April 6, 2011 / Hanover, NH Town Hall, 8:00-10:00am Attendees: Lyn Swett Miller (Chair), Larry Litten (Vice-Chair), Mary Ann Cadwallader, Chris Soderquist, Rosi Kerr (Director of Sustainability at Dartmouth) Chris Kennedy. Susan Edwards (susanedwards67@gmail.com) (Recycling & Waste Subcommittee), Brian Walsh (Selectman), Marjorie Rogalski, Peter Kulbacki (Public Works)
Guests: Teresa Oden (toden@carleton.edu) and Kelly McGlinchey (Dartmouth Sustainability Intern),
Minutes Approved: for Meetings in January and February. Action Items: Kiosk Creation: Lyn will talk with the designer about the base, a removable pamphlet holder and a case to transport the kiosk in
February 26 Workshop Wrap-up: Despite the small turn-out, we road-tested Larry’s workshop on composting and Chris Kennedy’s on weatherization. Julia Griffin gave an introduction to the Town’s work on sustainability and Rosi Kerr talked about Dartmouth’s sustainability initiatives. Chris S. worked with a small group on his project that enables individuals and communities to plot sustainability goals. The transportation sub-committee (Bike/Ped. Committee) had a meeting rather than give their workshop. We didn’t do the consumer workshop. The content for the event was right, but the timing was poor— middle of ski season on a beautiful day. Sadly, too many people left during the lunch break for the visioning session to be possible.
The following dates were suggested for a 2012 Workshop, March 31 or April 7 (Easter is April 8). In 2012 gas and oil will most likely be over $4.00 a gallon and we may have a large audience to show what can be done to reduce energy use.
Kiosk Design Decision: The kiosk will be 6 feet high. It will have 2 panels of display space about 2’by 3’ on each of 3 sides. Posters will be latched in, not tacked. The 3 linked panels will sit on a triangular base. An info. sheet holder could be included on the bottom panel.
2011 Plan for Action will focus on residential sustainability and will continue to include these components: -EDUCATION--Our kiosk with the theme of assuring another 250 years coordinated with our website. We took time to thank Lyn for her vision and work on this. Brian mentioned how proud the Town is of this, and Rosi congratulated us on it.
2012 SDAT partnership -ENERGY--data gathering as residents try RePower at Home and My Energy Plan now on the website. -WASTE/RECYCLING--Yard Sale, September 10 (Susan Edwards) -TRANSPORTATION--Bike/Ped Committee’s Safe Route to Schools (Joanna Whitcomb) -FOOD/AGRICULTURE—educating residents on composting and rethinking lawns and gardens. This might include tours of exemplary gardens, water gardens, lawns and workshops in composting etc. (Larry Litten) -LAND--
Here is a summary of some logistical issues:
Discussion about Structure (Leadership, Meeting times, Composition of meetings): How do we make this all happen? Lyn is stepping down in June. Larry will stay on one more year.
Larry expressed his concern about our difficulty in growing the committee, about burn out, and about inclusion of Hanover’s business community, schools, and churches under our umbrella. Is our meeting time keeping us from including these sectors of the community? Should we work to be more like the Conservation Commission and the Planning Board with strong citizen committees meeting at night and have a paid Town employee to coordinate Town efforts (looking to find sustainability in every aspect of what the Town does), and an implied policy-making mandate?
Brian spoke to these questions; first, to the difficulty of getting people with children to serve on groups that meet at night. He said that the Town already devoted a man-year to being sustainable. He reminded us that the State government controls building codes and taxation. Further, he felt it wasn’t the Town’s role to legislate sustainability in a top down manner. Sustainable Hanover’s job, then, would seem to be one of education and persuasion of citizens to adopt sustainable practices and to spread the word, as well as one of coordination of citizens’ efforts.
In these years of ‘forming’ Sustainable Hanover, we’ve discussed acting as a steering committee for all those working on sustainability in Hanover, advocating for best practices in the Town’s use of energy, and educating other Hanover residents through a website, an annual celebration, a kiosk, etc. The Natural Step program set up several subcommittees that would have needed a steering committee to provide coordination if they’d thrived. When they didn’t with the exception of the Bike/Ped group and the new Recycling of Waste Committee, the Committee stepped up to enlarge the group interested in sustainability. We need to continue our efforts to engage our citizens in sustainability.
Committee members feel a tremendous urgency to see sustainable practices adopted throughout Hanover and at times feel discouraged with what appears to be slow progress despite our efforts. It is hard to know which of our efforts may bear fruit. Should we look for grant money to hire someone to advocate and coordinate the Town’s efforts to become more sustainable, knowing that we would have to take over this work when the grant money ran out? Someone suggested that our name, Sustainable Hanover, might lead the public to think that the Town is addressing the issue and doesn’t need citizens to get busy to make Hanover more sustainable.
Rosi suggested we look for models on the web that address the challenges of coordination and communication we’ve articulated. She thought that a Dartmouth intern could go to each group in town involved in sustainability and report back so we’d have a better overall picture of the efforts being made, could facilitate sharing and consequently avoid duplication of effort.
In our search for effective ways to educate and communicate, to coordinate and build a constituency and to act and record results; we need to appreciate all the work that we’ve already done. Thank you, Lyn, for your leadership and for getting the website up and going. Your example has encouraged us to act and brought expertise to the Committee. These past 2 years, we’ve learned a lot from our publicity efforts at the Farmers’ Market, involved others in our work at the Yard Sale and Naked Table, partnered more often with Dartmouth. Joanna Whitcomb and Rosi Kerr’s attendance at our meetings has contributed greatly to this and to our information base as well.
Earth Day/Week at Dartmouth: Rosi invited us to have a presence, Saturday, April 23rd at the block party near the Green that will conclude the Earth Week celebrations at Dartmouth (read more about them on Dartmouth’s website). The event will begin after 11:00 and go until 4:00 and have free food and fun activities, ending with a concert by the Novac band behind Colis. VINS and the Montshire will be there as the event is meant to involve both the college and Town.
We didn’t want to miss out on this even though it’s happening during school vacation and some of us will be out of town. Lyn will contact Kelly McGlinchey about personing our kiosk. (Rosie offered to pay Kelly.) Lyn will give Rosie our contacts at the schools so students can be invited before they go on vacation, making the event inclusive of a continuum of students. Rosie thought the Green Bus possibly could visit the schools and publicize the event.
Larry will organize us to get the kiosk to the site on April 23rd. We want it to advertise our website and to publicize the Yard Sale, September 10. The 5 College Book Sale would like to be able to post a sign on it as well.
Marjorie announced the NAARA workshop, June 6, 7: It will present the state of composting in the US on day one and on Tuesday will give workshops for schools. Marjorie will make sure that Susan Edwards has the information.
New Recycling of Waste Committee: Susan Edwards, Joyce Knoll, Teresa Oden, and Carolyn Frye (Norwich) are the members of this new committee which is working with the Town on its recycling program, on the Yard Sale in September and on other opportunities to recycle. Betsy Smith would be the logical Town employee to meet with Recycling.
Planning Model update: Chris Soderquist is developing a planning tool to aid people in seeing the results of actions they might take to live more sustainably. Graphs are used to show the effect of each action chosen. The tool will facilitate individuals’ choices of what to do by indicating what action will make the most difference and will be useful for schools to use in teaching about sustainability.
Respectfully submitted, Mary Ann Cadwallader, recorderAgenda:
ii. Web Site iii. 2012 Workshop April (Annual Event?)
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