InBerkeley

You’ve got to love BioFuel Oasis. First off, this women-run cooperative launched, in 2003, the only bio-diesel station in the East Bay (and possibly the whole Bay for all I know) out of a run-down warehouse in west Berkeley.

Now they have taken over a 1933 (traditional) gas station that had seen better days and, largely with their own sweat equity, transformed it into, well, a veritable oasis.

The place looks great — with planters under canopies and solar panels keeping the whole place powered up.

BioFuel Oasis is run by Novella Carpenter, Jennifer Radtke, Margaret Farrow, Ace Anderson and Melissa Hardy and it’s having its official grand opening celebration on Saturday July 18, noon to 5pm. There will be “grillin’ and chillin” with free food and non-alcoholic drinks, a live band and — wait for it — a fuel filter changing rodeo.

It’s free and all are welcome. Find details here.

Business, Events, Green, Green living, Retail Business, Green, Retail

Fresh from winning the “Songwriter of the Year” at the 5th Annual South Bay Music Awards, Berkeley singer-songwriter Jeffrey Halford will play a solo acoustic show this Sunday, July 12 at  Bird and Beckett books and records in San Francisco.

In August and November, Halford and his band, The Healers, will be back in San Francisco for more gigs.

Halford sings and plays lead guitar and his recent CD, Broken Chord, went to number 8 on the national Americana charts,

Check out Halford’s website and read more at Diablo Magazine’s website.

[Photo: www. jeffreyhalford.com.]

Arts, Events Music, The Arts

If you enjoyed today’s free Tea Freddo at Peet’s, tomorrow is your chance to get a free 7.11-oz Slurpee at your favorite 7-Eleven store, in Berkeley or anywhere else. It’s the iconic convenience store’s annual birthday celebration event. See all the details here.

Business, General

If you’re looking for something slightly uncommon in Berkeley this weekend, there’s a dragon boat practice at the Berkeley Marina’s M-Dock at 10:30 on Saturday. Berkeley’s dragon boats are raced out of the Berkeley Racing Canoe Center. Guests, passengers and team prospects are welcome at most practices.

Recreation

Mark Yudof, University of California president, announced today his plan to offset an anticipated $813 million drop in support from the state of California’s general fund. Yudof briefed reporters on the plan at a meeting at his office in Oakland. Yudof’s plan will be voted on by the Board of Regents at its meeting at UC San Francisco in Mission Bay next week.

Yudof’s plan calls for a quarter of the total to be met by the previously planned increase in student fees. A further quarter will be met by system-wide furloughs. Debt restructuring and administrative cost savings will provide a further $100 million. The remaining $300 million will come from cuts spread across all 10 campuses in the UC system. Chancellors of the individual campuses will determine the specifics of the cuts, which they will present to the Regents at next week’s board meeting.

UC Berkeley, for example, anticipates reducing faculty recruitment from a typical 100 positions a year to 10. Most campuses are deferring at least 50 percent of planned faculty hires, and already 724 staff members have been laid off systemwide, with more to come.

Russell Gould, chairman of the Board of Regents, said he planned to create a commission to look at the future of the UC system. ”We will act now and gather the best minds available inside and outside our system, and ask that they use this moment of crisis to re-examine, reset and take a hard critical look at how we face the future,” he said. “One thing is certain: It is impossible to imagine a successful California that doesn’t rely on the innovation gained through research conducted by the University of California. This will be especially true as we move forward into an information economy.”

It seems right to quote from a recent column in The Washington Post by Harold Myerson: “From a model for far-sighted investments in the future, California has become a state that uninvests in the present and has no vision at all for the future.”

Photo by Erik Eckel from Flickr

UC Berkeley

Novella Carpenter, author of the recently published Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, is offering a class on keeping chickens in Berkeley on July 26.

“Backyard Chickens 101″will  cover coop building, nutrition, city ordinances, chick care, health, and troubleshooting. “Egg-y snacks” will also be offered. The class costs $25, but scholarships are available thanks to a Rainbow Grocery Coop grant.

Carpenter is also one of the founder of Berkeley’s BioFuel Oasis and information about the class can be found on its website or by phoning  510-665-5509.

Future classes include beekeeping taught by Jennifer Radtke and a biodiesel home-brew class.

Also see Frances Dinkelspiel’s InBerkeley post on dumpster diving with Carpenter.

[Photo credit: www.bantamboutique.com]

Events, Green, Green living Environment, Events, Green living, Nature