Tokeativity

It’s a brisk Saturday afternoon, and the sun is refracting through cut glass and casting rainbows across the wooden floor, beautifully displaying the namesake for Prism House.

Relaxed, yet excited, thirty-five women gather at tables. Eager to start, some have laptops open, while others choose old-school notebooks opened to a fresh sheet. The room hums with excited chatter, punctuated by the click of a lighter, and decorated with laughter.

This is our second Tokeativity workshop (we’ll have had six at the time of this printing), and it is our first to be sold out. “Get that F*cking Job” is the title, all about breaking in, expanding out, or moving up in the cannabis industry. Sara Batterby, President and CEO of HiFi Farms, is lined up to speak, along with Colleen O’Hara, who at the time was a job recruiter. Ironically, Sara recruited Colleen as Director of Sales at HiFi. Sara was looking for a salesperson, and when Colleen opened her talk by saying she had grown a sales team from three to sixty, well, the rest
is herstory.

All our registered guests have arrived and signed up for break-out sessions, where they will work on resumes and further develop business ideas. The room is absolutely buzzing with anticipation. It’s time to get started!

Tokeativity: Cannabis Events for Women

Tokeativity was conceived late one night in January 2015 while planning an invitation to our North Portland friends circle. I called the event “Dinner & Toke-a-tivity”- an intentional get-together, where we shared food and cannabis and basked in the pleasures of creating communal art.

I started my first organized feminist events in New York City, after returning from the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival at the age of twenty-two. I was wholly inspired by the power of collaborating women, and by how much we can flourish in women-only spaces. Ever since that festival, empowering women to find strength and comfort in their own lives has felt like a deep calling.

After many more group “dinner and toke-a-tivity” gatherings, I often daydreamed of throwing my own consumption-friendly art parties and workshops. I decided to attend a Women Grow networking event in November 2015, where I met Samantha Montanaro, a fellow event planner, graphic designer, and founder of Prism House PDX, a private event space in Northeast Portland.  A year after our initial meeting, I felt ready to birth Tokeativity women’s events. I approached Sam with the idea in November 2016, and she enthusiastically said “Yes!” to join me in this endeavor. Samantha and I have been co-curating Tokeativity events since that moment. We both specialize in creating warm, inviting spaces and together have been doubly powerful. Prism House has been an excellent space to build a community of women-owned businesses and cannabis consumers.

We intend to nurture a safe space for women to create, learn, and connect. When you walk into a Tokeativity event, you step into a world of feminism, cannabis, and personal growth. Consumption-friendly events have empowered women to connect in a way that has opened our minds, hearts, and spirits as a community. Cannabis has a way of bringing people together, and with legalization, we have opportunities to consume without shame or guilt.

As women, we protect ourselves with many layers that we often don’t even recognize. Something magically liberating happens in environments void of patriarchal energy. Being on a truly equal level with your peers can be a life-altering experience. At Tokeativity, many protective layers can be checked at the door.  Knowing we have your back, you can relax more deeply than you thought possible.

Along with workshops, our monthly Tokeativity Socials also provide nurturing environments for women to creatively explore. We set up various woman-powered stations that help to educate, rejuvenate, and empower women to go back out into the world and kick some ass!

We offer scholarships to all our local events. We’ve also partnered with many women-owned businesses, giving them direct access to a female audience as well as high visibility in our networks. This helps these businesses rapidly grow brand awareness and has already fostered many powerful business relationships.

I hope that by creating these types of opportunities, every woman who attends a Tokeativity event gains wisdom into her path, meets someone who intuitively leads her to her next work venture, or perhaps simply fosters a moment of peaceful relaxation.

I am so thankful for Samantha: while working tirelessly to maintain her busy event planning, she still finds time to help pave the way for the consumption movement here in Oregon, such as SB307. Titled the Oregon Social Consumption Bill, it provides for regulation of the consumption and sale of marijuana items at temporary events, including licensure of the event’s premises. The bill will come up for a vote in the coming weeks at the state House and Senate, and we’ll need all hands on deck to communicate to our representatives! This vote would allow expansion of what we can offer women, including events like Tokeativity.

Tokeativity has become a growing community of women who are simultaneously making personal as well as business connections. We invite you to join us and experience the magic of our women-only consumption-friendly events.

On our website here, you can learn more about our event including: “Tokeativity Conversations: The Ethical Landscapes of Women in the Cannabis Workplace.” This is a free event to discuss the ethics and inequalities of women in the cannabis industry. We’re also working to expand pop-up event hosting in other cities outside of Portland.