VITAL + VIBRANT | our home. our cause. our members.

25th Annual Meeting
November 9 – 10, 2012
Brookings, South Dakota

Plan to join us in celebrating 25 years of VITAL + VIBRANT organizing to protect South Dakotan’s unique way of life on Friday, November 9 and Saturday, November 10, 2012 here at our home base of Brookings, SD. Dakota Rural Action started in 1987 because of the farm crisis and continues today to advance agricultural, environmental and other rural and urban causes.

Join with others from across the state to celebrate with lively music, inspiring speakers, good homemade food, a chance to win original artwork, treasures from our silent auction, and an invigorating workshop. All members will have the opportunity to shape the future of DRA at the business meeting. Take a journey through the past with special history displays. You have played a part in that history, so come and celebrate the difference you have helped make for the people and resources of South Dakota.

It’s your history. It’s your future. It’s your celebration.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9TH

Brookings Public Library
12:30 – 3:30 pm – Mini POCO Training on Lobbying + Legislation with Kevin Williams

Old Fire Hall
5:30 – 9:30 pm – Evening Program
> Social & Hors d’oeuvres
> Speaker – Dr. Fred Kirschenmann
> DRA Awards
> Live music by Plum Crazy

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10TH
Community Life Center – Corner of 6th St & 7th Ave
8:00 am – Registration and light breakfast provided by Deuel County Chapter
8:30 am – 4:00 pm –  Business Meeting
> Chapter, Committee, WORC reports
> Election of Officers
> Skype Address – Bill McKibben
> Lunch provided by Brookings County Chapter
> DRA 25 yr History
> Member Panel – Building Leaders, Forward Thinkers
> Silent Auction & Art Raffle
> Resolutions

COST

Members: $35 (Friday $10, Saturday $25) | Non-Members: $45 (Friday $15, Saturday $30) | Students*: $20 (Friday $10, Saturday $10) *ID required for this rate

2012 ART RAFFLE

AERIAL FIELDS – Denise Du Broy
Oil on Yupo
 Framed Original – 27″ x 26″

Denise Du Broy’s oil paintings on Yupo paper explore the relationship between light, color, space and the rural landscape of South Dakota with intense vibrancy and original painting techniques. Du Broy and her family have lived and ranched buffalo in the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota since 1993.

Aerial Fields is an abstract, narrative landscape that is a bird’s eye view of the shapes and colors that dominate the Western Landscape. For more information about the artist visit denisedubroy.com or friend her on Facebook.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Frederick L. Kirschenmann is a national and international leader in sustainable agriculture, Distinguished Fellow for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at ISU, and manages his family’s 2,600-acre certified organic farm in North Dakota. Topic will be on anticipating the future, planning for change, and what grassroots groups can do. More info on Dr. Kirschenmann can be found HERE.

LODGING

Hotels in Brookings:
Comfort Inn
Days Inn – 605.692.9471
Fairfield Inn by Marriott – 605.692.3500
Hampton Inn & Suites – 605.697-5232
Holiday Inn Express & Suites – 605.692.9060
Quality Inn – 605.692.9566
Staurolite Inn & Suites – 605.692.3111
Super 8 – 605.692.6920

A heartfelt THANK YOU to the sponsors of our 25th Annual Meeting
Sioux River Bicycle & Fitness – Music Maker sponsor
Hillside Prairie Gardens
Brookings Area Habitat for Humanity
Co-op Natural Foods
Ernie November

For more information about the annual meeting, contact Linda Wilson at lindaw@dakotarural.org or 605.697.5204