The ever-expanding Graham Self-Reliant Community will hold their monthly meeting on September 7 as concerns mount over developments in the world, such as continued economic unrest and high unemployment, but the G-SRC also has internal challenges.

Foremost for the G-SRC, founder and leader Wayne Cooke needs to step-down due to family health challenges. Wayne also celebrated his 80^th birthday this summer, and he claims that is also an impediment to his continued leadership. Hence, a search for his replacement has commenced.

In addition, the G-SRC has internal friction as the group grapples with two different emerging agendas. One is emergency preparedness and a concern over the intensification of natural disasters while the other view is more focused on developing a healthier lifestyle. These are not mutually negating themes, but they are nevertheless points of contention as the group decides on speakers to invite and what kinds of topics they would like to see addressed.

As for the upcoming self-reliant meeting, here is the list of topics to discuss as presented by the still-president, Wayne Cooke:

Self Reliant Community News.

August 30, 2011,

My computer apologizes if you didn’t receive email notice of the August meeting and missed learning from Beth Rossow (https://themountainnewswa.net/2011/02/18/beth-rossow-woman-of-the-mountain-siren-of-the-sound/) about the wealth of living independently close to nature. Thank you, Holly, for backing me up with a timely notice on your SRC website. I hope we can see Beth again.

The September 7^th meeting will be, again, at the 70^th Ave. Fire Station at 6:30 pm. You can bring something to RAFFLE, really this time! Kelda Miller will teach us what PERMACULTURE really means and how you can use the basic ideas in your own food-growing, as Anuttama (www.BillyandAnuttama.wordpress.com) already has.

ELECTRONIC CHANGE IS COMING to SRC. My troubled distribution list is telling me that it is time for someone else with a better computer to take over the job of SRC communication. It seems to me reasonable to combine Holly’s wonderful work with the communication I’ve been doing. SO, we must find someone, perhaps not even in our group, perhaps retired, that could find fun and enjoyment in the communication of all the interesting things that happen in the Self Reliant Community? Holly has already asked for someone to take over the website and offered to teach them.

CHANGE IS COMING to SRC. My wife, Barb, has cancer, which has metastasized, and while she feels well now the chemotherapy regimen begins Sept. 15^th, and the next months will require my first attention to Barb.

THEREFORE, both my age and Barb’s illness opens an opportunity for all of you to begin planning to expand the “sharing skills, knowledge, and encouragement” of local self reliance skills for basic needs, in the community and especially in your own neighborhoods. I feel certain that (rather than “rebounding”) the economy will continue downward, challenging all of us. But a world of opportunities for teaching others, strengthening neighbor bonds, expanding local food growing where possible, “putting by” some food, using greenhouse or row covers, keeping a back-up bicycle, using a rain barrel, and preparing for cold without power, will emerge as more people realize that the economy won’t take care of them. I invite all who can to meet at the 70^th Ave. Fire Station at 6:30pm on the second Wednesday, Sept. 14^th to plan a reorganization of Self Reliant Community without Wayne Cooke. Someone from this meeting will need to email Michelle at mgreco@grahamfire.org to reserve the room for an October meeting.

CHANGE for Barb and I will be in the future. I’d love to think I can handle all the tasks around our acre, but difficulties since my 80^th birthday suggest otherwise. Barb and I haven’t seriously talked about it, but change will come, obviously. (Its assessment was downgraded to under $100,000, though we owe $130,000, so we are “underwater”).

Volunteers needed for SRC booth at Bethel’s ABC Days and the Puyallup Fair 9/16-17.

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Graham Man fatally injured:

A Graham man has died in a motor vehicle accident on SR 161 and 388^th St in Eatonville early Tuesday morning.

According to the Washington State Patrol, Loren Dubacher, 55, was fatality injured when his Ford pick-up left the roadway at 1:45 am and struck a tree on the east side of SR 161. Dubacher had no passengers, and no other vehicles were involved; however, the WSP reports that the cause of the accident is under investigation.

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