Marin County’s Department of Aging and Adult Services helps to combat the financial abuse of older and dependent adults through the FAST program.
The division’s Financial Abuse Specialist Team, known as FAST, is currently chaired by the Public Guardian and Adult Protective Service offices. These county employees work with a team of dedicated volunteers from the community to provide training and consultation on recognizing, investigating, stopping and preventing elder financial abuse.
There is a wealth of expertise on the team, with professionals represented from diverse professional fields such as accounting, law, business and banking. The volunteers are utilized both as community educators, and as financial experts. The team partners with the District Attorney’s office and with local police departments to track and prosecute cases. The team meets bi-monthly and all FAST meetings and investigations are kept strictly confidential according to an MOU developed by Marin’s County Counsel.
Presenters:
Roberta Robinson is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley.
She is retired Vice President and Branch Manager Bank of America and formerly President of the San Anselmo Chamber of Commerce.
Roberta was also former Treasurer of the Town of San Anselmo and foreperson of the Marin County Civil Grand Jury 2007-2008.
Roberta is an initial member of the Marin County FAST team which began in 2011.
Oak Dowling, JD, is a retired attorney with 43 years of practice, including 31 years in San Rafael. He’s a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison Law School and a native of Chicago. He has lived in Marin County for over 45 years and for over 25 years he was a part-time Instructor of Law at College of Marin.
Oak has been a member of the Marin County Financial Abuse Specialist Team (FAST) team since its inception in 2011 and was selected as Outstanding Marin County Volunteer of the Year for 2012-2013. He has been a member of Marin Forum for over 20 years and was its President in 2002.
For the past 8 years Oak has been an Instructor in the OLLI program at Dominican University in the subject of “Courtroom Drama in the Movies and Theatre.” In his Law classes, he uses courtroom drama to demonstrate legal principles. As an avocation, he performed in theatre in Marin and San Francisco for 15 years. Oak has been a member of the Rotary Club of San Rafael for over 41 years and has served the Club as Director and Speaker’s Chairman.
Harmonious Breathing has as its central purpose the rediscovery of the beauty and importance of breathing well in our everyday lives. Among the many health benefits, it serves to clear the mind, restore vigor to the body, and harmonize the emotions.
In this workshop we practice breath awareness through gentle movement and easy static postures. Then using safe, breath-specific exercises, we gain the experience of the pathways the breath can take. In so doing we enhance the fluidity and underlying harmony of the respiration. This is an embodied practice that takes place standing and also sitting in a chair. All skill levels are welcome.
Presenter: Vicki Sidley
Vicki Sidley was born and raised in South Africa. She has resided in California since 1977. She began practicing Yoga in the early 70’s, and has been a Yoga teacher for 16 years, accredited in 2002 by Yoga Arts in Australia at the 500-hour level. Her classes draw from many sources, including classical Hatha Yoga and Zen traditions.
In early 2014 she was introduced to Yantra Yoga of the great Dzogchen master Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, and recognized it as uniquely effective. She has practiced this art regularly since.
Vicki has taken the first and second open level Yantra Yoga courses. She has attended courses in Harmonious Breathing and the anatomy of breathing with Fabio Andrico and has helped him edit a book on the subject. In 2015 she was authorized to teach this profound method of breathing, beneficial to all.
Join us for this day of fun in celebration of Earth Day and Day of the Child. Starting at 9am, we will have a community trash clean up in conjunction with Bahia Vista Elementary School. Help pick up trash along the shoreline, near Pickleweed Park and Bahia Vista School!
At 11am, meet at the picnic area adjacent to Pickleweed Library for fun activities and games with Marin YMCA and Marin Library’s mobile Flagship.
At 12:30pm, enjoy an outdoor music performance from internationally known bilingual educator and performer, Jose Luis Orozco. Book giveaway and snack will be provided.
Many teens are falling short of achieving their true potential because the adults have no useful road map to guide their children to navigate the information technology highway.
It’s not our fault as parents that we live in a culture which neglects to educate us how to efficiently steer our family through the distractions of digital dominance, social media, and consumer commercialism.
This workshop will give you practical tools to overcome these obstacles so that your teen can become more responsible for his or her own well-being. By learning how to effectively communicate to teens in a biological (not psychological) language that they can understand, you’ll be able to skillfully use your authority, influence and love, whether your teen is anxious or depressed, an extrovert or introvert, over-empowered or under-driven, over-confident or unwilling, entitled or indifferent, high energy or low energy.
Dr. Mark Schillinger, DC has been called “the teen whisperer” because of his ability to help teens discover their inner wisdom while also showing parents how to best use their values in order to maximize their authority and influence. Dr. Mark is the founder of the non-profit, Young Mens Ultimate Weekend. He’s also the creator of the parenting method, The RIGHT Way for Family Unity®, which helps parents enjoy more caring and cooperative relationships with their teens.
Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, called “the most famous undocumented immigrant in America,” tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms.
“This is not a book about the politics of immigration. This book––at its core––is not about immigration at all. This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like myself find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together, and having to make new ones when you can’t. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home.
After 25 years of living illegally in a country that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom.” —Jose Antonio Vargas, from Dear America
This discussion will be facilitated by SURJ Marin (Showing Up for Racial Justice)
SURJ Marin is part of a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for racial justice with passion and accountability.
You can find more information about SURJ here: www.surjmarin.org
Racial Justice Book Club – Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
This discussion will be facilitated by members of SURJ Marin (Showing Up for Racial Justice)
Bryan Stevenson recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compassion in American justice.
Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinkmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.
Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.
SURJ Marin is part of a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for racial justice with passion and accountability.
From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a bracingly original approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society–and in ourselves.
“The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it–and then dismantle it.”
Ibram X. Kendi’s concept of antiracism reenergizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America–but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it.
In this book, Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism. How to Be an Antiracist is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond an awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a truly just and equitable society.
This discussion will be facilitated by SURJ Marin (Showing Up for Racial Justice)
SURJ Marin is part of a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for racial justice with passion and
accountability. You can find more information about SURJ here: www.surjmarin.org
Marin County is a graveyard of ships. Its steep rock-bound shores, treacherous currents, and frequent fogs have been the doom of hundreds of ships for over four hundred years. In his newest book, Shipwrecks of Marin, local historian Brian K. Crawford has done extensive research fleshing out the details of famous wrecks from contemporary accounts, and identifying more than a hundred wrecks not documented elsewhere. Many of these are disasters within San Francisco Bay.
Many of these tales are full of danger and heroism, of pathos and high adventure. Terrified passengers cling to overturned steamers or clutch at rocks in the pounding seas. Seamen clamber up cliffs to escape certain destruction. One captain runs two ferries aground and sinks a yacht all in one day. The vessels range from Spanish treasure galleons to garbage scows, clipper ships to floating dry docks.
If you love ships and the sea or tales of danger and adventure, or if you just want to know more about the many wrecks that dot our coasts, you will find this book endlessly entertaining.
In this illustrated lecture, Crawford tells the stories of seven of the most significant wrecks on our coasts.
Books will be available for purchase and signed by the author.
This book talk is brought to you by the Friends of the San Rafael Public Libraries.
Friends Books will participate in the citywide Spring Sidewalk Sale in downtown San Rafael on Saturday, April 13 from 10 am to 4 pm.
A plethora of books on gardening tips, design, plant selection and care will be shown on our sunny patio in front of the shop. ( If it rains, the display will be inside.)
All garden books will be at special prices that day.
Friends Books is located at 1016 C Street, between 4th and 5th, next to the C Street garage – free parking all day!
Join us for snacks, games, a queer book talk, an “Ask a Queer Adult” panel and more! Meet cool people and find out about local resources for LGBTQ+ youth.
This program is for teens (middle and high school) and young adults. No registration required.
Presenter: Vicki Sidley
Dr. Mark Schillinger, DC has been called “the teen whisperer” because of his ability to help teens discover their inner wisdom while also showing parents how to best use their values in order to maximize their authority and influence. Dr. Mark is the founder of the non-profit, 
In this illustrated lecture, Crawford tells the stories of seven of the most significant wrecks on our coasts.
Join us for snacks, games, a queer book talk, an “Ask a Queer Adult” panel and more! Meet cool people and find out about local resources for LGBTQ+ youth.