Herland Sister Resources

Don’t miss out on Herland’s Fall Retreat on Halloween weekend, Oct. 26—28, at Eufaula State Park.  Fall foliage should be in full bloom and this will be a great time of year to be out in nature and enjoy the companionship of the Herland community. 
Our featured performer for the Saturday night concert will be Nancy Scott, live from Austin, Texas.  Nancy has been performing for over 20 years around Texas,  Oklahoma, North Carolina, California and other states. Her songwriting style varies from folk to blues blended with a touch of country and rock. She was one of the top ten songwriters in the Austin Music Umbrella Songwriter’s Contest in 1983 and won honorable mention for two of her songs in the 1990 Billboard Songwriters contest. Serious warmth, as well as insightful humor, characterize her songs.  Nancy has an unusually interesting voice, a relaxed, humorous stage presence, and a collection of tunes that many a popular, big name artist would give their eye teeth to own.
We have lots of special activities planned for this retreat, including a pumpkin carving contest (bring your own pumpkin), a Halloween costume contest for people and dogs.  Friday night we’ll have a casual supper and then sit around the campfire and tell stories and sing songs.  Saturday breakfast is provided.  Activities during the day on Saturday will include tie-dyeing and outdoor and indoor games.  (Be sure and bring natural fibers, cotton or silk, for best results  tie-dyeing.)  Saturday night is the famous potluck (always the best meal of the year) followed by the concert.  Sunday will feature brunch and the raffle. 
The retreats are held at state park group camps, separated from the rest of the park by a gate.  There are about 10 cabins with bunk beds or you may also pitch a tent.  Signup sheets for the cabins will tell you the type of activities allowed or not allowed in each cabin (e.g., smoking, drinking, dogs, children, partying late).  The Retreats are Herland’s only “womyn only” event held throughout the year.  It is a place for women to feel safe and comfortable being in a womyn’s space.  Pets are allowed but must remain on a leash at all times and are not allowed in the main dining hall (health regulations).
If you have any questions, please call Laura at 602-1538.

Lake Eufaula State Park, Oct. 26-28, 2007 Registration Form
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Map to Lake Eufaula State Park
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General Retreat Info:  The retreat starts 5 pm Friday evening and continues to Sunday at noon.  We provide the Friday evening meal, Saturday breakfast and Sunday breakfast.  There is soup or other leftovers from Friday’s supper for Saturday lunch.  The Saturday evening meal is a potluck and the kitchen is available if you need to bake or prepare your dish.  There are large refrigerators and freezers to store your potluck items or personal food.  Herland has pop, water, snacks, chips, and fruit for sale all weekend.  Accommodations are at the Group Camp.  The cabins have mattresses but you need to bring a bedroll (or sheets and blanket) and pillow.  Bring toiletries and a towel for your own use in the (group) bathrooms. 

Duo Guardabarranco
benefit concert
 for Manos Juntas
7 pm, Friday, Oct. 12
Church of the Open Arms
 3131 N. Penn
Donations will be gratefully accepted at the door.

Duo Guardabarranco is coming in concert to benefit Manos Juntas, a local charitable organization with outreach to Nicaragua.  
This internationally celebrated brother-sister act has staged inspiring concerts in the US, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, and Central American countries. 
Katia Cardenal began singing as a student in Managua’s El Colegio Teresiano chorus and initiated her professional career in 1980, during the early artistic ferment of revolutionary Nicaragua.  She later joined with her brother, Salvador Cardenal Barquero, to form Duo Guardabarranco, one of the era’s leading proponents of nueva canción. During the Sandinista period,  the duo toured the Soviet Union, Canada, and the United States.  After performing in Norway in 1995, Cardenal moved to Europe and began a solo career.  Returned to Nicaragua in 2005, she continues to tour as a soloist as well as with Duo Guardabarranco in Europe, Latin America and the United States.  She also has performed with Jackson Browne, Silvio Rodríguez, Tish Hinojosa (with whom she shares a certain vocal semblance) and Honduran Guillermo Anderson (Orquesta de la Papaya).
On her three solo releases from Norway, Katia is backed by a host of accomplished acoustic musicians.  (She also can be heard on Kirkelig Kulturverksted’s Lullabies from the Axis of Evil.)  Cardenal’s En Reveslandia (In Backwards Land, recorded in Norway in 1999) is an unassuming album of children’s songs that feature her crystal clear, unaffected soprano, with spare accompaniment on acoustic guitar, cavaquinho, lute, accordion, bass, hand percussion and occasional samples.
On Sueño de una noche de verano (Midsummer Night’s Dream) the singer interprets the daunting repertoire of Cuban trovador Silvio Rodríguez, whom she first met when he performed in Managua in 1983. Recorded in Nicaragua in 1998, Sueño enlists the vocal artistry of her cousin María Belén Cardenal, her brother Salvador, and Rodríguez himself (on “Historia de las sillas” and “Playa Girón”), with low-profile accompaniment on acoustic and electric guitars, violin, bass and percussion. Cardenal invests her own delicate, compelling artistry in modest wisps of song that have inspired two generations of Latin Americans and all those identified with the struggle for peace, justice, and dignity throughout the region.
With Taube pa spanska/Fragrancia (recorded in Havana’s Abdala Studios in 2001), Cardenal explores the Latin-inspired compositions of Swedish troubadour Evert Taube (1890-1976), investing the repertoire with the decided feel of the Cuban son and charanga.  Cardenal’s newly penned Spanish lyrics (also transcribed in Norwegian) hover lightly over expert accompaniment by tresero and arranger extraordinaire Pancho Amat and Cuban compatriots on guitar, trumpet, flute, bass and Afro-Cuban percussion, and backing by the orchestra of Joaquín Betancourt on seven of fourteen tracks. Throughout, Cardenal sings with an ease and grace that any singer would envy. Taken together, these three titles bear out the enduring vocal appeal of Katia Cardenal, whose warmth and uncompromising humanity animate a consummate artistry.
Manos Juntas is a non-profit organization that supports Nicaragua medical missions, scholarships for Nicaraguan students, and provides a free medical clinic in Oklahoma City.
For more information on Katia and Salvador Cardenal, please visit http://www.katiacardenal.com/ and  http://www.duoguardabarranco.com/.
To learn more about Manos Juntas, see http://www.manosjuntas.com/.

Too many Oklahoma women are dying from breast cancer every year, and many of these deaths could be prevented.  According to the American Cancer Society, 540 Oklahomans died of breast cancer in 2004 alone. This is higher than the national average. Unfortunately, Oklahoma is lower than the national average in receiving annual mammograms.
Breast cancer is one of the most treatable forms of cancer if it is caught early, and annual mammograms are the best way to detect breast cancer. However, with the rising costs of health insurance, many Oklahoma women simply cannot afford to have annual mammograms.
Approximately 226,975 Oklahoma women ages 18 to 64 do not have any form of health insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Nearly 34 percent of these women are low-income.
Take Charge!, the state-funded breast and cervical cancer early detection program administered by the Oklahoma State Department of Health, will provide mammograms to women with a household income of up to 185 percent above the poverty level and to individuals as young as 40.  Service to women who meet the program guidelines include:
·  a women’s health history
·  cancer risk history
·  well-woman assessment
·  clinical breast exam
·  Pap smear and limited screening pelvic exam
·  education for lowering your cancer risk
·  coupon for a free mammogram for women 50-64
·  referral and follow-up.
The Take Charge! program is for Oklahoma women who have no insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid to cover the screening and meet income guidelines (see below).
Oklahoma women age 19 through 64 years old are eligible for clinical breast examinations, cervical cancer screening (Pap test) and follow-up referrals.
Oklahoma women age 40 through 64 years old are eligible for mammography screening.

Size of  Annual               
Family   Income
1        $ 18,889
2        $ 25,327
3        $ 31,765
4        $ 38,203
          $ 44,641

This program is available statewide.  Contact the Dept. of Health toll free at 888-669-5934 to find the nearest participating location.

This year’s National Coming Out Day, Oct. 11, will mark an especially important hallmark, as it falls on the 20th anniversary of the 1987 Gay and Lesbian March on Washington, and the unfurling of the AIDS Quilt on the National Mall. National Coming Out Day was celebrated a year to the day later as a way of continuing the spirit of openness, honesty and visibility that the march and the AIDS Quilt presentation inspired. 
“Twenty years ago, as the AIDS crisis was raging, coming out was literally a matter of life and death,” said Mark Shields, director of HRC’s Coming Out Project. “In many ways, we have come a very long way in a relatively short time, and yet that lesson still resonates deeply today. Coming out and living openly is the most important thing that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight-supportive Americans can do to build lasting understanding and equality.”
Today, nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of Americans say they personally know or work with someone who identifies as gay or lesbian, according to Peter D. Hart Research Associates Inc. In 1987, only 11 percent claimed that they associated with a “male homosexual” on a regular basis, according to ABC News and The Washington Post.