Steering Group Meeting MINUTES: 6:00–6:30pm, Tues. 27 March 2012
Facilitator: Don Recorder: Sari
Present: Those present will be underlined on lists below
Visitors:
SG Members: Don Kennedy, Marie Goodwin, Sari Steuber, Marion Yaglinski, Aleisa Myles, Chris Martin, Tam Mengine, Kathy Lundgren, Ellen Morfei, Christine Casullo, Carol Kennedy, Mary Jo Corley, Howard Bailey.
Opening Review of the agenda
1. Working Group reports:
a. Food (Aleisa) – reported on visit to 18-acre property which we hope to turn into edible forest and Permaculture learning center; next steps are to look for funding & plan what changes will be made to the site; Val Kolaga & Lori Imbesi will work with Jona Harvey (land owner) and Permaculturist David Jacke, both of whom are very excited about the project. Have been working on tonight’s Farmer event and on the CropMob project with the TimeBank. Meetings 1st & 3rd Sundays, 4-5pm, at Marie’s, 360 Kirk Ln, Media.
b. Energy (Don for Chris) – No new items; Chris, Sari, Medard, & David Director (AFewSteps.org) continuing to collaborate on energy competition web site (next meeting Friday, April 20, 12:30 pm, Swarthmore College Science Center Rm. 102, bring lunch); EAC Energy Committee is meeting about $2500 grant from Borough Council, Sari gave them some ideas of what to do with the money but haven’t heard back from them yet; AFewSteps.org faith-based assist to Providence Meeting – no action yet; AFewSteps.org faith-based assist to Congregation Beth Israel – PECO gas conversion pricing analysis continuing.
c. Economy & TimeBank (Marie) – currently focused on CropMob; planning outreach presentations to potential community partners; meeting with several faith-based groups interested in Time Bank; 10 new TimeBank members in last month; May event (Edgar Cahn on TimeBanking, Charles Eisenstein on Gift Economy & Transition) being worked on – negotiating with Swarthmore College for room); going to Harrisburg, at invitation of Nathan Spivey of Transition Harrisburg, to talk about TimeBanking as a useful tool for a Transition Town, and to talk with Charles Eisenstein about May event; planning another Shannon Hayes event on Saturday, November 3rd, co-sponsored with Greener Partners. TimeBank meetings are 1st & 3rd Sundays, 5-6pm, at Marie’s, 360 Kirk Ln, Media.
d. Health Care (Mary Jo)– had a second meeting on March 22nd, attended by 7 people, 4 of whom were new to the group having attended the Health Care event in February. We discussed the need for a business plan but would need to find a space first so that we knew how many practitioners would be able to work there and how much renovating the space would need. Marie to check with Elwyn about possible use of a vacant building there. Discussed different payment models as well. Next meetings will be on 2nd & 4th Mondays 7pm, at Marie’s, 360 Kirk Ln, Media, starting April 9th.
e. Heart & Soul (Ellen) –until further notice, our meetings will focus exclusively on being a support group for anyone attending, program efforts may be revived in the future. Meetings will be 1st & 3rd Thursdays 7pm; April 5th will be at 925 Second Ave, Media; all further meetings will be at 1248 Hunt Club Ln, Media.
f. Recycling/Zero Waste (Don for Kathy) – Kathy reported she will not be heading up the Recycling committee any longer as it is not her passion, she suggested asking Bob Seiple if he wanted to take it over, Kathy said she would be available for ideas, etc. She included a spreadsheet for gathering basic data about what a municipality is doing about trash and recycling; she only started with a few suggestions but noted there is no end of data one could gather: pounds of trash per person per month vs. pounds of recycling per person per month, etc. She also included a 26-page study from San Francisco about standards for safe use of composting toilets for the general public in case anyone wanted to look into this further.
g. Outreach (Don) – The group met twice this month (March 5th & 19th); due to the overlap of issues with Steering Group, we will now have Outreach Group meetings on the 1st Monday and Steering Group meetings on the 3rd Monday of each month. The Steering Group meetings will be full decision-making meetings, replacing the half-hour meetings before each monthly event. The March10-11 advanced Transition training was a success, with 27 attendees from the Delaware & Lehigh Valleys, NJ and DE. The March 13 social event at Picasso’s was also successful, with a dozen attendees & good conversation; need to get a separate room next time; the name will be changed to TimeBank Happy Hour to be clearer. We finalized arrangements for tonight’s event and discussed splitting April’s event into 2 events due to the film not being appropriate for kids. The April event will be the Garbage Art Contest (Drew Arata will emcee, and the short film, The Story of Stuff, will be shown) and The Garbage Warrior will be shown another month. We discussed showing films primarily for adults vs. having family potlucks and decided having some films to educate the public was important. We proposed various ideas for future events in 2012. Various drafts of the revised TTM brochure were discussed. Discussion of 3 future events – our Providence Friends speaking engagement on May 20th, the Edgar Cahn/Charles Eisenstein workshop May 25-26, and a future Great Unleashing – were postponed to the April 2nd meeting. The next Outreach Group meeting will be Monday, April 2nd; the next Steering Group meeting will be Monday, April 16th, both at 7pm at Don’s house, 601 Fairview Rd, Swarthmore.
h. Reskilling – Howard brought Reskilling spreadsheet, listing all kinds of skills grouped in categories, he suggested we could use a similar spreadsheet to track local skills and artisans.
2. Events Calendar:
a. April 14 – tabling at Environmental Fair, Strathhaven High School – Carol is putting together schedule of tablers
b. April 20 – tabling at West Chester environmental event – Sari & maybe Val Kolaga will go
c. April 26 – 4th Tuesday event on a Thursday – Garbage Art Show & Contest
d. May 12 – Newark Natural Foods Co-op 4-6pm, presentation on TimeBanking with a Transition Town
e. May 20 – presentation at Providence Friends Meeting – should keep it short, no more than 2 people should present, involve attendees as much as possible
f. May 25-26 – TT/TB Workshop Event (replacing our 4th Tuesday event for May) – working on having it at Swarthmore College, if not, may have it at Providence Friends, Edgar Cahn & Charles Eisenstein are both confirmed
g. Transition Town training, led by Michael Brownlee & Lynette Marie Hanthorn, at Pendle Hill, October 11-14
h. Fair Trade Live Concert, October 21
3. Announcements
a. April 24th Bill McKibben speaking at Swarthmore College sponsored by Pendle Hill
4. Next meeting:
Time = 4/16/2012, 7-8:30pm; Place = Don & Carol’s house, 601 Fairview Rd, Swarthmore
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