hudson valley green drinks

saving the world one sip at a time

HVGD hosted
a Live Webcast from
The Rhinecliff Hotel on
Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The live webcast was sponsored by Glynwood. Glynwood, helping communities in the Northeast keep farming.
Click here to view the archived webcast.

(The opening animation ended up broadcasting with the sound a wee bit out of sync but it still works and is fun.)

Hudson Valley Green Drinks hosted a live webcast event on The State of [Local] Food on May 12, 2010 at The Rhinecliff Hotel (about 2hrs north of New York City). The webcast was sponsored by Glynwood, featured moderated talks with local green food producers, a presentation, and social networking over food and drinks.

The moderator of the event was Diane Hatz of The Meatrix and Sustainable Table fame, and Co-Founder and Director of the Glynwood Institute for Sustainable Food and Farming. Glynwood’s President Judith LaBelle gave an amazing presentation on The State of [Local] Food (time stamp of 52 min into the webcast).

The event featured just some of the many Hudson Valley residents who are engaged in the local food chain, from farm to table, including farmers using sustainable practices, CSA operators, seed producers, land stewards and chefs.

The following list of the seven fantastic participants includes a time stamp where their chats with Diane start in the webcast.

Ken Greene of the Hudson Valley Seed Library 10:20 min
Jill Rubin of the Phillies Bridge Farm Project 18:05 min
Mike Picinelli of Thunderhill Farm email 27:00 min
Chris Harp, “The Bee Doctor” 33:00 min
Jim Hyland of Winter Sun Farms  68:00 min
Marcus Guiliano of Aroma Thyme Bistro 77:15 min
Jay Levine of Hudson Valley Backyard Farm Co. 88 min 16 sec

(The webcast opened with an animation of the story of Green Drinks, then we had some fun with the theme's graphics. Alas, the sound with the opening animation is ever so slightly out of sync, but it still works. The end credits start at 96 min 45 min.)

We had over a hundred people attend in person. No stats yet on how many people tuned in online. The hors d'oeuvres were delicious! The Rhinecliff did up a special green drink-themed menu for us and one of the owners, James Chapman, took attendees on a tour of the recently renovated hotel - and showed us their newly framed Green Certification. The Rhinecliff Hotel is the first hotel in Dutchess County to be Green certified!

It was a terrific evening and I'd like to thank Russell Cusick for devoting himself to the event as our still photographer. You can see his photos below.

Thank you all for supporting HVGD!
Image: 

HVGD invited the greater Green Drinks community to be involved and many supported our efforts. During the webcast, we had a form set up on the website inviting comment. One such comment was from Karyn in Southland, New Zealand:

"Offer out there for anyone who is planning a trip to New Zealand: Green Drinks Invercargill would be more than happy to help give you a local tour showing the state of local food here, and to meet people involved in similar projects to what Hudson Valley are doing."

A list of the Green Drinks Chapters that said they would help spread the word: 

Arlington, Virginia;
Atlanta, Georgia;
Bremerton, Washington;
Castel Gandolfo, Italy;
Charlotte, North Carolina;
Crystal Lake, Illinois;
Dallas, Texas;

(Dallas: we sent a nod your way just after 8pm our time, 7pm yours when your event started -- did you hear that?)

Denver, Colorado;
Elgin, Illinois;
Fort Wayne, Indiana;
Greater Salem, Massachusetts;
Hackensack, New Jersey;
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania;
Hilo, Hawaii;
Honolulu, Hawaii;
Invercargill, New Zealand;

(New Zealand: sorry we couldn't answer your questions live... just a wee technical glitch with computers on-site but thanks for sending them in - we got them!)

Jacksonville, Florida;
Las Vegas, Nevada;
Mason, Ohio;
Newark, New Jersey;
Norwalk, Connecticut;
Paterson-Clifton, New Jersey;
Penticton, British Columbia, Canada;
Phoenix, Arizona;
Reno, Nevada;
Sarasota, Florida;
Silver Springs, Maryland;
St. George, Utah;
St. Louis, Missouri;
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada;
Toronto, Ontario, Canada;
Tulsa, Oklahoma;

(Tulsa, your Knowing your farmer is Knowing your Food got a nod - twice!)

Westchester County, New York;


How other Green Drinks Chapters got involved:

Many promised to post our event on their websites or their Facebook pages, tweeted about it and/or sent out email blasts to their own Green Drinks communities to get people to tune in. Some even jumped right on the Sustainable Food Movement bus with us and celebrated their own local food heroes through their websites.

This is the innaugural live webcast event! The support was just tremendous and participants expressed interest in the idea of this becoming a yearly, themed event. With a year in front of us to plan, let's see what we can do for an incredible Green Drinks collective going forward!

Help promoting the May 12th event:
In addition to our media co-sponsors Luminary Publishing, Inc. and ScheinMedia, through articles and mentions, the following helped spread the word:

On May 11th during Mid-Day Magazine from our local NPR station, WAMC, reporter Gregory Fry mentioned our event during his update on how our local farmers were doing with the crazy weather.

Responsibility TV out of England & Wales posted our event on their homepage.

Hudson Valley Echo did an online post about HVGD and the event.

Paul McGinniss' The New York Green Advocate celebrated Green Drinks and our efforts on his blog.

Hope you were able to tune in on Sunday, May 9th at 7:50am to WDST-FM 100.1's The Woodstock Roundtable with Host Doug Grunther as he interviewed Marie-Celeste about the upcoming webcast.

Seth Leitman aka the "green living guy", was going to podcast our event through his talkradio blog. (Seth also runs the Westchester County, NY GD Chapter.)

Thank you everyone!