Want to help make the Communities Conference and Convergence of ICs happen? Join the Build Camp August 15-17, or the pre-event dumpster dive in DC August 27th

We are doing the final site preparation push for the coming events at the Twin Oaks conference site. We are building a solar shower, clearing plant growth, and possibly erecting additional large domes. We will also be testing some of our game workshops, musical performances and the mud pit. So it is not all work. We will feed you at this camping event (bring your own gear). Families welcome, there will be ways for folks of all manner of abilities to contribute.

Register for the Build Camp weekend via Facebook Gathering Build Camp August 15-17, or read more about both opportunities on Paxus’ blog ​​Helping Out – Dumpster Dives and Build Camps.

Online ticket sales for the TOCC & CIC end at noon on Aug 28, you can still buy tickets on site

Online ticket sales for both the conference and the convergence end at 12 noon eastern on Thursday August 28. You are welcome to purchase tickets at the conference between 1 PM and 8 PM on Friday, or between 8 AM and 2 PM on Saturday. Registration for the Convergence  opens at 11am Monday Sept 1 if you’re only attending that event. For additional details about on site ticket sales, please contact conference@twinoaks.org. Cash and check are preferred at the site, but we can accommodate credit cards too. 

Announcing Sunday Evening’s Black Culture Celebration

Aiming to include BIPOC peoples and honor diversity in heritage implies that our community homes will be multicultural. Getting there is a journey best infused with joy every step of the way. As such, Sunday night’s main activity is an immersion into Black Culture. We start with an Afro-Brazilian Peaceful Warrior Ceremony, followed by participatory dances of the African diaspora with drums, DJs, and more! We will continue with a bonfire around which we will ritual into the night. Welcome! For more about the hosting team, visit liberationarts.com

Announcing more TOCC workshops for 2025

Erin Gideon Limón will be presenting “A Living Network of Communities in Resistance”

About the Workshop

This session explores how decentralized tools like DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and community-rooted tech can strengthen housing and worker co-ops in building care-based, alternative economies. Together, we will explore how labor-backed systems can help urban and rural communities reclaim space, track contribution, and share resources without replicating hierarchy or extraction.

Grounded in lived experience from intentional communities and system-impacted neighborhoods in Chicago, this session weaves real-life examples with broader visions for collective resilience. One such example is a Richmond-based incubator designed to grow BIPOC-led co-ops and connect them through a decentralized economy of mutual aid, land stewardship, and shared governance. The long-term goal is an archipelago of autonomous, interconnected communities that resist isolation and build survival through solidarity.

About the Presenter

Erin Gideon Limón is a former ICU nurse from Chicago turned communard. She has lived at Twin Oaks and Acorn and served on Twin Oaks’ Racial Equity Team. Her work explores how to connect urban BIPOC communities and rural communes through mutual aid, tech justice, and decentralized governance. She is actively building relationships and infrastructure to link these worlds through care-based, transparent systems that redistribute power and resources.

Anna Jordan will be presenting “Community Death Care”

About the Workshop

Workshop participants are asked to bring their experiences, beliefs, questions, fears, and explorations of the life/death continuum. Which are then rolled into the experience of a  community death care advocate and educator. From this shared space, we’ll explore how communities can reshape their cultural practices to create death rituals that are resonant, inclusive, and rooted in collective care.

About the Presenter

Anna Jordan is a licensed funeral director, celebrant, community death care advocate, death cafe facilitator, and a board member of the National Home Funeral Alliance (homefuneralalliance.org) which educates and advocates regarding peoples’ right to care for their own dead. Anna was born in Vermont, and grew up in Vermont, Maine and Alaska. She home-schooled her three children and is now settled in Washington State. She has found her life’s calling helping people talk about, think about and learn about their end-of-life choices from dying to disposition. When she’s not working in the realm of death, she enjoys bare-foot walking, forest bathing, meditation, yoga, nurturing her community and creating art.

Rideshare forms and mass transit pickup requests

If you are coming from more than an hour away and have an extra seat in your vehicle, or if you are looking for a ride to either of the events, please fill out our Ride Share form.  We can help you coordinate getting to the conference site from Charlottesville and Richmond, as well, if you are arriving by public transport, train, bus, or airplane.

The auction is back in 2025!

As one of the Twin Oaks Community Conference events, we will be holding a fast-paced, high-energy benefit auction for the Foundation for Intentional Community and Twin Oaks. Proceeds will help the FIC continue to bring the exciting news of intentional community to a world hungry for it, and to support the growth of the Convergence of Intentional Communities. 

You can help in two ways: 1) Bring items to donate to the auction, and 2) come ready to take part in bidding (credit cards, cash, and digital forms such as Venmo and PayPal are all welcome). Want more details? To learn how and where to send auction items, and for questions regarding the auction, send inquiries to kim.kanney@ic.org

COVID-19 policies for 2025

Currently we anticipate the 2025 Covid-19 policies will be the same as 2024’s, though this could change if there is a major outbreak. 

All participants must provide proof of a recent negative Covid-19 test before they enter the 2025 conferences. This is to help protect the high number of vulnerable people in the community. We strongly encourage testing at home before traveling to the conference and sending us a selfie of your test result via email or text. Tests will also be available at our registration desk at cost (estimated price of $10).

Please stay home if you are feeling ill, have recently been diagnosed with Covid-19, or have had direct contact with a suspected or confirmed Covid-19 case. If you do not attend or need to leave early due to medical concerns, we will happily refund your registration fee. Even with these guidelines in place, there is some risk of Covid-19 exposure, so please consider this when deciding to attend this year.