MFNSA Welcoming Powwow Friday!

Powwow Etiquette

Powwows are fun but also sacred events. This is a general guideline for behaviour; different regions may have different variations. Please respect these protocols in order to ensure an enjoyable time for everyone.

• Drug and alcohol use is prohibited.
• Please listen to the MC (Master of Ceremonies). If you have questions at any time about procedures, don’t hesitate ask the MC.
• Pictures and recordings (audio and visual) are prohibited during prayers, Flag and Honour songs, and any other songs as indicated by the MC.
• Guests are also asked to remove their headwear during certain songs, unless said headwear has an eagle feather in it.
• Visitors are permitted to dance and take pictures during Intertribal songs. The MC will indicate when the song is Intertribal.
• Recordings (video and audio, etc.) require the prior permission of the person or group you are recording.
• The dancers’ outfits are called “regalia”. Please do not touch any regalia without permission.
• If you see a dropped eagle feather or a piece of regalia on the ground, please inform the MC, a dancer, or a member of the pow wow committee.  A specific song will be sung to retrieve the fallen feather.
• Please stay out of the dancing area and do not crowd around the drummers. Children are welcome but should refrain from entering the dancing area.
•  Please respect the area and put all garbage and recyclables in the appropriate containers.

General credit to: Three Fires Homecoming and Queen’s University powwow etiquette.

Farm Stand: Growing Together

Andrew Chong (left) and Zsuzsi Fodor share food connections through OPIRG McMaster, and the Mac Farmstand.

Andrew is the current Farmstand Manager, and a member of OPIRG McMaster's Food For Life working group. Zsuzsi is one of the founders of PEAS, an award winning former OPIRG working group that originated the idea of bringing a farmer's market to campus. After preparing the way for FarmStand, Zsuzsi is now pursuing her MA in Food Systems Policy and Planning at the University of British Columbia, while Andrew builds on PEAS' legacy by making local produce available to the McMaster community.

The experience of working for positive change locally and globally unites students and community members, and builds momentum to ensure the kind of world we want is built, one OPIRG project at a time.

Annual Gandhi Peace Festival

Beyond Steel

Having bought back free time

Porches ridicule and humiliate no longer.

All afternoons are opportune.

United neighbours sit and sip

Idly on sun seared stoops

As they are lovingly licked

With lovely licks:

Of youthful uke

Melody from freckled fretted fingers

And midday warmth.

While across the way

Reluctant parents solicit abduction

Sending infants spilling out of houses

To slosh about in the streets

And run untamed with the horde

Like anarchic elephants

Tramping under laundry lines

Where garments fly in mosaics

(The waving flags of this block),

And stampeding between the relatives of their rentals

For only one species exists here

And familial resemblances

Are buried behind vine

That Ancaster would call OVERgrown.

Overgreen.

Come night we wolves howl.

Beckoning Bengals with banjo,

Calling tomcats to rooftops.

Forever free to roam

Without a bed time

And finally hearing a curious alternative to:

Cars squealing and slamming shut

Bass gone low,

Prelude to:

Touch down of lover’s right

Leaving mother black as the night.

But me,

I’ve learned to see past steel.

Ben Robinson

I am a native Hamiltonian and now a 1st year Social Science student at McMaster. I like downtown, quesadillas, stringed instruments, fall, novellas, and climbing structures of any kind. I hope that one day I will be able to journey within the Arctic Circle.

scenes from a workshop

Anti-Oppression facilitators in action this morning

Some of the morning's participants

OPIRG's first term Core Values workshops were well attended and created a positive space to explore these important aspects of our work for social justice and environmental integrity.

Using theatre and group discussion, Anti-Oppression facilitators Cat Cayuga and Rosemary Aswani brought out the issues of anti-oppression and power dynamics, and how to become an ally of oppressed people for two dozen students and community members.

The afternoon was two hours on Consensus Decision Making with facilitator Rae Mitchell. The dynamic and egalitarian group decision-making process was explored and examined in rich detail, with participants gaining valuable insight into how to apply consensus in their working groups and in their lives.

We will repeat both workshops in second term, so make sure you are subscribed to our event list so you won't miss out!

Poverty Walk and Rally, Sept. 29

Disclaimer: this is not an official opirg mcmaster sponsored event, and is posted for information purposes only. Please contact the event organizers with any questions or concerns.

Weekend Workshops Room Change

Due to the popularity of the Anti-Oppression and Consensus Workshops running this Saturday, we've had to take a larger room - so now we are in room 311-313 McMaster University Student Centre - ALSO: the Anti-Oppression workshop is full, but there are a few places left in the Consensus Workshop 1-3pm.
Please use the online registration to get a spot.

The workshops will be repeated in second term.

bring us your pop tabs!

Online form was down, back up again for workshop registration

Hi - the online registration was offline for some reason most of today, but is back up and running over at jotform - Register yourselves for our Saturday, September 24 workshops on Anti-Oppression (10am to 12 noon) and/or Consensus Decision Making (1-3pm) all held in Togo Salmon Hall room 719.

You must pre-register, and if you are taking both workshops on the same day, OPIRG will supply some light vegetarian fare.

Workshops are free for full-time McMaster Undergraduates, and paid OPIRG Community members ($10/year) - all others pay $20 per workshop, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

COLOMBIA - Tonight!

VIOLENT DISPLACEMENT, PARAMILITARY ATTACKS AND THEIR RELATION TO THE STATE IN PRESENT DAY COLOMBIA: CONTINUITY OR CHANGE FROM URIBE TO SANTOS

DATE:    WEDNESDAY, SEPT 14, 2011

TIME:     7:30 PM

PLACE:   McMASTER UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTRE,        

                  ROOM 1A4, HAMILTON, ON

ALL ARE WELCOME, ENTRANCE IS FREE

SPEAKER: Ms JASMIN HRISTOV,  

ADVANCED PHD CANDIDATE IN SOCIOLOGY ATYORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO AND RESEARCH ASSOCIATE AT THE CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ONLATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (CERLAC). SHE IS THE AUTHOR OF Blood and Capital: the Paramilitarization of Colombia (Ohio University Press 2009). HER OTHER PUBLICATIONS HAVE APPEARED IN THE Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, Journal of Peasant Studies, Social Justice, Latin American Perspectives, NACLA Report on the Americas, and Labour, Capital and Society. JASMIN IS CURRENTLY THE CO-EDITOR OF THE FORTHCOMING VOLUME Paramilitarism in 21st century Latin America and the Caribbean.

Sponsors: Philosophy Dept. McMaster University, CUPE 3906, OPIRG McMaster, Amnesty International Group 1, Circulo Bolivariano Louis RielHamilton chapter

For more information contact G Sorger, 905 525 9140 ext 24764,sorger@mcmaster.ca

where you eat - Thursday at 1pm

ALT WW Calendar

DIY Cosmetics during ALTWelcome Week

Do It Yourself Cosmetics
FREE EVENT

September 14th, 2011 [tomorrow!]MUSC room 230
3:30 - 4:30pm

Learn how to use regular ingredients to create truly natural beauty! Free of chemicals & dyes and good to your skin. An economic alternative to purchasing beauty products.

We will be making during this tutorial: "Deodorant" and "Body Scrub"

SUPPLIES WILL BE PROVIDED.

To sign up e-mail: altww@opirg.ca 

Only 12 positions! E-mail soon to guarantee a spot.

FREE EVENT

E-Mail Events List!

Hi - we've entered all the e-mails from the sign-in sheets at Clubs Fest, and sent out our weekly events listing moments ago - check your spam filter to make sure we didn't get sent to the wrong folder, and if you don't see anything from opirg mcmaster, we may have had trouble deciphering your writing - the easiest way to join our events list is to subscribe yourself. Super easy, and you will get a once a week listing of OPIRG events!

HSR Bike Rack display

OPIRG McMaster and the city of Hamilton bus service (HSR) set up a bike bus rack in front of the student centre this afternoon from 3-4:30pm to give the McMaster community a chance to try out the front-mounted bike racks found on all city buses, and GO buses. In a supportive environment people got to try out the simple-to-use racks that can hold two bikes. We also handed out city cycling maps to all participants who stopped by to pick up a new skill in their sustainable transportation tool box!

PIRGTOPIA Today!

The drum circle calls you to PIRGtopia - underway right now in the #McMaster Student Centre - come meet the volunteers in our 15 working groups! and a bit of giant puppetry and dancing!

OPIRG Working Groups for 2011-2012

• Body Equity
• Community Volunteer Action
• Guatemala
• Hamilton Freeskool
• Hamilton Haiti Action Network
• Hamilton Students Community Initiative
• Hamilton Womyn's Bike Crew
• Just Stop!
• McMaster First Nations Students Association (MFNSA)
• McMaster Green Roof Working Group
• mi water (McMaster's Initiative for Water)
• OPIRG Food For Life At McMaster
• Save More Students (SMS)
• Students for Social Justice
• ThreadWork

check the opirg.ca web site to find out more about our volunteer working groups and how you can get involved!

CC Rider