably aren’t in line with our mission anyway… However, we will give each person whose contributions are used several copies of the zine they are published in. If your art makes the cover, we will give you a Vegan Bus tee shirt along with 50 copies of the zine!

ADVERTISING…
We want to give the zine out for free so that the most people can benefit from it. It will be an ongoing project with many issues, and hopefully larger and larger print runs as we go. The way we hope to do this is to offer advertising in the zine. This can often be a slippery slope, but we feel there are plenty of companies who are providing services that are in line with our ethics and ambitions who will be willing to advertise. We will also of course feature ads from non-profit organizations. If you fall into one of the above categories and are interested in advertising please contact us about rates.

CONTRIBUTING…
We are hoping to have the first issue published by the end of August. We would like to have a sample with content to take to potential advertisers by mid August. We are asking for contributions as soon as possible. If you are interested in contributing please contact us!

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The Vegan Bus is happy to announce our first big event this year. We will be taking the bus from Northampton, MA to Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY for their annual Hoe Down event, which they describe as

a rootin’ tootin’ weekend of animal-friendly activities at our farm in Watkins Glen, New York. This annual event draws activists from all across the U.S. and Canada for presentations and workshops, visit time with friendly farm animals, delicious veggie food, and, of course, plenty of lively entertainment.

Country Hoe Down guests can also camp on the farm with other animal-friendly folks, enjoy catered vegan meals, hop on hayrides, hang out around a warm bonfire, and meet and greet our shelter residents. And, as if that wasn’t enough, we will also be offering early bird yoga classes on Saturday and Sunday, and chances to join author George Eisman on his ever-popular Wild Edibles Hike.

As always, Saturday night will be devoted to celebration, as we invite guests to throw on their dancing shoes and get down at our festive barn dance. For those attendees more comfortable off the dance floor, we will also provide a toasty bonfire under the stars to which guests are encouraged to bring their musical instruments!

DETAILS:
Departure Time: Friday, August 1st at 11AM.
Return Time: Sunday August 3rd by 9PM

Itinerary: We will leave on Friday morning at 11am from Northampton, MA. We estimate the ride to take between 7-8 hours (It is under six hours by car but the bus can’t go quite as fast). We will bring a vegan picnic lunch to serve everyone mid-way along the trip. We encourage you to also bring your own snacks! We hope to arrive in time to set up tents while it is still light.

Friday Night there is a bonfire. Feel free to bring lawn chairs, musical instruments and vegan marshmallows! For the Itinerary on Saturday thru Sunday please see Farm Sanctuary’s Hoe Down Schedule of Events. We plan to leave Sunday by 1PM (after the provided Vegan Lunch) unless everyone decides they want to stay longer based upon our actual travel time on the way there. We hope to be back in Northampton no later than 9PM.

Tickets: Farm Sanctuary charges $85 registration fee for the event, which is included in our $120 round trip ticket. You will need to bring camping gear and snack food plus clothing for the weekend. There are no showers available at the farm but we can provide a trip into town to go swimming or to a shower facility on Saturday. There are bathrooms and running water at the farm.

Bus is full, event is sold out!

Once we have people registered we will decide on where to depart from in Northampton. We are willing to pick people up from their homes if they are within a reasonable distance from downtown Northampton. We will be traveling on the MA Pike from Springfield to the NY State Thruway past Albany and Syracuse. We can possibly pick up passengers along the way as long as we don’t have to go more than 5 miles off of our route.

If you have any other questions please feel free to Contact Us.

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I recently entered The Vegan Bus in a contest to try to win a $5000 grant to have solar panels put on the bus. The contest was sponsored by the Pioneer Valley Sustainability Network which

is a formalization of many informal networks of sustainability experts in the area which acts as a vehicle to bridge the gap between practitioners and researchers in the area of sustainable development, with an initial emphasis on sustainable land use and energy use.

The contest was for art that has a sustainable theme…

what does sustainability in the Pioneer Valley look like, sound like, feel like? How can it be represented? Is it best articulated through a device, or through dance, music, film, sculpture, or two-dimensional design?

My proposal concerned the Vegan Bus being an artwork in process, and the addition of solar technology would enable us to educate about that technology all over the Pioneer Valley. According to myself…

I believe it will take vast acts of imagination to transform our civilizations to conscious and sustainable ones. It is the mission of the artist to help people transcend their traditions and evolutionary inertias. The concept of The Vegan Bus came to me when I had the epiphany that I was dreaming too small. I realized that the world needed a vehicle of transformation. An artistic statement on wheels that would attract people by its very nature and leave them with something to think about. An artwork they could admire from the outside, or climb aboard and engage. Added to that a group of performers and activists to convey the Sustainable Message in a variety of ways.

Out of 20 entries I was chosen as one of the semi-finalists, which meant I had to go give a 10 minute talk about the work and answer questions from the 10 “celebrity judges”. These included John Majercak from the Center for Ecological Technology (CET) and the ReStore, Monte Belmonte from the River and Hillary Price, the cartoonist of Rhymes with Orange fame. The event was held at the Academy of Music. I was the third to present and got a little stage fright once the bright lights hit my eyes, but overall I did a fair job at stating my case and was the only artist to garner applause for one of my comments (about artists collaborating on sustainability projects).

I did not end up winning although I did get insider info that I was one of the top three that the judges ended up choosing between. The artist who won was Jane Beatrice Wegscheider with her project “A Table Set Forever“. That was one of my favorite entries, along with an ambitious project by an 18 year old young man named RJ Magoon.

This project has really helped me to focus my thoughts a bit, as well as getting a better understanding of what we will need to do to install solar photovoltaics on the bus. I am ready to do some grant writing and soliciting of sponsorships! I am really happy this opportunity came along and that artists are thinking about sustainability issues.

Check out The Vegan Bus Solar Installation proposal on the PV Sustain web site.

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We are giddy to announce that Farm Sanctuary founder Gene Baur is going to give a talk and book signing at Cafe Evolution in Florence MA on June 10, 2008.

Gene has been on tour promoting his book entitled “Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food“. Gene founded Farm Sanctuary over 20 years ago after finding a sheep named Hilda discarded alive in a pile of dead animals at a stockyard. Caring for Hilda led to the founding of a non-profit and purchasing of a farm in Watkins Glen, NY which is now the home of hundreds of Farm Animals rescued from the horrors of modern animal agriculture. Along with working to provide shelter for these fortunate few saved animals, Gene has conducted hundreds of visits to farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses to document conditions, and his pictures and videotape, exposing factory farming cruelty, have been aired nationally and internationally, educating millions. He has testified in court and before local, state and federal legislative bodies, and has initiated groundbreaking legal enforcement and legislative action to raise awareness and prevent factory farming abuses. He played a significant role in passing the first U.S. laws to prohibit cruel farming systems – including the Florida ban on gestation crates, the Arizona ban on veal and gestation crates, and the California and Chicago bans on foie gras.

Event Details

WHEN: Tuesday June 10th
WHERE: Cafe Evolution 22 Chestnut Street, Florence, MA 01062
DETAILS:

• 5:30 PM Cafe Evolution open for food and drinks
• 7:00 PM Introduction by photographer Derek Goodwin including slide show of his photos of sanctuary animals.
• 7:30 PM Talk by Gene Baur

Derek Goodwin has been photographing Farm Sanctuary’s animals and events for nearly 10 years, and will be presenting a short slide show of his work preceding the talk. Derek’s photographs have appeared in many of Farm Sanctuary’s pamphlets, magazines and calendars, as well as on the cover of Gene’s book. Derek is also the driving force behind the Vegan Bus project, in case you didn’t know…

This event is free and open to the public, but we will be doing some fund raising at the event, so bring a little cash in case you get inspired!

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Our web site has been a bit quiet lately, and I apologize. The bus was taken off the road for the winter in order to save money on insurance. We found out on a trip to the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary in November of 2007 that the heating system was not adequate, and doing any kind of remodeling on the bus in the midst of a harsh New England winter did not seem like much fun.

Now that the trees are budding, the flowers are blooming, and the grease is becoming more viscous, we are looking forward to getting the bus back on the road!

July 24, 2008: We regret that we will not be taking the Vegan Bus to Burning Man this year due to finances and circumstance. We look forward to doing it up right in 2009…

Burning Man 2008!
The BIG news is that we have decided to go to Burning Man again this year! Last year we got the bus less than a month before we drove 3000 miles to Nevada and it made for some stress and frantic work schedules. This year we have more time to plan and more experience to contribute, so it should be a smooth ride… he he. The exact dates are still to be determined, but it will be the last part of August through the 1st week of September.

We are looking for some new riders this time around, to mix things up a bit and keep it fresh. Anyone who is somewhere between Northampton, MA and the Black Rock desert in Nevada is welcome to apply, just contact us through this site! We will provide a earth-friendly ride, vegan food and optional camping. We are willing to veer a bit off route to pick people up. Check out the route we took last year for an idea of the route this year.

August 1-3: Farm Sanctuary Hoe Down
We have a weekend trip to Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY planned for people who want to take a shorter trip and see one of the most peaceful and inspiring places on the planet. Here is the blurb from Farm Sanctuary’s site about that:

Join like-minded animal advocates for an energizing and educational weekend conference at our New York Shelter. Offering up-to-date information on critical farm animal issues, groundbreaking campaigns, and effective advocacy strategies, the Hoe Down is an inspirational event for activists of all experience levels. Highlights include an exciting lineup of animal protection speakers, shelter time with the animals, delightful vegan food, and an evening barn dance.

We will provide travel and the option of sleeping on the bus, or you can bring a tent. Prices TBA.

We will also be doing some day trips to the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary in Woodstock, NY.

If you are interested in hearing more about upcoming events, or participating in the Vegan Bus project in any way, please sign up for our email list here:
http://groups.google.com/group/veganbustamove

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