We at the Wigg Party wanted to show our support for all of our brave brothers and sisters taking a stand against the treasonist policies being pushed by the far Right of American politics. Here’s what we came up with…

The Heroic Wisconsin 14

http://www.facebook.com/14Democrats

Planned Parenthood

http://www.facebook.com/PlannedParenthood

American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees

http://www.facebook.com/AFSCME

AFL-CIO

http://www.facebook.com/aflcio

PBS

http://www.facebook.com/pbs

350.org

http://www.facebook.com/350.org

Stand Up for Ohio

Stand Up for Ohio

United States Environmental Protection Agency

http://www.facebook.com/EPA

Many of you may have already heard, but the Wigg Party was recently featured on an episode of the Green Scene TV. The Green Scene is a web series focused on all things green and is hosted by Brent Green. We encourage you to go check out some of their other episodes (including the one they did on Hayes Valley Farm), but here is the one featuring us:

This is a post a wrote at the request of our friends at 350.org, one of the world’s leading Climate Change-focused organizations, and the instigators of the tremendous 10/10/10 Global Day of Work for which we produced our Urban Farm Bike Tour (check the video below to learn more). The piece is part Wigg Party overview, part how-to for sustainable community organizing, and part argument for why local organizing is the single most important thing any of us can be doing right now. Enjoy!

In late 2009, a few friends and I got together and decided we needed to do something. Each of us were well aware of the various planetary crises – the onset of the sixth mass extinction, dwindling access to fresh water, incredibly unsustainable industrial agriculture practices, and, yes, the mounting dangers of global climate change, to name just a few. Each of us felt these global challenges demanded not only our awareness but some sort of action that could help win the possibility of a decent quality of life for future generations of humans. There was just one problem: these challenges were global in nature, and we were just a few friends sitting in a living room in San Francisco. How could we reasonably expect to make a dent in these planetary issues? It was then that we made an important and fateful decision that we hope will be echoed around the globe: we decided we didn’t really have a chance of changing the workings of a global society or affecting the direction of our nation, our state, or even the metropolis we call San Francisco. But we knew we were up to the task of one very important and worthy mission – we set out to make our neighborhood more sustainable and resilient. Over a year later, we’ve crafted out of that original intention an influential organization called the Wigg Party. We’ve produced a number of successful initatives and events, made a few mistakes, and have come to one very important conclusion: the future » Read more: The Wigg Party featured on 350.org

One of life’s most pleasant and rare experiences is to have your already fairly lofty expectations of an event completely blown away by reality. We knew our Urban Eating League was going to be a lot of fun – locally sourced food, being invited into our friends’ homes, costumes, friendly competition, AND a talent-show?!? However, no amount of words or pictures can truly do the evening 40 or so people enjoyed this past Sunday justice. Perhaps it’s best to simply report that by the time everyone got to their second host-site and were guessing the secret ingredient, we all knew that we had stumbled upon an event that would not only bring all of us a lot of joy on this night and future nights, but that this format was going to get picked up by many communities around the world as a way to bring people together around local food. It was simply that good.

Can you feel the excitement of the Urban Eating League?

I’m not going to try to recount a play-by-play of who cooked what or which teams wore what or who got which awards (although everyone’s effort certainly warrants such a treatment) – it was the type of event that you simply had to be there to experience. But I think it’s worth taking a birds-eye view of some of the lessons the experience taught us.

Eaters listening intently as Alex explains the menu at Le Chateau du Breux

We’ve always said local food was the lynchpin issue of the sustainability movement and the Urban Eating League certainly confirmed that, although not in the “everybody eats three meals a day, so if you get them to choose the right food when they make that choice, then things really start happening” way that we usually mean it. Instead, the Urban Eating League was a great lesson in the subtle yet transformative power of » Read more: Urban Eating League – The Afterglow

Come out to the Sunshine Castle for a very special Wigg Party One-Year Anniversary Party featuring Bikes & Beats!

Over the past year, the Wigg Party has grown from an idea a few friends had into one of the nation’s leading urban sustainable community organizations. To celebrate our amazing year of moving the community that lives around the bike route the Wiggle toward sustainability and resilience, we’re teaming up with Bikes & Beats to throw our biggest Wigg Party Party yet!

Legendary

The evening kicks off at 8 pm with the Wigg Party meeting. This is where you come learn about everything that we’re up to – this month we’re going to feature our local currency we’re developing, our series of locally sourced progressive dinners we’re calling the Urban Eating League, and all of the exciting developments on tap for the Wiggle this year.

The evening also marks the inaugural event for Bikes & Beats. Bikes & Beats marries bicycle culture with the thriving underground music scene. While these events will typically feature a bicycle ride -> a guerilla dance party, they’ve decided to kick it all off with the Wigg Party at the Sunshine Castle. We all have Bikes & Beats to thank for this amazing musical lineup!

We’re also for the first time going to be using this Wigg Party Party as a fundraiser, so that we can grow and become even stronger in year two! $10 suggested donation, but nobody will be turned away for lack of funds. If you come for the meeting at 8 you get in free.

BYOB

LINE-UP
MC Zulu (Dancehall MC Inna Dubstep and Electro-Reggae Stylee, Panama via Chicago)
http://mczulu.com/

Future Simple Project LIVE w/ aka Mikey Fisher and Raja (Dubstep, Lazer Crunk – Family Moons, Boulder and SF)

http://futuresimpleproject.com/

Porkchop (Dubstep and Bass Music – SF)
Cyclyst (Slappers and Funksteppers – Bikes and Beats, SF)

Matt Haze (Bashment, Funky Tribal, Tropical, etc – Bikes and Beats, Slayers Club, SF)
http://soundcloud.com/matthaze

http://theslayersclub.com/

Brettronics ((Dubstep, Electro, Crunkstep – Akashic Records, SF)

DubVirus ((Dubstep, Electro, Crunkstep – Akashic Records, SF)

Wigglers, get ready for the inaugural edition of our newest local food program – the Urban Eating League!

Starting February 13th, we will host a monthly progressive dinner called the Urban Eating League. Each month, we will organize a dinner that will feature delicious, locally sourced meals hosted by multiple neighborhood homes. Enjoying these meals will be teams of eaters. The Eaters will both judge the different meals/host-sites and themselves be judged as guests, on anything from manners to costume creativity. It’s all in the service of eating local food and having fun!

No, not that kind of eating competition...

The inaugural event will unfold as follows. People interested in participating as eaters must organize a team consisting of three eaters and a team name and come find Morgan at the Divisadero Farmers’ Market Community Table on Sunday February 6th to register (he’ll have “the wig” on). Registration will be open to the first five teams plus the first three individuals (who together will comprise the “Randos” team) for a total of 18 eaters (we have three host-sites which can host two teams, or six eaters, at a time). The cost of registration is $10-$20 sliding scale for each eater, so for a team to successfully register they must present at least $30 along with the names of the eaters and a team name (all the money will go to pay for the food).

Those six teams lucky enough to register in time will meet at the Sunshine Castle (1571 Fulton) at 6 pm on the 13th to start the evening. Initial instructions and participating materials will be given out, and the teams will start off on their culinary odyssey at » Read more: Announcing the Urban Eating League

The Wigg Party is proud to bring you our very fist Inspiration Night!

This will be you tonight... metaphorically

We know that with all the scary things going on in the world, as we spend our days scratching and clawing for small victories, wondering what, if anything, it all means, we all could use a little inspiration in our lives. Enter Inspiration Night!

Come out to the Residence (718 14th St @ Church) tonight at 7 pm to be caught up in the rapture of the human spirit. There will be poetry, there will be song, there will be story. And permeating the whole event will be that warm fuzzy glow that comes from reveling in being alive and honoring all that has come before us.

$3 well drinks and $1 off beer from 7-9. $3 Trumer Pils (brewed right across the Bay in Berkeley) all night!

See you tonight!

The Wigg Party and Con Brio are teaming up to bring you a night of music, dancing and community at Madrone Art Bar this Wednesday at 9 pm.

Give money to the Wigg Party = Get this CD

This is the Wigg Party’s very first fundraiser. Yes, it’s true – we’ve been operating for over a year on exactly $0! Just imagine what we can accomplish when we have a little bit of money to make use of!

The cover at the door will be $5 and that money is going to go to Con Brio and Madrone. Once inside, you’ll have an opportunity to donate money to the Wigg Party, and in exchange you’ll receive a Con Brio CD, generously donated to the Wigg Party by the band. We’re thinking $8-15 will get you a CD but we’re open to creative offers! All the money we raise will be going towards our upcoming Local Currency program, which we’ll tell you all about on Wednesday night.

So come out to Madrone (500 Divisadero St at Fell) on Wednesday to get your dance on with the Wigg Party!

UPDATE: If you can’t make it to the event but would still like to contribute to the cause, you can use our brand-new PayPal account by clicking the button below!

As we engage with a wide-array of community members in our work to build a broad-based coalition supporting the transformation of the Wiggle over the next year, we hear time and again that pedestrians who live in the area are continually perturbed by the behavior of bicyclists on the Wiggle. While we here at the Wigg Party feel victimized by undue guilt by association (it seems many people allow a bad experience with a single cyclist poison their opinion of all cyclists – blatant “transportationism”), we are beginning to take more seriously the opportunity we have to communicate to our fellow Wigglers about proper bicycle etiquette. Our ultimate goal is to make the “Wiggle cyclist” renowned as the most considerate and polite species of cyclist in all of San Francisco. The first step towards that goal comes in the form of a plea from our own Ian “Earthwind” Heid to our fellow cyclists, that’s been sitting in our inbox since November. Take it away Earthwind!

Who blasts through stops signs faster than wha…!?  I do for one.  But I’m guilty of my number one vice doing it, hypocrisy.  Why am I guilty?  Well, because I believe in traffic laws, safety of streets,  for one for all, etc.  Truly I do.

The aforementioned are all things I believe we can agree on.  Where we all disagree is with automobile owners.  Being one myself (full disclosure) I can’t say I always like bicyclists either.  There needs to be common ground.

we could all learn a thing or two here...

Part of gaining respect on the thoroughfares of any fair city is giving that respect right back.  We as urban and suburban and rural and universal people use it with each other every day for the most mundane interactions, yes?  Why don’t we use it when we are also at our most vunerable (site every study on traffic related deaths ever)?

Another aspect of integrating bicycles and vehicles is pure space.  I understand that fully.  Until that space is defined we need to keep in mind that while many of us use our bikes because we must/can/love to, the same applies to automobile owners (see! hypocrisy.  guilty as charged), and unfortunately for many people it’s the musty option.

So here is what I propose advocates of city bicycling take up as MUST DOS!

LEARN YOUR HAND SIGNALS. – You ever been pissed at someone who didn’t signal their car?  They feel the same, and often they are late or something, so they will run you over for an appointment, which they then will miss.  But you are the one missing out…  If you need help learning to guide your bike while riding with one hand you know the people to ask (hint: SFBC). » Read more: Use Your Brakes: An Opinion on Bicycle Etiquette by Ian “Earthwind” Heid

Another year, another 365 days to wake up and smell the compost. 2010, we hardly knew ye. 2011, we need you to be big for us.

Drawing by Brandon Loving

The turning of the calendar is always a great time to reflect on the past year and to look forward to what’s about to unfold. 2010 was a great year for the Wigg Party. It honestly seems like yesterday we were ringing in the new decade with all our friends at the Sunshine Castle. 2010 brought us the very first Wigg Party Party (February, 10th 2010 – for posterity’s sake), the birth of our self-preservation series of re-skilling events, thousands of pounds of food rescued from the waste stream through our Fresh Produce Share-With-Alls, two Carrotmobs, many a local-food sharing event, 10.10.10, the advent of wig-wearing (pretty sure we invented this), Sunday Streets, (PARK)ing Day, BP/ARCO protests, many moments of merriment and about 100 boxes of chalk applied to our beloved Wiggle. In 2010, the Wigg Party grew from a small group of friends with an idea to a bona fide movement in our little corner of this beautiful city of San Francisco. If 2010 marked the birth of a number of key elements of the growing sustainability movement (Hayes Valley Farm, Underground Farmers’ Market, the Hub SoMa, Fix Fell, Fix Masonic, SFBC’s Connecting the City, SF Urban Agriculture Alliance, I Bike SF, I Helmet SF, SF Bike Party, to name *just* a few!), 2011 will be the year many of these elements get together to figure out how to create some major victories for our city and our society.

Let’s examine. 2010, you brought us so many great things. And yet, when we stack up where we are against where all the people who don’t currently have their heads buried deep in the “grow the economy at all costs” sand say we need to be in order to stave off wholesale environmental and societal destruction, we’ve got a long way to go. Significant progress towards Zero Waste SF? Powerful binding Climate Change resolution? Creation of a sensible energy policy? Transformation of National Agriculture policy? Elimination of SF government red-tape so we can actually make sensible transit and other policy changes here in our own city? Yeah, not so much. Sometimes it feels like we’re trying to take down a giant monster with only a handful of tiny needles and none of us knows acupuncture. Sure, 2010 revealed a number of glimmers of hope for those who were looking for them, but where were the major victories? Where is the big public sign that says we’re seriously serious about this whole planetary crisis thing? If we don’t see some of these major victories in 2011, we at the Wigg Party might have to » Read more: 2011: The Year of Synergy in Sustainable San Francisco