
Yoga for Optimal Health
Astrid will be starting the new year with a class series entitled "Pelvic Power." We are going to work on hip flexibility, sacral breathing, release of the tail bone as well as the toning of the pelvic floor muscles.
Tuesday, 10:15 to 11:30 am, 6 week series starting January 10
Wednesday, 10:15 to 11:30 am, 6 week series starting January 11
Thursday, 7 to 8:15 pm, Drop-in and On-going

Strechoga -- New to the Reach Center!
Strechoga is a fusion of numerous forms of Yoga, Taichi, Chigong, and movement therapy. It is one free flowing art of the body. No matter what your age or physical capability, Stretchoga can benefit you. It is great for rehabbing an injury, training for sports, or simply taking your mind off everything else in life.

The EDGE is open for the 2011/2012 season
Come join the fun!
Exciting new classes, exciting new teachers and, of course, most of the same great staff from last year.
An update on two former EDGE instructors:
Breakdancer extraordinaire J.T. Magee has moved on to San Diego to pursue a teaching career in dance. Good luck, J.T.! Julia Gingerich has relocated to Astoria, Oregon with her husband Julian. We congratulate the two of them as they wait the arrival of their new baby.
Call now or stop by to register and be sure to check the website for details: www.edgedancing.com

Reach Center at the Eugene Celebration Parade!
This past Saturday, the Reach Center, the EDGE and Dance For A Reason showed off their pride to the gathered Eugene Celebration crowd in the morning parade.
We "Raised the Roof" over the parade (that's the roof in the background left of the photo) and got the "Best View" prize! That's basically 2nd Place overall and we won $200! Great Fun! Thanks to all who participated!

DoRePlay presents Music Together!
Music and movement classes for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and the grownups who love them. Our mixed-age classes create a family environment where children engage and gain basic musical competence through play. Parents will learn how to model and encourage musical development at home. In a culture that focuses on consuming music, we encourage active participation in making music. Making music together builds stronger families and stronger communities. So come sing, clap, chant, dance, and jam.

Honeybees Divide and Spread!
It turns out our beehive is too small! Our local beekeepers, Sherry and Dave, decided to try out a new hive design and it looks like the decision will be thumbs-down. The bees filled the single-level space rather quickly and they have spawned two new swarms in the past two weeks.
The upper picture shows one of the swarms protecting the new queen (she's somewhere buried in the middle of all that) while the scouts are out looking for a location for their new nest. That mass of bees is about 2.5 feet all, 1 foot wide, and 3 inches deep! If you don't capture the swarm quickly you lose the chance to move them to a new hive of your own.
Sherry sedated the swarm by spraying it with sugar water. Then she placed a big carboard box below it, whacked the branch with a stick and the whole mass fell down into the box. I was expecting an explosion of mad bees into the air, but nope they mostly just stayed in that big mass around the queen.
Looks like we'll be switching to the standard box-shape hives for next year.


Russ Fegles is The Man!
Reach Center office assistant Russ Fegles smiles for the camera as he helps Geni on the computer.

Art for a Reason!
We hosted Art for a Reason. Great art, great music, great dancing, great food. It was great! See you next year.

It Snowed!
The snow is beautiful, and so is Geni Lu!

Building Soil for the Garden
Perhaps you've noticed that the yard in front is no longer a yard and well on it's way to becoming a neighborhood garden. With the help of neighbors Sherry Wellborn (a force of nature in her own right), David Stucky, and Erik Muller among others, we've layered cardboard, leaves, manure and compost to get our garden started. There will be vegetable beds, flower beds, berry bushes, dwarf fruit trees, honeybees, compost piles, and a greenhouse!
Our plan is to share this "urban farm" with our neighbors. Perhaps you'd like to get an early start with veggies in the greenhouse. Perhaps you'd like the taste of local honey. Perhaps a blueberry pie is in your future. Or perhaps you'll just want to come sit on one of the many benches we'll scatter around the garden. We won't be charging anything for sharing this resource with our neighborhood . . . but we'd sure appreciate a bit of physical labor, and maybe an occasional donation to help pay the water bill. Come check it out!
Speaking of gardens, perhaps you'd like to take Sherry's Urban Gardener class. Learn about soils and soil amendments, watering and fertilizing, composting, good tools. Leave with new skills, a flat of vegetable starts, and a notebook full of resources! Get that green thumb growing!

Olallie Wellborn and the Apple Pressing Day
Sherry Wellborn and her son Ollalie brought an apple press over and a group of neighbors showed up with baskets of apples from neighborhood trees. The juice was better than anything you can buy in a store! The apple press is for sale for $400 and Sherry is hoping people would be willing to donate money for the purchase. If we can raise the money, Sherry will be happy to show people how to make their own juice! It tastes good, it's fun to do, and it's a great way to meet neighbors. You can contact Sherry through her website, Amazon Neighbors, or bring your donation to the Reach Center and we'll make sure Sherry gets it.


