Catalyst helps you create ecoharmony.  Starting out now, our programs are focused on news, networking, and movement building, and we will likely expand into education, training, and other ventures by 2011.  Currently, we are finish a 4-year long revival process, becoming a whole new catalyst. The following describes our news, networking, and movement building efforts.

Catalyst will produce a weekly news report that focuses on the work people are doing in our local central Vermont communities that solve local and global problems. These reports provide information on how you can take part. They are focused on useful and empowering news.

Each report will be a written article and an audio podcast. The articles will be syndicated to local newspapers and blogs, the podcasts played on local radio stations and both syndicated across the Internet, utilizing our modern website and social networking platforms.

Articles will be printed in our own publication the Bioregional Bulletin. The Bulletin is a news poster inside of a brochure – a versatile format. While they can be tacked onto any board, they will be prominently prominently displayed on kiosks that we’ll call Bioregional Depots which are designed for this particular purpose.

The Depots will be hubs for social-ecological news and info. A primary purpose is to display the Bulletin news poster and hold a stack of Bulletin brochures for passers-by to take. It will have a desk with a drop-slot that could be used for surveys, questionnaires, or any such thing. On the desk will also be a binder for archiving past Bioregional Bulletins.

Likewise, these articles will also be archived and cross-indexed on our website. In archiving these planned and researched reports we will be creating a go-to source of social-ecological news and information.

This will enable people to stay well-informed, which is currently not realistically possible without being deeply “in-the-know.”

Through reporting, we will partner with many other organizations. This will enable us to network more effectively and help unfamiliar groups connect and collaborate with each other.

We will gain a broader and more objective systems-wide perspective than had by groups working on particular issues. This systemic perspective and consequent analysis will inform a more solid and clear direction for the development of local sustainable infrastructure.

We will work with leaders of movements on all levels – grassroots, nonprofit, government, etc – in effort to steer any efforts away from pursuit of limited victories towards little-picture success that actually lead towards big-picture systemic change.

One major component needed is systems-wide mapping. As organizers, we need to be much more aware of the resources, opportunities, gaps, deficits, and general circumstances surrounding and connected to the issues and systems we’re working on.

Catalyst will therefore conduct our news reporting deep enough and coordinated to simultaneously gather information for this mapping project. Maps and information will be available at Bioregional Depots, on our website, and in specialized formats for organizers.

The need for strategic news and networking like this is not unique to this region; it is widespread. These methods can be used in most places, and we will therefor develop these projects in modular or replicable ways. We will further collaborate with organizing leaders in other regions to assist in and learn from their own mapping and networking efforts and to network and build solidarity on even greater levels.

This all starts with the solutions already happening and continues with Catalyst’s news and reporting efforts.

Contact us here.

Catalyst
PO Box 193
Plainfield Vermont 05667

(802) 279-8800