Last week’s Chamber of Commerce gathering with expert community coach Paul Roth brought about conversation and agreement. Paul, an amazing workshop facilitator, encouraged us all to discover a new paradigm for these changing times. We are seeking short and long term solutions to serve the needs of the community and the global impact Woodstock emits as the worldwide phenomenon it is. “There are many visions of Woodstock,” we say at the Woodstock Museum, “the town, the festival(s) and the notion.”

A group of nearly 20 chamber members showed up on a frozen winter night at Mountain View Studio to participate in a lively discussion and to experience what a conversation piece “Woodstock” truly is. “What makes a community,” says Roth, “is a conversation.” How we can rise above the past is the key to our future! Out of the many Woodstock notions held in hearts, minds and spirits, a theme emerges. Woodstock is a very special place.
Although many tourists come in search of 1969, Woodstock is much more than that for those of us living here. Still, many visitors and locals alike share the values of the world wide social revolution of the 1960s, which was about inclusiveness, cooperation and even better, collaboration in a dream to make the world a better place to be. Why not start locally by mutually supporting our differences within the larger oneness? This actually turns out to be a pragmatic approach to the peace and love community we really are.

Woodstock Museum has experienced a tremendous surge in Woodstock interest, brought about by the 40th anniversary of ’69 as well as last years’ multi-million dollar opening in Bethel. This will increase as summer approaches and the release of the film “Taking Woodstock” is publicized. Like it or not, many people from everywhere are coming in search of “Woodstock,” a powerful, cultural icon, representing peace, love, music, art, awesome beauty, freedom, creativity and, above all, respect for the environment dating back to the Indians, who savored Woodstock not as a place to live but to enact sacred ceremonies. Our job is to meet, greet and share in the Woodstock experience. Brooding about the influx of visiting baby boomers and new youth with all their baggage is not the Woodstock way.

Actually, we are meeting the next generation, who accompany their parents to the museum, and they are activated and empowered by the Obama phenomenon. They are dressing in tie-dyes and patchwork jeans but make no mistake about it. They are not hippies looking for a handout and smelling foul from days without a shower. The next generation has the will to thrive and a vision to make it work, even in this crumbling economy. Visitors agree when we say: “The hippies were right.” And, the definition for “flower child” is “those of us who are more closely connected to the earth.” That sounds like most of us.

Let’s share our dreams of Woodstock. It’s not going away. Woodstock Museum has a whole series of events for this summer, mostly free. Call 845 246-0600 or email hello@WoodstockMuseum.org or visit our website www.WoodstockMuseum.org to stay tuned in for summer fun. Please volunteer. What is good for the town is good for the world! And now for the drum roll. Let there be music & art!

Nathan Koenig, Pres.
Shelli Lipton, Dir.
Woodstock Museum

This year’s theme is “DISCOVER”
What? Woodstock Museum 27th Annual FREE Film Festival
Where? Woodstock Museum, 13 Charles Bach Road, Saugerties, NY 12477
When? Labor Day week & weekend Tuesday September 1 to Monday September 7, 2026

Entries must be in English or subtitled. Add a brief description and supporting material. All genres accepted. Final acceptance is based on mailing a DVD, BluRay or preferably a USB flash drive containing a .MOV or .MPEG4 file to:

Woodstock Museum
P.O. Box 73
Woodstock, New York 12498-0073
USA

“Woodstock is the most famous small town in the world.” Our mission is to encourage and increase public awareness of Woodstock by providing information to the general public through cultural events, displays of artifacts, outreach programs, communication media events and personal experiences, and to contribute, as an international attraction, to the cultural life and prosperity of our region; and to engage in all lawful activities in pursuit of the foregoing purposes.

Isn’t it lovely that GREEN is in fashion this year, that solar and wind energy is finally coming of age, that polluting petrochemical products make war but can be replaced by sustainable and recyclable cellulose based organics, that Native American elders were right about respecting the earth or else, that political corruption and unjust war is now common knowledge, that church, state and corporations need to be checked and balanced, the MLK was right we he showed us how to pull out of Vietnam and transform into a Peace economy, that natural healing remedies are often preferable and much more economical than FDA sanctioned pharmaceuticals with high-priced often fatal side effects, that babies can be birthed in a supportive, home environment and once again nursed by the Mother, that women, African-Americans and other minorities now have a voice and opportunities to get a life, that we can now be in contact anywhere via computer in the level playing field of cyberspace, Shall we rave on? Or shall we just carry on these legacies of the sixties where our eyes were first opened to these essential things?

These concepts are not retro. Woodstock the town has taken many of these legacies to heart. They represent progress about which we have no rational choice but to support and contribute.

This is part of our Woodstock notion. This is what our founding President Alf Evers was supporting when he joined with us in forming Woodstock Museum. He saw us reaching out to the world with the kind of impact Woodstock has had on the world through the arts and the progressive thinking that has resulted from attracting so many creative individuals since its founding
as an art colony in 1902

Yet even though some locals like to say “it was a small blip on the screen” and it was “the festival that didn’t happen here,” the sixties” influence in Woodstock history was a more like a big bang that was most definitely conceived in and around Woodstock as its pollen blew in on a wind from the west coast. The shops are buzzing with memorabilia of the sixties, T-shirts and bongs, CDs and clothes that fulfill a nostalgic compulsion to buy. And what do we learn from sex, drugs and rock’n roll? Or from the Woodstock Festival reunions at Saugerties and Rome, NY? As for people who want to belong to a sustainable living culture, much can be learned from the past, especially while some witnesses and participants are still around to reminisce.

According to Christopher Dean, Producer of Thursday Plantation’s Tea Tree oil (we have seen it at Sunflower) and spokesman for Woodstock’s sister village down under, Nimbin Australia, where they are still called hippies, “I believe that the seed of hippie ideas and belief system came from California, [from] the Haight-Ashbury experience. That flowered in Woodstock in a little burst! That then set up ideas and a culture and a belief system that took root in Nimbin. That’s where the seed got planted and has grown here for 30 [now 35] years. But I think it would only be very just and fitting that some of the fruits of Nimbin’s experience go back and recolonize the U.S. experience, re-enrich it, embolden it, and just show what is achievable from carrying out these ideas properly!
to get them into the mainstream where I think they belong.”

Anyone who wants to write to us here in Mexico or join us as ambassadors to Nimbin, contact hello@WoodstockMuseum.com. We leave for Australia April 15th. Neighboring town Lismore celebrates a week of Aquarius celebrations beginning April 18th. Nimbin Mardi Grass and Green Festivals take place May 3rd weekend followed by a mid-May 35th Aquarius Festival Reunion, filled with all the arts and fun celebrations.

Finally, Woodstock Museum Film Festival theme this year is FREEDOM.
Love & Peace,
Nathan Koenig
Woodstock Museum President