Elders Action Network

Resilience and Acceptance in the Face of Collapse
2025-03-25 16:30 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Zoom video conferencing
We are offering a course for Elders of all ages and faiths to gather and learn, to grieve, to plan, and have the space to speak our truths together. It focuses on inner resilience, adaptive responses, collective acceptance of the climate crisis and provides an adaptive worldview pertaining to a new and different future.
A free, nine-session online course about the ecological and cultural predicament we face starting on Tuesday, March 25 at 4:30 pm PT / 7:30 pm ET.
For more information contact the co-leaders Robert Whitehair or Geoff Ainscow.
After the course attendees will be able to:

Define collapse.
Articulate their own understanding about the Great Unraveling and at what stage of awareness they are.
More freely navigate their emotional responses to a collapse.
Name and put into practice several tools for inner resilience.
Describe and weigh out the benefits of localization for outer resilience.
Live in greater balance and harmony with all the spirits which create and support life.
Identify the benefits of acceptance most pertinent to them and their life circumstances.
Meetings are 1 ½ hours. Preparation: 2-3 hours a week

REGISTER (Maximum 25 participants)

Message From the Course Developers
“With great sadness and great love, we are convinced that this is a time of unraveling…biodiversity loss, ocean degradation, urban flooding, political strife, climate crisis and migrations, economic and political instability, food shortages, wildfires, soil degradation.
We have two choices: turning away or turning toward. For a long time, we have learned to turn our eyes away and live as we have always lived.
With these moving thoughts from the Developer’s in mind: We believe that closing our eyes has not served us. It’s time to turn towards—wake up and see what is happening in the world and in ourselves, in the ways we relate to the entire Community of Life. Turning toward takes courage, honesty and love.”
This course is not about traditional resilience solutions. Instead, the course leads participants through a process of opening their eyes in awareness and turning towards what-is with ever-deepening acceptance, through wise responses to our predicament.”

Connect & Refresh with the Civic Values & Culture Team
2025-03-25 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Tuesday, March 25
12:00 – 1:00 pm PT / 3:00 – 4:00 pm ET

Join our Civic Values & Culture Team as we pause from our activism and release our serious concerns during this challenging year. Once again, we will come together to enjoy our virtual and restorative community. We will reaffirm the values that guide our collaboration:

Integrity & Authenticity
Deep Listening with Openness, Curiosity and Presence
Appreciation of Differences

Register below to receive the Zoom link. Email event host Therese Flaherty at theresef@eldersaction.org with any questions.
register

Building Bridges Community Gathering
2025-03-20 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
12:00-1:30 pm PT / 3:00-4:30 pm ET
The Building Bridges Community Gathering offers conversation and tools you can use to manage conflict and create productive, civil conversations. Our March mini-training will review and practice three conversation skills that we learned in January:

Reflecting back
Summarizing
Framing good follow-up questions

REGISTER
After registering for the event, you will receive a confirmation email from Zoom containing your unique link to join the meetings.

Elders for Sound Democracy
2025-03-19 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
EAN elders have supported the work of The Civics Center (TCC) for the last few years: helping to make high school voter registration part of every American high school experience. We have written postcards and letters, contacted high schools, and supported TCC financially and with our interest and general efforts.
Please join us on March 19 when Vicki Shapiro (Chair of the Advisory Board of The Civics Center) will describe:

The impact of TCC’s and our efforts during the last year
TCC’s plans for expansion and growth for this year
Opportunities for elders to support TCC and its spring Cap, Gown & Ballot campaign to encourage high school seniors to register to vote.”

Vicki Shapiro
Vicki Shapiro is Chair of the Advisory Board of The Civics Center and an attorney at the California Court of Appeals in Los Angeles. She has volunteered in many capacities with The Civics Center since its founding in 2018. Prior to joining the Court of Appeals, Vicki practiced intellectual property law in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and the University of Washington, both in states that give students the ability to pre-register to vote at 16.

register

After registering, you will receive an email from Zoom (no-reply@zoom.us) with a unique link to join the event. Please check your email inbox.

Confronting Whiteness Journey & Workshop
2025-03-19 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Wednesdays: March 19 – May 14
10:00 – 11:30 am PT / 1:00 – 2:30 pm ET

Over the course of nine weeks participants will read, hear, and watch the work of Black creatives. While there are many more that could have been chosen, these selections will embolden you to acknowledge and confess your Whiteness. Hopefully, you will be inspired to invest time, energy, and heart to delve deeper into this discovery. The more dedicated you are, the more you will get out of the series.
The participant’s guide to Confronting Whiteness oﬀers people a new posture for addressing racial issues. Spiritual practices will help participants engage writings and films by Black authors and filmmakers and develop habits that confront and undermine the power of Whiteness. The guide was developed for groups of White people.
Our facilitator will be led by Rev Dr. Ben Boswell, author and founder of Confronting Whiteness.
This program consists of nine sessions, each designed to last approximately 90 minutes. Preparation for the sessions requires completing assigned readings and viewings and writing a racial autobiography.
Cost: $160, which includes the Confronting Whiteness guide.
For more information contact Teri Whitehair at teriw@eldersaction.org.

REGISTER

Welcome to Elders Climate Action Monthly Session
2025-03-14 15:00 - 16:00, 2025-02-14 15:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York)
Welcome to Elders Climate Action! We are a community of elders who care about preserving our planet for our grandchildren, future generations and all life. As a new member we would like to invite you to a special Welcome Session where you can hear more about who we are, what ECA has been doing, our plans for the future, and how you can get more involved.
2nd Friday, Monthly
3 pm Eastern, 12 Noon Pacific
REGISTER NOW
Please register to receive a link to join the call. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. We encourage you to join by computer so you can see the presenter’s slides. If you are unable to attend this Welcome Session, don’t worry, plan to join next month! We offer a Welcome to Elders Climate Action Session on the 2nd Friday of each month. Watch for our next call bulletin or announcement in the upcoming newsletter or check our website for the event listing.
We look forward to meeting you!

Exploring Elderhood
2025-03-07 10:00 - 11:30, 2025-02-28 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Session One: Friday, February 28
Session Two: Friday, March 7
Session Three: Friday, March 14
10:00 – 11:30 am PT / 1:00 – 2:30 pm ET
Join us in this introductory journey into what it means to be an Elder in a time of immense change. If you are new to Elders Action Network or want to rediscover your purpose, inner joy, sense of our interconnectedness or where to get into action, this is the journey for you.
We will explore together the redefinition of who is an elder, what it is the earth is calling us to be and why our heart, mind and soul are needed to create a new future for all life on this planet.
You will be introduced to the essence of elderhood, experience processes that will allow what is deep within you to come to the forefront, feel a sense of community and ways to get into action.
This is a three-week journey with each session running 90 minutes. There will be pre-work before each week.
Space is limited, so please register early.
Suggested donation: $55
This is a suggested amount and participants are free to offer more or less depending on their individual financial situation. We do not want financial considerations to be a deterrent to participation, and it is not necessary to make a donation in order to register.
register

Elders Climate Action February National Call
2025-02-25 19:00 - 20:15 (America/New_York)
How do we build and maintain effective relationships with local elected officials and staff?
In conversation with Joe Simitian
National Call & Action Party
February 25
4th Tuesday of the Month
7PM (Eastern) | 4PM (Pacific)
8-8:15PM Action Party
Joe Simitian joins Elders Climate Action to answer some of our biggest questions about our advocacy efforts and their impacts. Joe brings a wide-ranging perspective with a background in nearly all levels of state and local government including School Board, CA State Senate and Assembly and Board of Supervisors in Santa Clara County, CA. Joe authored many environmental laws during his Senate and Assembly terms, including The California Clean Coast Act, The Sustainable Oceans Act, The Delta Reform Act, and the state’s 33% by 2020 renewable portfolio standard. He also served as Chair of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee and routinely earned a 100% score from the California League of Conservation Voters. We’ll be digging in to talk with Joe and learn more about his strategies for building relationships and getting things done within local government.
REGISTER NOW
Can’t attend? No problem, register to receive a recording of the call.
We encourage you to join from your computer the best experience, many of our speakers share slides.

Joe Simitian most recently served on the Santa Clara County, California, Board of Supervisors. In a County of close to 2 million residents, Joe represented District 5, the northern part of Santa Clara County which includes the headquarters of both Google and Apple, as well as Stanford University. He previously served on the Palo Alto School Board and Palo Alto City Council, and in the California State Senate and State Assembly.
Joe authored many environmental laws during his Senate and Assembly terms, including The California Clean Coast Act, The Sustainable Oceans Act, The Delta Reform Act, and the state’s 33% by 2020 renewable portfolio standard. He also served as Chair of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee and routinely earned a 100% score from the California League of Conservation Voters.

Get ready for the Action Party from 8-8:15 PM ET with the Climate Action Now (CAN) App.

Download the app now so you are ready for action! Scan the QR code using your phone or find Climate Action Now on your phone’s App Store and use ECA’s code 56 when you set up your CAN account.

Connect & Refresh with the Civic Values & Culture Team
2025-02-25 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Tuesday, February 25
12:00 – 1:00 pm PT / 3:00 – 4:00 pm ET

Join our Civic Values & Culture Team as we pause from our activism and release our serious concerns during this challenging year. Once again, we will come together to enjoy our virtual and restorative community. We will reaffirm the values that guide our collaboration:

Integrity & Authenticity
Deep Listening with Openness, Curiosity and Presence
Appreciation of Differences

Register below to receive the Zoom link. Email event host Therese Flaherty at theresef@eldersaction.org with any questions.
register

Resilience and Acceptance in the Face of Collapse
2025-02-20 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
We are offering a course for Elders of all ages to gather and learn, to grieve, to plan, and have the space to speak our truths together. It focuses on inner resilience, adaptive responses, collective acceptance of the climate crisis and provides an adaptive worldview pertaining to a new and different future.
A free, nine-session online course about the ecological and cultural predicament we face starting on Thursday, February 20 at 4:00 pm PT / 7:00 pm ET.
After the course attendees will be able to:

Define collapse.
Articulate their own understanding about the Great Unraveling and at what stage of awareness they are.
More freely navigate their emotional responses to a collapse.
Name and put into practice several tools for inner resilience.
Describe and weigh out the benefits of localization for outer resilience.
Live in greater balance and harmony with all the spirits which create and support life.
Identify the benefits of acceptance most pertinent to them and their life circumstances.
Meetings are 1 ½ hours. Preparation: 2-3 hours a week

REGISTER (Maximum 25 participants)

Message From the Course Developers
“With great sadness and great love, we are convinced that this is a time of unraveling…biodiversity loss, ocean degradation, urban flooding, political strife, climate crisis and migrations, economic and political instability, food shortages, wildfires, soil degradation.
We have two choices: turning away or turning toward. For a long time, we have learned to turn our eyes away and live as we have always lived.
With these moving thoughts from the Developer’s in mind: We believe that closing our eyes has not served us. It’s time to turn towards—wake up and see what is happening in the world and in ourselves, in the ways we relate to the entire Community of Life. Turning toward takes courage, honesty and love.”
This course is not about traditional resilience solutions. Instead, the course leads participants through a process of opening their eyes in awareness and turning towards what-is with ever-deepening acceptance, through wise responses to our predicament.”

Elders for Social Justice Racism Advisory Committee
2025-02-20 11:00 - 12:00, 2025-02-06 11:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
First and third Thursday of each month
11:00 am – 12:00 pm PT / 2:00 – 3:00 pm ET
We are committed to putting justice and equity front and center as we move forward into action. We recognize we are at the beginning of this journey and that each of us are at a diﬀerent stage of awareness and action. The Racism Advisory Committee engages in conversation, research, self reflection and education to ensure that we recognize and free ourselves of racist and exclusionary practices and indiﬀerences. We are committed to this journey, believing that it will strengthen our organization.
Join us! REGISTER
Questions? Contact Teri Whitehair at teriw@eldersaction.org.

Elders for Sound Democracy
2025-02-19 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join Elders for Sound Democracy to hear about and react to our plans for 2025 to preserve and strengthen democracy. We will review projects we are working on and provide opportunities for you to engage with other elders to share your thoughts and suggestions for our plans.

register

After registering, you will receive an email from Zoom (no-reply@zoom.us) with a unique link to join the event. Please check your email inbox.

Connect & Refresh with the Civic Values & Culture Team
2025-01-28 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Tuesday, January 28
12:00 – 1:00 pm PT / 3:00 – 4:00 pm ET

Join our Civic Values & Culture Team as we pause from our activism and release our serious concerns during this challenging year. Once again, we will come together to enjoy our virtual and restorative community. We will reaffirm the values that guide our collaboration:

Integrity & Authenticity
Deep Listening with Openness, Curiosity and Presence
Appreciation of Differences

Register below to receive the Zoom link. Email event host Therese Flaherty at theresef@eldersaction.org with any questions.
register

Unlock Your Purpose with Richard Leider
2025-01-21 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Co-Sponsored by Sage-ing International and Elders Action Network

Tuesday, January 21
10:00am – 11:30am PT / 1:00pm-2:30pm ET
Everyone is getting old; not everyone is growing older. But the path of purposeful aging is accessible to all. And it is fundamental to health, healing, happiness, and longevity. With a focus on growing whole through unlocking a sense of purpose in later life, Richard celebrates the experience of aging with inspiring stories, real-world practices, and provocative questions to help us navigate the path from adulthood to elderhood with choice, curiosity, and courage. Richard helps us to reimagine aging as a liberating experience that enables us to become more authentically the person we were always meant to be with each passing year.
REGISTER HERE

International bestselling author, coach, and keynote speaker Richard Leider has pioneered the way we answer that question. Widely viewed as a pioneer of the global purpose movement, his work is featured regularly in many media sources. His PBS Special, The Power of Purpose, was viewed by millions across the U.S. He has taken his purpose message to all 50 states, Canada, and four continents. To read more about Richard go to his website HERE.

Building Bridges Community Gathering
2025-01-16 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
12:00-1:30 pm PT / 3:00-4:30 pm ET
The Building Bridges Community meets every two months to practice and learn effective ways to build understanding to help bridge America’s cultural divides. We offer a welcoming approach to theory and practical skills for avoiding conflict, asking good questions and building understanding. If you’re interested in learning to engage yourself and, by extension, your community in this process, this group is for you.
REGISTER
After registering for the event, you will receive a confirmation email from Zoom containing your unique link to join the meetings.

Resilience and Acceptance in the Face of Collapse
2025-01-15 16:00 - 17:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Elders for Regenerative Living is offering a course, Resilience and Acceptance in the Face of Collapse, in collaboration with the course developers for people to gather and learn, to grieve, to plan, and have the space to speak our truths together. It focuses on inner resilience, collective acceptance of the climate crisis, adaptive responses, and provides a worldview pertaining to a new and different future.
It’s a free, nine-session course STARTING on Wednesday, January 15 at 4:00 pm PT / 7:00 pm ET.
After the course attendees will be able to:

Define collapse.
Articulate their own understanding about the Great Unraveling and at what stage of awareness they are.
More freely navigate their emotional responses to a collapse.
Name and put into practice several tools for inner resilience.
Describe and weigh out the benefits of localization for outer resilience.
Live in greater balance and harmony with all the spirits which create and support Life.
Identify the benefits of Acceptance most pertinent to them and their life circumstances.
Meetings are 1 ½ hours. Preparation: 2-3 hours a week

REGISTRATION HAS CLOSED

See a Message From the Course Developers Below
“With great sadness and great love, we are convinced that this is a time of unraveling…biodiversity loss, ocean degradation, urban flooding, political strife, climate crisis and migrations, economic and political instability, food shortages, wildfires, soil degradation.
We have two choices: turning away or turning toward. For a long time, we have learned to turn our eyes away and live as we have always lived.
With these moving thoughts from the Developer’s in mind: We believe that closing our eyes has not served us. It’s time to turn towards—wake up and see what is happening in the world and in ourselves, in the ways we relate to the entire Community of Life. Turning toward takes courage, honesty and love.”
This course is not about traditional resilience solutions. Instead, the course leads participants through a process of opening their eyes in awareness and turning towards what-is with ever-deepening acceptance, through wise responses to our predicament.”

Elders for Social Justice Monthly Meeting
2024-12-19 09:00 - 10:30, 2024-11-21 09:00 - 10:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Third Thursday of each month
9:00 – 10:30 am PT / 12:00 – 1:30 pm ET
At Elders for Social Justice (ESJ) we create an inclusive education and advocacy environment for social and environmental justice. We work with other EAN groups, external organizations, elder activists, youth and visionary leaders as we act on behalf of Earth and all life.
We gather once a month to focus on a current social justice issue so we can take informed collective and local actions.
REGISTER

Elders for Sound Democracy
2024-12-18 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Join our Community Meeting on Wednesday, December 18, as we recognize our hard work this past year (we sent over 100,000 postcards and letters to voters), rejoice in our growing community, and strengthen our resolve to continue together to defend democracy in 2025.

register

After registering, you will receive an email from Zoom (no-reply@zoom.us) with a unique link to join the event. Please check your email inbox.

Connect & Refresh with the Civic Values & Culture Team
2024-12-17 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Tuesday, December 17
12:00 – 1:00 pm PT / 3:00 – 4:00 pm ET

Join our Civic Values & Culture Team as we pause from our activism and release our serious concerns during this challenging year. Once again, we will come together to enjoy our virtual and restorative community. We will reaffirm the values that guide our collaboration:

Integrity & Authenticity
Deep Listening with Openness, Curiosity and Presence
Appreciation of Differences

Register below to receive the Zoom link. Email event host Therese Flaherty at theresef@eldersaction.org with any questions.
register

Taking Action to Confront Authoritarianism
2024-12-12 09:00 - 10:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Second Thursday of the month
9:00 – 10:30 am PT / 12:00 – 1:30 pm ET

We’ll continue exploring what actions that we, as elders, can take to push back against extremist attacks in our second post-election meeting.

register

Building Bridges Team Meeting
2024-11-21 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Thursday, November 21
12:00-1:30 pm PT / 3:00-4:30 pm ET
We will practice bridging skills through conversation, and plan our next Living Room Conversation event with one of the EAN action groups.
REGISTER
After registering for the event, you will receive a confirmation email containing your unique link to join the meeting.

Elders for Sound Democracy
2024-11-20 10:00 - 11:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
The November Community Meeting will cover:

The Present: What we know about the federal election results so far
The Past: A summary of what ESD has accomplished via the 2024 EAN-wide GOTV campaign
The Future: Preliminary ESD strategy and goals for 2025

Please join us to learn about some amazing team accomplishments from the year and what we have cooking for the near future. We would like to hear your reactions and interests in our efforts to support a sound democracy for America.

register

After registering, you will receive an email from Zoom (no-reply@zoom.us) with a unique link to join the event. Please check your email inbox.

Connect & Refresh with the Civic Values & Culture Team
2024-11-19 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Tuesday, November 19
12:00 – 1:00 pm PT / 3:00 – 4:00 pm ET

Join our Civic Values & Culture Team as we pause from our activism and release our serious concerns during this challenging year. Once again, we will come together to enjoy our virtual and restorative community. We will reaffirm the values that guide our collaboration:

Integrity & Authenticity
Deep Listening with Openness, Curiosity and Presence
Appreciation of Differences

Register below to receive the Zoom link. Email event host Therese Flaherty at theresef@eldersaction.org with any questions.
register

Taking Action to Confront Authoritarianism
2024-11-14 09:00 - 10:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Second Thursday of the month
9:00 – 10:30 am PT / 12:00 – 1:30 pm ET

It’s election season and our democracy is facing an existential crossroads. Right-wing activists are promoting Project 2025, a sweeping blueprint to seize (and hold onto) autocratic control of our government. It would consolidate unchecked power in the presidency, undermining the system of checks and balances. If these extremists win the election, their game-plan tells us how they’ll dismantle many of our cherished personal freedoms.
From now until the election, we will be proactive, explaining the dangers of Project 2025 to our family & friends, communities, congregations, and social groups. We’ll stimulate respectful dialogue about the importance of motivating everyone to register to vote, to scrutinize candidates about their commitment to our fundamental values on issues that affect our lives, and to take whatever action they can to get those candidates elected, regardless of political party.
Please join us, share your ideas, volunteer your energy and passion.

register

Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together
2024-11-07 10:00 - 12:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
PART II: Thursday, November 7
10:00 am – 2:30 pm PT / 1:00 – 3:30 pm ET
No matter who wins the election, we’re going to need to talk—civilly! Do you have the skills to keep your cool in this overheated political environment?
The Building Bridges project is delighted to once again sponsor a two-part workshop by Kern Beare, originator of the Difficult Conversations Project. You’ll learn:

how our fight/flight response closes out our ability to stay present and focused in challenging conversations, and how to overcome it.
why trust is essential when navigating a difficult conversation, and how you can quickly establish trust even with someone you don’t know well.
how even in a highly polarized situation, you can find common ground when you learn to listen to the “story behind the story”.

As a special feature, following the November 7th session, join us for a virtual Living Room Conversation about difficult post-election conversations and how to use what you’ve learned from Kern’s workshop to promote civil conversations in family, workplace, and community settings.
register

Difficult Conversations: The Art and Science of Working Together
2024-10-31 10:00 - 12:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
Thursdays, October 31 & November 7
10:00 am – 12:30 pm PT / 1:00 – 3:30 pm ET

No matter who wins the election, we’re going to need to talk—civilly! Do you have the skills to keep your cool in this overheated political environment?
The Building Bridges project is delighted to once again sponsor a two-part workshop by Kern Beare, originator of the Difficult Conversations Project. You’ll learn:

how our fight/flight response closes out our ability to stay present and focused in challenging conversations, and how to overcome it.
why trust is essential when navigating a difficult conversation, and how you can quickly establish trust even with someone you don’t know well.
how even in a highly polarized situation, you can find common ground when you learn to listen to the “story behind the story”.

As a special feature, following the November 7th session, join us for a virtual Living Room Conversation about difficult post-election conversations and how to use what you’ve learned from Kern’s workshop to promote civil conversations in family, workplace, and community settings.
register
