Thursday, June 6
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| 7:30-8:25 AM | REGISTRATION, CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST – in the River Garden | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8:30-9:15 AM | PLENARY SESSION: Making Money in Agriculture- Lessons from the Wine Business
– The River Garden Session DetailsCharlie Merinoff will discuss how to promote and create value in agricultural brands that are currently sold as commodities. “My families passions are biodynamic farming, craft food and beverage, Edible Magazine, and giving back. It is through this lens that I filter my business ethos. My deep understanding of value added business is also a passion of mine. I will explain, for example what the core difference is between a $4.99 bottle of wine and a $2,995 bottle of wine, is there really a difference or is it just perception?”
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Keynote Speaker: Charlie Merinoff | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 9:15-10:00 AM | PLENARY SESSION: Heifer USA — Growing Farmers, Food and Community
– The River Garden Session DetailsContent goesHeifer Ranch is returning to its agricultural roots by scaling up its livestock and market garden enterprises. Combined with this is a focus on training smallholder farmers for success. Donna’s talk will describe the growth process at the Ranch and Heifer USA’s commitment to growing farmers, healthy food and community. here
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Keynote Speaker: Donna Kilpatrick | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 – 10:30 AM |
BREAK |
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| 10:30 AM – NOON | BREAKOUT SESSIONS | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Women in the Workplace, How to Approach Both Challenge and Success – The River Garden Session DetailsThis panel discussion will challenge the gender assumptions that exist in today’s workplace. While the topic of gender equality has been around for decades, progress has been slow. We have learned that there is a lot of work to do. Gender bias is still very prevalent in the workplace, which plays out on many days and in many ways. Working women face a unique set of challenges that intersect with race/ethnicity, gender, and culture. Often these challenges vary depending on the industry and the company culture. We will discuss techniques and strategies to help address both explicit and implicit bias in the workplace, how to support women in leadership roles, as well as how to break gender stereotypes. There will be time set aside for questions and discussion.
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Presenters: Christine Hallquist, Marni Karlin, Meghan Ireland, Emily Harrison | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Innovation in Agriculture: Leaders in Change – Brooks Memorial LibrarySession DetailsPanelists will talk about the ways that they are contributing to change in food systems. From flavor maker at General Mills, promoting organic practices in farming to revamping a third generation family farm, these change makers are changing foods in new and interesting ways.
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Moderator: Roger Allbee
Presenters: Christine Ng, Jesse Laflamme, Amber Sciligo
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The Hospitality Industry – The River Garden
Session DetailsIt’s no secret that working in the restaurant industry can be taxing, but not everyone has the same experience. Women leaders in from successful restaurant(s) talk about their experience, successes and failures and what they have learned about their business and about themselves along the way.
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Moderator: Richard French
Presenters: Caroline Corrente, Amy Chamberlain, Danielle Boyce |
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Co-ops, Sustainability and Scale – Brattleboro Food Coop
Session DetailsThis panel will spotlight creative ways of sustaining and scaling innovative ideas and their community impact through the cooperative business model. Powerful cooperative ideas have shaped and are reshaping local economics in New England and women are leading the way. Addie Rose Holland of Real Pickles, Amanda Freund of Freund’s Farm Market & family farmer-owner of Cabot Creamery Co-operative, & Heather Wright of Wright Jones PLC, will join moderator Kaeleigh Barker of Cooperatives for a Better World in discussing what cooperatives are, their individual work with cooperatives, their leadership experiences in driving innovative business ideas & positively impacting in their communities, and offering reflections for those interested in joining or starting cooperatives.
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Moderator: Kaeleigh Barker Van Valkenburgh
Presenters: Heather Wright, Amanda Freund, Addie Rose Holland |
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Grow Food Everywhere!: Regenerate Soil, Restore Climate, Revitalize Community – Key Bank Session DetailsGet inspired in this energizing, interactive workshop with Deb Habib, co-founder of Seed of Solidarity Farm and Education Center in Orange MA, Healthy food and a more connected, sacred relationship to nature and each other are essential to personal and community resilience in these times. Through slides and interactive conversation, beginning and experienced growers will gain practical ideas for using local resources to create low maintenance gardens from lawns to lots to farms while conserving water, helping restore the climate, and promoting food access and diverse community partnerships.
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Presenter: Deb Habib | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| NOON – 1:30 PM | Lunch Breakout and Food Demo: Seasonal Spring Rolls – The River Garden
Session DetailsSpring rolls make a beautiful appetizer with colorful seasonal vegetables and garden fresh herbs. As the seasons change you can substitute ingredients and create colorful mosaic patterns with numerous combinations of salad greens, grated, marinated, pickled, seasonal vegetables, edible flowers, herbs and more. Plus, with climate change, this “yoga in the kitchen” flexible approach to mixing and matching local ingredients may be the key to lessening our carbon footprint and eating well throughout the year. Join Leslie Cerier, The Organic Gourmet farm to table vegetarian chef, author and cooking teacher for a cooking demonstration and some tasty spring rolls.
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Presenter: Leslie Cerier | |||||||||||||||||||||
| NOON – 12:30 PM |
Music in the River GardenProvided by local heroes The Full Catastrophe |
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| NOON – 1:30 PM |
Access LunchesHave lunch with one of the Summit’s speakers at a downtown restaurant. Sign up at morning registration. Each lunch has 9 seats available.
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| 1:45 – 3:10 PM | PLENARY SESSION: Place-Based Food Business Creation and Investing – The River Garden
Diving into the incredible depth of knowledge of Cathy Berry formerly of Vermont Smoke and Cure and Co-Founder of Slow Money and BALLE, Lisa Lorimer, Founder of Vermont Bread Company and Co- Founder of MamaSezz and Orly Munzing, Founder of Strolling of the Heifers, Slow Living Summit and Windham Grows are women who have been part of meteoric growth and positive change in the food industry. They will exchange views on the following topics. As investors, considering a nonprofit as an investor too, how to we invest in what is truly needed and not add to the waste? How do we ensure that our communities are fed healthy food? How do we invest and work collaboratively, ensuring that all benefit from our investment – community, workers, Earth, investors, entrepreneurs, farmers, etc? How are our actions providing a model for others to use?
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Keynote Speakers: Cathy Berry, Lisa Lorimer, Orly Munzing | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 3:15-3:30 PM |
BREAK |
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| 3:30 – 5:00 PM | BREAKOUT SESSIONS | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Keynote Breakout – The River Garden
Session DetailsIn this follow-up to the keynote discussion with Cathy Berry, Orly Munzing and Lisa Lorimer, space will be given to investors, entrepreneurs, workers, community members, farmers and anyone else who is interested to have a conversation about the past, present, and future of food business.
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Presenters:Cathy Berry, Lisa Lorimer | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pitch Workshop, Let Your Ideas Shine
– Brooks Memorial Library Session DetailsLearn an overview of best practices in pitching for money for your business. This workshop is hands-on and will help you practice your business’s pitch.
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Presenters: Gwen Pokalo, Cairn Cross | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Cooperative Ownership – our path to owning our workplace! – Brattleboro Food Coop
Session DetailsJaquelyn Fernandez Rieke, Liz Knapp and Martina Anderson are the leaders of Nutty Steph’s chocolate company, but for them, business is more than making chocolate… and even more than just making money! In a business dedicated to community building and worker empowerment, how does a business balance the multiple bottom lines? We have found ways to disseminate power through consensus-based work teams, while also maintaining efficiency through delegation and leadership. During this talk, you will have the opportunity to examine how your business or organization can be a powerful engine for nourishing the community, how to think about power dynamics in the workplace, how to balance efficiency and consensus-building, and other means of deepening your workplace experience through smart values and innovative systems.
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Presenters: Nutty Steph’s: Jaquelyn Rieke, Martina Anderson and Liz Knapp | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5:00 – 7:30 PM | Meetup for networking & socializing – Mocha Joe’s Roasting Co., 35 Frost St, Brattleboro, VT 05301 Live music by local heroes The Full Catastrophe |
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Friday, June 7
Access LunchesHave lunch with one of the Summit’s speakers at a downtown restaurant. Sign up at morning registration. Each lunch has 9 seats available.
Time |
Session |
Details |
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| 7:30-8:25 AM | REGISTRATION, CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST – in the River Garden | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8:30-10 AM | PLENARY SESSION – Taking Action for the Environment: Become the Person Your Ancestors Would Be Proud Of
As we look at what democracy looks like, and say we want to build a kind and loving country, say we want to build something great, I think we need to look to our roots and the lessons learned from indigenous people. A democracy is something you make with your hands and your heart, and when we make this, it is not just with words — it also takes your actions. – The River Garden |
Keynote Speaker: Winona LaDuke | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 10:00 – 10:30 AM |
BREAK |
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| 10:30 AM – NOON | BREAKOUT SESSIONS | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Women in Agriculture: Telling our Stories and Finding the Balance – Brattleboro Food Coop Session DetailsWhat does balance mean to you? Work life balance is something that so many of us struggle with, but what does that mean when your home is so intrinsically tied to how you make a living? Donna Kilpatrick, Amy Richardson, Hannah Sessions and Abbie Corse will discuss how they find balance in what can sometimes be a hectic career path, and will share what Slow Living means to them.
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Moderator: Anson Tebbetts
Presenters: Donna Kilpatrick, Hannah Sessions, Amy Richardson, Abbie Corse |
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Know Your Rights: Law in the Era of #metoo – Key Bank
Session DetailsThe #MeToo movement brought to light the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in the workplace and in our society as a whole. This session will cover recent changes to the legal framework of sexual harassment in the employment context, as well as both proactive and reactive steps that managers, owners, and entrepreneurs can take to help eradicate sexual harassment from the workplace.
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Presenter: Heather Wright | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| The Social, Economic, and Ecological Benefits of a Diverse Food System
– The River Garden Session DetailsThe demographics are rapidly changing in our regional New England economy. Some of our New England food producers and harvesters are responding to the cultural tastes of this changing economy. There are significant opportunities to expand into new markets and to support an equitable and secure food system. The workshop will focus on the past, present and future of diversifying farming and food systems in New England.
The issues and opportunities addressed in this workshop include: Defining ethnic crops, ethnic catch, and ethnic meats Social benefits of valuing the role of immigrant farmers who have the knowledge of growing ethnic crops Economic benefits of connecting to farmers, harvesters, and value-added food producers with the new markets in urban markets Ecological benefits of culturally connected foods grown and sold within New England * Audience: farmers, harvesters, and food policy makers |
Presenter: Nicola Williams | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Women Founders – Real Life Startup Stories from Windham Grows – Brooks Memorial LibrarySession Details Women are particularly active as founders in the food and agriculture industry. 75% of businesses in the Windham Grows business accelerator are women-owned. In this session you will hear true-to-life startup stories of women founders that beat the odds and scaled up their businesses. Also, you’ll hear how accelerators like Windham Grows helps them navigate the many complexities of startup and growth.
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Moderators: Cairn Cross and Jim Verzino
Presenters: Ingrid Chrisco, Kate Dodge, Andrea Ogden, Allesandra Rellini |
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Wholesale Success: Four Steps to Getting Your Product on the Retail Shelf – River Garden
Session DetailsCapturing that wholesale buyer’s attention is hard, and you have only one chance to make a positive impression. Alli Ball, Former Grocery Buyer & Head of Grocery from Bi-Rite Market in San Francisco, shares her four-step framework for ensuring you’re prepared, confident, and ready to get that buyer to say “yes!” to carrying your product line.
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Presenter: Alli Ball | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| NOON – 1:30 PM |
Access LunchesHave lunch with one of the Summit’s speakers at a downtown restaurant. Sign up at morning registration. Each lunch has 9 seats available.
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| 2:00-3:30 PM | BREAKOUT SESSIONS | ||||||||||||||||||||||
The Money Menu – The River Garden
Session DetailsEntrepreneurs will learn about the opportunities open to them from traditional to more unconventional. Learn about the various types of “alternative” loans available, including subordinated debt, convertible debt, and royalty financing, and which type of financing may be most appropriate for your business. Lenders will also be on hand to answer your questions about The Money Menu.
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Presenters: Louisa Schibli, Becca Schrader | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Easy Ways You Can Invest in Vermont Women TODAY – Brooks Memorial Library
Session DetailsWant to invest locally, in women-owned and -managed businesses and organizations, but don’t know where to start? Good news: there are a number of opportunities and approaches in Vermont to doing exactly that, from values-led asset management to community investing networks. Join us for a panel discussion and Q&A about the impact investing state of the State, including the Vermont Community Loan Fund, Vermont Women Investors Network and Clean Yield Asset Management.
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Moderator: Jake Ide
Presenters: Laury Saligman, Janice Shade, Karin Chamberlin |
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YOU Can Influence Food Policy: Strategies for Advocacy – Brooks Memorial Library
Session DetailsEver wonder what the laws and regulations are governing our food system, and how you can make them better? Many people think they can’t make a difference in what laws and policies exist, and how they are implemented and enforced – but that’s just not true. Join Marni Karlin, founder and principal of Karlin Strategic Consulting, to learn more about the different food laws and policies out there, and advocacy tactics you can use to make sure they make sense. We will discuss specific ways you can influence policy-makers and make a difference. There will be time set aside for questions and discussion.
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Presenter: Marni Karlin | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Building Connection to Place through Food: Stories both Urban and Rural – Key Bank Session DetailsHow do we acknowledge the past, its systems in existence today and the effects on people and their relationship to the land while working to envisioning a regenerative worldview? How do we cultivate a deep relationship to place or land, especially in contexts of displacement, or the modern urban alienation from the natural world? How do we build food systems that strengthen people’s connection to place, land, and community? This panel brings together perspectives from pioneering initiatives – both urban and rural – working on issues of food justice, community health, and regenerative agriculture. It showcases real-world examples of the potential of food systems and food traditions to honor one’s community and its residents and transform people’s relationship to the land, to themselves and each other.
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Moderator: Udi Mandel Butler
Presenters: Jamila Gaskins, Mari Stuart |
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| Women’s Business Journeys – Latchis Theatre Session DetailsWhat does it mean to run a viable business, steward positive workplace culture, and invest in our working lands as entrepreneurs? Join us for a lively discussion with passionate, forward thinking business leaders who push the limits of what it means to be successful, innovative, AND a woman in the world of food and farming. Facilitated by Elena Gustavson, Business Advisor of the Vermont Community Loan Fund, [List panelists/businesses here] will share their stories of success, lessons learned, and what it really takes to do “woman’s work.”
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Moderator: Elena Gustavson
Presenters: Sas Stewart, Emily Benson, Linda Kuzior, Caitlin Caserta, Danya Landis |
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| 4:00-5:30 PM | FINAL PLENARY SESSION with Stacey Vanek Smith
– Latchis Theatre Session DetailsFor the Summit closeout, Stacey will talk about how money affects women in business. We have all heard the stats before, but Stacey will take a deeper dive and the reasons behind the numbers. After she breaks down some stats, she will take some time to ask some questions of the Summit’s Keynote speakers as a wrap-up for all of the ideas shared. The panel will also allow some Q&A time at the end to give the audience a chance to interact with the panel.
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Moderator: Stacey Vanek Smith
Presenters: Charlie Merinoff, Winona Laduke, Cathy Berry, Lisa Lorimer |
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| 5:30 -8:30 PM | Gallery Walk and Strolling of the Heifers Festival, Downtown Brattleboro & The Brattleboro Common | ||||||||||||||||||||||
SATURDAY, JUNE 8:
- 10 a.m.: Strolling of the Heifers Parade, Main Street.
- 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.: Slow Living Expo, Brattleboro Common and nearby areas
SUNDAY, JUNE 9:
- 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.: Farmers Breakfast, The Marina Restaurant, Putney Road
- 8 a.m through the day: Tour de Heifer 15, 30 and 60-mile farm-to-farm, dirt-road cycling rides, beginning and ending at Robb Family Farm,West Brattleboro
- 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.: Farm Tours — self-guided exploration of five unique and varied farms in the region