I am a footsoldier...

In the Holistic Mom Revolution! =)

I'm half-listening to a speech given by John McCain and he said he was a foot soldier in the Regan revolution. I am a foot soldier in the Holistic Mom Revolution!

Life would be a lot simpler if I didn't make the effort to go out there and make things happen for this group, attend events and reach out to others who may be looking for what we are trying to create. But oh the reward of helping people - especially other moms - in need!

I just came home from the LLL meeting and accepted a donation membership check and form from a momma who was in tears at the prospect of going back to work almost immediately b/c she is a single parent - and she has no family near by. My heart went out to her!

"It takes a village to raise a family." I know Sen Hillary Clinton has said this, and whether you support her or not that statement is true. Our HMN SD group will be that village of Holistic minded moms that we all need help from in today's often superficial and artificial world. If you are of like mind and heart, if you want to make an impact on your family's health and happiness, if you want to enrich and increase the quality of your family's lives, if you want to help others in your quest for what is best for your family's and our planets well being, please join me in creating this group! Join today, volunteer for a position, be a part of the Holistic Mom Revolution.

=) All my love to you, Andrea

Holistic Moms Network Open House!

I so wanted everything to go smoothly and everyone to feel welcome and have fun. I was sleepless for days with excitement over this, both before and last night - I wish I could switch my brain off on demand. =) It was such a success, with about twenty six holistic families represented by my count, two membership forms turned in that night and more promising to online! I was so excited I couldn't eat any of the yummy treats we had - I baked all day and others brought goodies too. We tried to stay low-eco impact with only napkins, asked people to bring their own beverage, and I brought my tablet pc for people to sign in on (I'm trying to stay as paperless as possible). As I looked around the room during the intros and saw so many faces of mommas I'd met in the past few months at one of the fifteen the informal meetups that I'd created leading up to that point I wanted to hug every one and share each one with the others that I'd met. I feel an unconditional love and acceptance for every one, and was so excited to see new faces of people I hadn't met yet. Isn't that neat? I'm so thrilled and looking forward to really getting to know everyone and forge deep friendships. I feel so strongly that this is possible with us going through such similar experiences with similar values and feelings, and it made me emotional at one point last night when I felt that realization of a dream coming true. The dream of creating a community of women who feel empathy for each other, share our knowledge freely, are passionate about making informed choices and supportive in our holistic motherhood journey.

I told my husband when we first met that I'd always had this desire to change the world for the better, but until this point I didn't know how I could do it. I realized last night that I was helping to do just that. Being able to meet and connect and help other women meet and connect with each other is just huge! Every day as time goes on I am really seeing the power of the word "Network" and why that is in our name. One mom was saying to me today on our weekly "Walk-N-Play" meetup that she really needed last night's meeting b/c she was able to talk to another mom about preschool frustrations. An acupuncturist momma told us she'll be working a few days at our meeting host's upcoming Holistic Healing center. I could hear by the level and tone of the conversation before and after the formal part of the meeting how excited people were and that the connections were being made last night. None of that would have happened if we didn't get this group going!

My co-Leaders Andrea and Michelle were wonderful and I was so proud to stand by their sides and lead the meeting! Michelle printed us name tags with the HMN logo on lanyards so we looked official. We had about a dozen raffle prizes and I brought in 15 of my treasured books to share, many leaving that night so the lending library was a hit! The vertical HMN banners with the nursing momma on it outside and inside were gorgeous and the room so cozy with toys for the little ones to play in the middle of our circle. We had a professional photographer mom who took photos and we had a volunteer greeter and helping with name tags for everyone. I couldn't have done all this without them helping to create this wonderful experience for us all. But I wanted to especially thank the HMN national leaders for making this organization happen and thank Katherine and Lauren b/c if I had not gone to their Tri-Vally OH last summer, I would not have been so inspired to do this, and it's becoming a life changing experience!

Spreading the word

I am so darn excited about our Holistic Moms Network! I have been scouring the net and searching for places to post our Open House. I've also been e-mailing a ton to get out the word to Holistic practitioners and businesses, and any groups who may have members who are interested (LLL, Babywearers, etc). I also posted a few times on Diaperswappers, Mothering Commune, babywearer, Tribe, MySpace, etc. Getting lots of phone calls, so I changed my VM to say "... of the SD chapter of H.M.N." like my manual says to.

I found this site to post to: Go City Kids, where we have a listing as well as an event posting. Yay!

I am so excited we may be getting a banner free from a sign maker in Pacific beach that Stacie's husband Rob is friends with! Yay! I found a beautiful pic of one I'd love to have above left. Wouldn't that be neat?

Here is the latest update on our chapter:

We have 70 members on our HMN interest list Meetup site, which has worked really well to get the word out about our chapter and the upcoming open house. Through it, I've met some wonderful moms and found some great places to meet. We've had 7 meetups so far. There are a few who may be great resources as speakers (look under the messages section, I think introductions has a few too).

One of our HMN members, Stacie Buechel (who donated the office and her time to help run our monthly meetings) is working on getting raffle prizes form local businesses, and sent out an e-mail to 500 people last night letting them know about our Open House! Michelle, Andrea & I selected her office when we got together this week Wednesday because of it's central location, her enthusiastic and generous help with the chapter and the fact that in summer when they open up their Holistic Center we'll move with them into a huge, fantastic meeting space right off the 5 (for free)!

I submitted the paperwork to get our chapter website online - they are working on it. Our chapter is called San Diego Central.

I contacted 35 local holistic businesses about our chapter and so far, have 3 interested in Sponsorship. I passed their info along to national since they handle it. We have 3 items donated for the raffle, and I have a few books I'm going to donate.

Places to hold meetings...

Today I spent several hours again scouting locations for our monthly meetings. I visited with the owners of SoChildish, a new children's boutique in South Park, both yesterday and today. They have a lovely big classroom space adjacent to their store. I negotiated the ability to hold one monthly night and one day meeting for us for free! The only problem is this space might be turned into retail in April if they can't make the space pay for itself. =(

I also visited with the owners of an in the works Holistic Health Center in Pacific Beach, right off the 5. It's going to be the largest of it's kind in San Diego! It's 5,000 square feet and will have a conference room for 75 people. They are really into education and seminars - they are going to have Dr Sears come down and lecture for them! I'm hoping we could do that too - vaccines would be an excellent topic. Stacie Buechel was so wonderful to meet, passionate about Holistic matters like I am, very energetic and friendly. She wants to help up as much as she can, though she is busy with the center's remodel. I am so happy one of our members, Kendra (who came out to our first walk 11 days postpartum! I was so impressed!), told her about us! I gave Stacie the rest of my brochures for her office. Oh, and did I mention we get to use that lovely new space (as well as their current space) for monthly meetings for FREE??? Thank you Universe for answering my prayers! =)

Fantastic first Meetup!

On Tuesday we had a meetup at Mission Bay for a nice walk and 12 mommies showed up with their babies. Here are some pics!

39 Meetup Members and Counting!

Yay! I am so excited that so many wonderful mommies are interested in being a part of our "Other Mothers" meetup and San Diego Holistic Moms Network Chapter. Today Andrea J. wrote to the San Diego Natural Families yahoo group to let them know we are just starting up and get some feedback to help create our chapter. I can't wait to have our kickoff meeting in January!