So, the new year is already in full force and you’ve likely started your new year’s resolution of cutting cheese out of your diet or turning your Meatless Mondays into Meatless Everyday. Heck, maybe you’re already vegan and your goal is to finally make that taco recipe from Terry Hope Romero’s Viva Vegan or spend some time volunteering at Maple Farm Sanctuary.

VegWorcester is setting our goals for the new year as well and we’re getting psyched to make some big announcements soon about our upcoming VegFest. It got us thinking; maybe we should briefly pause to reflect on the kick ass things that happened during the last 12 months in the microcosm of Worcester from a veg-head point of view. So, here goes…

In 2011…

• VegWorcester started the year off strong by hosting our second Mac Daddy Mac N’ Cheeze Cook-off, and the winner was WooDaddy Waffles!
• Duck Yao, the formerly underground vegan eatery made a comeback in Worcester, opening a small sit-in and take-out restaurant on Main Street in Worcester.
• VegWorcester members took trips to view veg-themed films such as Forks Over Knives in Boston and a showing of Bold Native at WPI in Worcester.
• In April, VegWorcester hosted the 2nd annual Worcester VegFest. We estimate that approximately 3,000 attendees came to the event at Worcester State University that included speakers Bruce Friedrich, Tracye McQuirter, Will Potter, and an awesome cooking demo by Terry Hope Romero. We had family-friendly performances, 40+ ethical and cruelty-free exhibitors, coverage in a variety of online/print/news media, and feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
• After a city-wide crackdown on curiously tasty vegan cupcakes (Okay, we’re exaggerating there,)VegWorcester’s vegan bake sale fundraiser was shut down. In response, we took it upon ourselves to legalize bake sales in the city of Worcester.
• VegWorcester started a more regular monthly general volunteer meeting where we discuss ideas for vegan outreach and invite anyone who is interested to join us and get involved.
• VegWorcester raised money with your help and created a snazzy updated Summer version of the Worcester Vegetarian Dining Guide. 5,000 copies were distributed over the summer around Worcester County. 5,000 more copies of a newly updated Fall version of the guide have also now been distributed in the thousands! …..Wow!
• Volunteers leafleted at local universities and events, and did a ton of tabling outreach at just about every summer and fall festival in out city including the 3th Annual Pet Rock Festival, Start on The Street: Spring Edition, 2011 Fall StART On The Street, King St. Block Party, Open Road Festival, 21st Century Worcester Pride, Main Street Celebrates, and more.
• As a community with many animal activists, we joined with other local groups and protested Ringling Circus, Fur as “fashion,” McDonalds cruelty, and other animal abuses.
• Local animal rights defenders such as Michael Budkie of SAEN and Alexis Fox of The Humane Society came to Worcester to educate about abuses in our own state and what we can do as a community to have the most impact.
• In the fall many of us enjoyed vegan “Thanks-living” celebrations such as the free SAVVY Vegan Thanksgiving at Clark University.
• Loving Hut celebrated 2 years of Loving Hut Buffet fundraisers, and continued to donate 10% of buffet profits to VegWorcester to support our outreach to help animals.
• Finally, to close out the year with a bang, VegWorcester hosted its 1st annual Holiday Vegan Cookie Swap complete with a vegan Santa. We had 24 entrants with bakers swapping over 1,500 vegan cookies!

If you’re interested in getting involved with VegWorcester or the 3rd annual Worcester VegFest, come to our General – Volunteer Meeting this Tuesday, January 17th @ WPI (Taylor Room – Campus Ctr) from 7pm~8:30pm and we’ll get you up to speed on what we have planned for 2012!

The five activists are arguing that the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) has had a real impact on their constitutionally-protected activism. When the bill was being discussed in congress, Worcester students protested at House Rep’s office in downtown Worcester. As a result, Jim McGovern pledged to work to overturn the bill.

Worcester Opposed the “Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act” from the Start

Today’s Telegram & Gazette ran a piece about the lawsuit, “Animal rights activists sue to challenge 2006 law”, but this isn’t the first time they ran a story about the AETA. Before it was passed, Worcester activists were running a phone-bank to tell congress to stop the bill. After it passed in 2006, Worcester students (myself included!) sounded the alarm with a loud protest outside of Representative Jim McGovern’s office in downtown Worcester. McGovern quickly issued a statement saying that he would work to overturn the AETA (Telegram story: “Animal Protesters Get Results“, 2006).

Why is the AETA so bad?

From Will Potter’s blog post about the new lawsuit on GreenistheNewRed.com:

The lawsuit seeks to strike down the law for violating the First and Fifth Amendments. Specifically, it argues that the law is unconstitutional for 3 reasons:

1. It is so broad that it has had a chilling effect on free speech. The law hasn’t outlawed animal rights activism, but it has made activists think twice about using their rights. This was the primary point I raised in my Congressional testimony against the law in 2006, and since then the political climate has become even more toxic. The first use of the law was based on activists allegedly chalking slogans on the sidewalk and wearing bandanas. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is an attempt by corporations to use the power of fear in order to silence their opposition.
2. The language is so vague that people can’t decipher what is illegal. The law’s criminalization of “interfering with” the operations of an animal enterprise, or causing a “loss of profits,” leave activists wondering if they could be labeled a terrorist for a successful lawful campaign. This is compounded by the law’s emphasis on “tertiary targeting”: it not only protects animal enterprises,” but any business that does business with an animal enterprise. When politicians, the courts, lawyers, and national organizations cannot agree on the meaning of this law, it is dangerously overbroad.
3. It singles out animal rights activist because of their political beliefs and their effective advocacy. Meanwhile, violence by anti-abortion extremists is not being labeled as terrorism. For more on this: “If Sarah Palin Were an Animal Rights Activist, She’d Have Already Been Convicted of ‘Terrorism.” Singling out groups of people because of their political beliefs, and restricting their First Amendment rights, is

Read the rest of the blog post, “New Lawsuit Challenges the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act as Unconstitutional“…

This news comes via Will Potter, author of Green Is The New Red and a presenter at the 2011 Worcester VegFest. If you missed his presentation, we have the video of his full 2011 presentation online for free.

From “A Very Vegan Weekend” by Kaitlyn on the Tye Dye Files blog:

The take-home point of Alexis’ presentation was that citizen advocates have power. To me, this is an encouraging message. It’s easy to feel like your word is lost in the shuffle and that the effort to make changes on a governmental level is useless, but hearing an inside perspective changed those views. I want to share with you a few tips from the workshop that I found helpful. And these apply to any form of advocacy, not just animal rights.

1. More time taken is more meaningful in the eyes of your legislator. The more you inconvenience yourself to lobby your views, the more seriously you’ll be taken. A visit to your legislator means more than a phone call which means more than an email.

2. Do whatever you have time for. If you can’t find time to visit your legislator personally, make the phone call. Every little bit helps. In fact, despite the little interest with which a phone call or email is often met, each contact about a particular bill is a checkmark in your column. Often a legislator will base a decision on which side had the most votes from those he or she represents.

3. Get the public involved. Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper, attend public meetings and state your opinions. Do whatever it takes to get people talking and get your legislator listening.

4. Know the bill number and name. In Massachusetts currently there are over 8000 bills on the table. The bill number is an extremely important piece of information to make sure your opinion is heard and also to boost credibility.

5. Be clear and concise. State your opinion in an intelligent manner and don’t vent. Maintain your credibility.

6. Get to know your legislator. People are willing to do more for those they know, so get to know your legislator. Personal touches are always welcomed and remembered. Thank them for work on past bills that you supported. Develop that relationship so you’re memorable and your voice stands out.

Alexis was well-spoken and personable. I left feeling like animal activism is not a radical and impossible battle front but an attainable and worthy cause, and I have a newfound respect for the Humane Society and their work.

Read the rest of Kaitlyn’s blog post…

You also can become a fan of The Humane Society in Massachusetts on facebook and sign up to receive email action alerts from HSUS.

Good notes, Kaitlyn!

The Massachusetts state director for the Humane Society will be giving a presentation on Effective Animal Advocacy (facebook event) at Loving Hut at 11am. Right afterwards, there will the monthly all-vegan buffet fundraiser at Loving Hut (also on facebook). The workshop is free, but if you stick around for the buffet it’s $10 and 10% of your check is donated to VegWorcester.

If you still haven’t had enough excitement, join Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition at 2pm for an anti-fur protest at the Greendale Mall. Many of the members will be at the buffet, so you can likely carpool from there.

On Saturday, December 10 from 11am-noon, the Massachusetts state director of the Humane Society of the United States will be joining us in Worcester for a special (free) workshop on how to effectively get active for animals in our little Commonwealth. Followed by Loving Hut’s awesome monthly vegan buffet.

Join Alexis Fox for Effective Advocacy for Animals (RSVP on facebook) at Loving Hut at 415 Chandler St. She’ll be presenting at 11, an hour before the monthly vegan buffet. This is a great opportunity to learn about how to get active for

If you are concerned about animal cruelty, farm animal protection, protecting wildlife, or creating a more compassionate Massachusetts, you should attend this informative and motivational meeting to learn how you can help. This is about building a solid movement for animals in our state. Alexis will be discussing some important legislative that is pending in our state.

The monthly Loving Hut buffet will follow at noon. By now you must know that Loving Hut hosts a totally kick-ass monthly vegan buffet fundraiser for VegWorcester on the second Saturday of every month. It’s only $10 and you can eat as much vegan mock meats as you can handle. Come for the workshop and stick around for a lunch afterwards.

Can you help us promote this workshop?

You can print out our event flyer (pdf) and hang it up at your work or around town. Or you could spend a few minutes and invite your animal-loving friends on facebook. And most importantly, attend yourself! Maybe bring a friend or your mom.

This summer we started by ordering 5000 copies of our 2011 Veg Dining Guide. Some awesome people pitched in to raise the money to get them printed. Here’s the good news, we already distributed all 5000 of them! We distributed all of them in only 3 months. 3 months! Last year we distributed 5000 copies over an entire year. So now we ordered 5000 more.

Based on feedback, we made a couple of small updates and ordered a new batch. The new edition fixed some small typos, updated our meeting place, and added some events listings.

Help us distribute them – Monday, Nov 21

The next step is to get these guides into the hands of Worcesterites. They aren’t doing any good sitting on a shelf. Want to volunteer to help hand them out? On Monday, November 21 at 9am a group of VegWorcester volunteers will be meeting at the Bean Counter on Highland street to do some leafleting at colleges. We’ll pick a couple of schools, break up into small teams and then spend a few  hours on campuses handing them out, along with some booklets from Vegan Outreach. After that we’ll restock our displays at the restaurants listed in the guide. We should be done by about 1pm.

Or if you can’t make it on Monday, but want a stack to distribute, drop me a line and we can get you a stack.

If you can join us on Monday or want to get a stack to distribute on your own, email drew@VegWorcester.com.

Halloween is coming up, and we’ve got quite the fun action planned for all of you! Get into the holiday spirit and join local activists for a fun, light-hearted demonstration outside of McDonald’s on Saturday, October 22, at 12:00 p.m. in order to remind passersby that flesh is for zombies. That’s right: Eating corpses is creepy!

Don’t leave your costumes at home! Feel free to get as creative as you can with zombie costumes and makeup, but you’re also welcome to just show up as your normal, wonderful self and hold a sign. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

What: “Flesh Is for Zombies” protest at McDonald’s
When: Saturday, October 22, 12:00 p.m.–1:00 p.m.
Where: On the public sidewalk outside of McDonald’s, 982 Grafton Street, Worcester, MA

All materials will be provided. Also, please note that reserved parking will not be available.
For any questions or to RSVP via e-mail, contact  MelissaSehgal@hotmail.com

RSVP – FACEBOOK EVENT

We met up at 9 and finished by 11. It didn’t take much time. The 5 of us split up into two groups: two people to Worcester State and three people to Clark. Our original plan was to hand out booklets at WPI, but we remembered that WPI has almost no classes on Wednesdays. Bummer. Next time. We handed out the Vegan Outreach booklets with the VegWorcester guide right on top. At Clark, a lot of people were excited when they saw the dining guide. In fact, a few people said no at first, but then gave it a second thought and came back to get the dining guide.

Clark wasn’t very busy today, but we caught 2 class changes. Apparently Worcester State was pretty hopping, though. The two pamphleteers actually ran out of booklets and had to run back to the car during one of the class changes. It’s great that we’re getting these into people’s hands, but we’re almost out of the Veg Worcester Dining Guides! Yikes! We need to do another 5k printing asap.

See some photos on flickr.
Big ups to the four other volunteers, Manda, Greg, Julia, and Erin.

Michael Budkie of  Stop Animal Exploitation Now!  will give a presentation at Loving Hut Chandler  tonight, Monday, September 26th on animal exploitation and exposing the truth of animal experimentation in laboratories.  Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! (SAEN) was founded in 1996 to force an end to the abuse of animals in laboratories. The event will begin at 6pm, with Loving Hut serving vegan food, and the lecture will follow from 7:00pm-8:45pm

“Michael Budkie, A.H.T., is the co-founder & Executive Director of Stop Animal Exploitation NOW! (SAEN). After witnessing the atrocities of animal experimentation during his education, he successfully ended a head injury experiment on cats at the Univ. of Cincinnati. In the mid-1990s, Michael founded SAEN, which works to terminate research projects & force the USDA to take legal action against laboratories. He has been published & travels extensively, appearing on TV & radio programs to expose the truth about animal experimentation.”

RSVP to this event on Facebook.

For more info or questions about this event- contact Jamie at 978-265-9503

Also check out SAEN’s website for more information about Michael and his work.

]]> http://VegWorcester.com/2011/09/26/michael-budkie-stop-animal-exploitation-presentation-event/feed/ 0 http://VegWorcester.com/2011/08/31/vegworcester2011focus/ http://VegWorcester.com/2011/08/31/vegworcester2011focus/#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:00:10 +0000 Manda Rose http://VegWorcester.com/?p=4412

VegWorcester has been busy this year and we thought we’d share some of the projects we’ve been workin on…

WINTER/SPRING 2011: Last winter we had a small awesome group putting together the entire 2011 WorcesterVegFest. Our group met weekly, organizing everything to do with a kick-ass vegan festival for about 3,000 people. We had several fundraising events, including the wildly popular Mac Daddy Vegan Mac n Cheeze Cook-off. A bunch of volunteers stepped up to help as the event crept closer. VegFest was a lot of work but a huge success with tons of positive feedback and we surely made an impact on the city.  After the VegFest, VegWorcester members kept meeting weekly and talked about using the VegFest momentum to focus our ideas into action! Oh yeah, and we legalized bake sales in Worcester.

SUMMER 2011: We started a monthly general meeting as a way to connect our super volunteers and also as a way to get fresh ideas from the vegetarian community around us. We focused our efforts on creating and editing the 2011 Worcester Veg Dining Guide and fundraising for the summer printing. We raised $500 thanks to our friends and supporters who gave generously to get the word out about veg eats in our city!  At our monthly meetings, we decided to combine various outreach methods into one tool, (the guide.) Our plan: By leafleting the dining guide along with outreach pamphlets (like these), we’d promote & support local veg-friendly businesses,  inform people about animal cruelty horrors like factory farming, provide ideas for vegan meals, and spread the word about our group. In August we printed 5,000 copies and started distribution of the dining guide!  We also took part in veg-related movie showings and other Worcester events like the monthly Loving Hut buffet fundraisers.

UPCOMING FALL 2011 FOCUS: VegWorcester is gearing up for some major fall festival outreach, college campus outreach, and a second printing of the dining guide. Its gonna be sweet. We’re also planning events like veg movie showings, potlucks, a tasty holiday cookie swap, and even getting ready to start brainstorming for next year’s VegFest! Yes, we said it. But more about all that soon!

WANT TO HELP?  LOVE BEING VEG? ARE YOU AWESOME? Join us September 20th for our monthly general meeting! Keep up to date with events by joining our email list, subscribing to our blog, and “liking” our Facebook page. Thank you for the continued community support and for all the amazing work our volunteers are doing to get the word out about compassion for ALL animals.