RAISE THE STAKES FEST! – August 3-5 – Reno!
Radical Alternative Community-Building
Raise The Stakes Fest will be a three-day gathering of ideas, skillshares, workshops and music. The purpose is to take advantage of each others’ strengths and skills in encouraging a collective movement away from our dependence on capitalism, and to share the knowledge and skills to challenge and weaken those who profit from the exploitation of other humans, animals and the landbase itself. In short, we want to facilitate the exchanging of tools to actively shape the environment we live in.
And we need your involvement and input!
Here’s what we want:
Your ideas – tell us what workshops you’d like to see. Get creative, suggest the unconventional things that no one else has thought of. Reno has an amazing collection of people whose knowledge we can draw from, along with some guests from out-of-town coming to share what they know.
If you have a skill, we want you to give a workshop and share it (we’re talking anything from herbal medicine to bicycle maintenence to lockpicking to ideas of how to survive without work – if it can lessen dependence on capitalism or can be of practical use, we want it!)
Fundraising – we would like to make the entire event free, but somehow need to come up with some money to offer to the out-of-town speakers, presenters and bands. So if you happen to run into us flyering for a benefit party or selling yummy baked stuff, it’s for a good cause.
Your contributions – (did we mention this already?…) seriously, offer your ideas, or skills, make a zine to hand out or a film to present, plan an event for around the same time, and we’d love for anyone with awesome vegan recipes to help cook stuff up for our bake sales.
We’re hoping to include workshops and skillshares on a diverse array of subjects and areas. Below are lists of workshops / skillshares / presentations that we have confirmed presenters and facilitators for, along with a list of workshops that people have said that they would like to see take place, though we’ve yet to find anyone to lead them. If you are knowledgable and willing to facilitate any of these workshops, or have another better idea of your own, please get in touch!
CONFIRMED WORKSHOPS:
Herbal Medicine
Making Your Own Echinacea Tinctures
Gardening
Waste Veggie Oil Engine Conversion
Making Your Own Menstrual Pads
Consent & Sexual Health
Bicycle Touring
a commodity-exchange by the Reno Free Store
WORKSHOPS WE’D LOVE TO SEE – PLEASE HELP US:
Survival Without Work
Community Organizing
an Anti-Civilization Primer
DIY Traveling
(we need someone to talk about trainhopping and a female to talk about hitchhiking)
Urban Resource Exploitation
Lockpicking / Lockbumping
Zine-Making
Tell us what you want to see and what you’d like to present!
Here is a brief overview of the schedule:
Friday August 3rd and Saturday August 4th
Both days will have early morning workshops at locations away from the main venue.
At the venue (The Holland Project) we will be serving a free vegan breakfast and start the mornings off with yoga classes for all interested. Workshops will begin around 1pm in different areas inside and immediately outside of the venue. Keynote speakers and main presentations will happen around 5pm. Bands will play from around 7pm to 10pm. After which, the night is completely up in the air (but rumors of Critical Mass bike rides and other citywide mischief and games abound!).
On Saturday, the Reno Free Store will host another of its free markets, kinda like a massive garage sale where absolutely no money changes hands. This will take place during the day at the fest location. Everyone attending is invited to bring their items/skills to offer for free (ie. old clothes, furniture, books, therapeautic massage techniques, haircutting skills, etc)
Sunday August 5th
The morning will have another food serving and yoga class. There will be a puppet show at the venue, and possibly a bike ride to Reno’s rope swing on the Truckee River for anyone who sticks around.
What to Bring:
Ideas for spontaneous workshops, zines and films to share, bikes to ride, radical education literature to give out, items to contribute to the Free Store, sleeping bags and pads (housing provided at a warehouse space), yoga mats, donations ($ for presenters coming from out of town, vegan food for the kitchen cooking free meals for everyone).
What will be provided:
Two vegan meals a day, a floor to sleep on (in a large warehouse space), maps of awesome places in Reno and all the passion and energy we can muster up. What more could you want?!
and, of course…
Fundraising
So here’s the deal…
We want to make this event open to everyone for free. Free admission, free food, free punk rock haircuts for everyone who wants one. In the ideal society, there’s no place for capitalism, right?
Unfortunately, it’s still gonna take a little bit of money to get things running smoothly – like being able to pay people coming in from out of town to present workshops some gas money, like being able to offer the space a little bit to cover the wear and tear (and toilet paper) of a weekend full of kids taking over. So there are some fundraising events and appearances being planned leading up to the fest. Please Please Please stop by when you happen to be around and treat yourself to whatever it is we’re offering, and just imagine how badass it’s gonna be when August rolls around and we magically turn your donation money into a weekend of awesomeness.
Our Next Upcoming Fundraising event!:
FUNDRAISING PARTY!!!
vegan bake sale, all the dancey new wave you can handle, and the return of the kissing booth!
it all goes down Saturday, July 28th at the Big White House 1071 Evans Ave – Party O’clock.
any other ideas? tell us!
joe_ferguson@riseup.net
raisethestakes@drugsanddaydreams.net