equipoise news volume 10
June 2008
Pots are out, peas are planted and plans are afoot for a terrific summer break. But before we relax, we want to bring you up on what has been a very busy—and productive—spring.
Don’t Fence Me In screens at Jackson Hole Film Festival June 7th
2008 Atta Girl Awards announced –
we’ve got winners and Atta Boys to boot!
Spotlight on Wyoming Women event recap
Womentum and The Nature Conservancy co-host the
Women and Sustainability Conference in Jackson
The Equipoise Fund celebrates five years by taking a real summer break!
Don’t Fence Me In screens at the Jackson Hole Film Festival
Be sure to catch this moving collage of interviews with the women who make Wyoming their home when it screens on June 7th in Jackson. Don’t Fence Me In was selected as part of a special film festival showcase and is scheduled for a 10 a.m. screening at Center Theater in Center for the Arts. A panel discussion will follow, featuring Jordan Schreiber, one of the women highlighted in the film; former World Bank economist Barbara Herz; writer Cate Cabot; and Nancy Shea, educator, environmentalist and member of the Equality Initiatives leadership team. The discussion will focus on how we can foster and support interest in an active and engaged youth to help solve social and environmental issues at local—and global—levels. Tickets are $10 and are available at the Center for the Arts box office, or by calling 877.733.4901.
The film premiered to a full house on April 25th at the Rialto Theater in Casper, an appropriate opening for the Spotlight on Wyoming Women evening. Less than one week later, Don’t Fence Me In enjoyed its televised premiere on Wyoming Public Television. On May 31st, the documentary was shown at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and was followed by a panel discussion, “Creating a Path to Self-Sufficiency.”
DVDs of the film will be available for purchase within the next couple of months, but if you’d like to catch the film at a movie house, watch for showings in Riverton, Cody, Cheyenne, Saratoga, Sheridan and Star Valley throughout the summer and fall. You can get an update or arrange to purchase a DVD by contacting associate producer Amy McCarthy at tetonamy@gmail.com or 307.690.8514.
2008 Atta Girls Awards – Our winners have been named!
In the Vision category, we honored Linda Barton of Lander, for her passion in establishing the Wyoming Afterschool Alliance, creating quality after-school care so that children are safe and well cared for while their mothers make a living.
Our Voice category winners are Dona Playton of Laramie and Linda Fleming of Baggs. Dona develops advocates through her work as director of the UW Domestic Violence Legal Assistance Project, and Linda is recognized for her breadth of experience as a teacher, role model, founding member of the Little Snake River Women's Empowerment Group and as a Carbon County Commissioner.
The Visibility Award goes to Ray Fleming Dinneen who has improved the lives of Wyoming’s working single mothers through the nationally recognized CLIMB Wyoming Program, placing women in non-traditional jobs across Wyoming.
Wyoming’s First Lady Nancy Freudenthal presented each of these women with a cash award and a hand-crafted glass sculpture created by Wilson artists Laurie Thal and Lia Kass. You can read more about these inspiring and courageous women on the Equipoise Fund Web site.
And cheers to our first-ever Atta Boys! Equipoise Fund wants to acknowledge the supportive efforts of T. Chris Muirhead, Donald E. Chapin and William L. McDowell, trustees of the Tate Foundation, who have reached out to improve the lives of Wyoming’s women and girls. The Tate Foundation was presented with a $500 grant from The Equipoise Fund to donate to a Wyoming non-profit of choice. These three men saw great and early promise in the ideas that have become the cornerstones of Equality Initiatives, providing much needed funding early on. They truly understand that “What is good for Wyoming women is good for Wyoming communities.”
Spotlight on Wyoming Women
Through the spring, we joined forces with Equality Initiatives to produce and co-host the 2008 Atta Girl Awards in Casper. In addition to the screening of our documentary film, Don’t Fence Me In, this event was the kick-off for Equality Initiatives media awareness campaign. Print and radio ads were unveiled at the event, each of them drawing attention to the difficult issues that face Wyoming women.
Sarah Mikesell-Growney noted that, “This campaign seeks to change attitudes among all Wyoming residents in order to promote policy making that provides real opportunities for Wyoming women to achieve economic and social independence, benefiting all of Wyoming." Indeed, the theme of the campaign is, "If she succeeds, we all succeed."
Photo credit: Charlie Craighead
What you see here is a small sampling of photos from the event. If you’d like to treat yourself to a slide show that reveals more of the festive doings, click here.
And for more information on Equality Initiatives, please click here.
Women’s Conference on Sustainability
Womentum, an initiative of the Equipoise Fund, teamed up with The Nature Conservancy to co-host this energizing event in Jackson in early May. Held at Teton Science Schools, the two-day affair featured a series of workshops and keynote speeches by Wyoming’s First Lady Nancy Freudenthal and founding director of the Women’s Earth Alliance, Melinda Kramer.
The general feeling was “Wow!” Over 150 conference attendees participated, and they reported that the event amplified and strengthened the voices of women working on sustainability. Here’s what one of the participants had to say: “Please share with the partners of the Women's Conference my delight with the opportunities offered today, a remarkable event which we truly needed to recharge our spirit of philanthropy. Thank you for taking the risk, it was worth it!"
Another participant added, “On one hand, it’s hard to believe that so many years have passed since I ‘took up the cause.’ On the other hand, I’m so grateful that there is a whole army of young women out there carrying on the tradition in new and exciting ways.”
And a third shared these insights: “I feel that after this conference, I am armed with new tools for personal sustainability. More importantly I no longer feel isolated along my path.”
To keep up with Womentum and their ongoing plans, please visit their exciting new Web site here.
The Equipoise Fund celebrates five years by taking a real summer break!
Happy Birthday to us! We’re now five years old, and we can tell you it’s been a wild and woolly ride! But we wouldn’t trade a single minute. We would, however, take a little time to recharge our batteries, something we didn’t quite pull off last year. So, the Equipoise Fund offices will be closed June 15 – September 2, 2008. Here’s what Equipoise Fund Program Director Melissa Turley plans for the coming couple of months:
“This summer, to celebrate the 5th anniversary of The Equipoise Fund, I'm going to seek out some equipoise of my own. I always seem to find my perfect personal equipoise on my mountain bike, where what I most need for a successful ride is balance, strength and intuition, so I plan to spend a good many hours on my Kona Kikapu Deluxe riding the trails around Jackson Hole this summer. I’m also looking forward to spending time with two special men in my life who always help me relax, enjoy stillness, and remember what truly is important in life—my husband Chris and my brother Mike. And finally, I'm looking for opportunities this summer to reactivate my left brain through writing, art, dance, cooking, playing with babies - all sorts of activities that will get my creative juices flowing!”
And from Mickey, founder, Director and President of the Equipoise Fund:
“I’m writing from the front porch of my cabin. It’s a “blue misty morning” (thanks for those words in a song, Ann Sibley!), and the promise of summer is before me: pale green buds on the aspen; robins’ choir practice; the Buffalo River oozing along its banks. Pacing itself.
“That’s my focus for this summer—pace—as everything has its own. I hope to quiet myself enough to reconnect with my pace, and bring that back into my work with the Equipoise Fund. The authentic voice dwells in equipoise. I wish you all a balanced, blissful summer!”
We think this photo says it all. Have a great summer!
[ Back to top ]