June 2020
Sustainable Warwick Minutes
Wednesday June 17, 2020
Still Zooming — Making a difference from right there in your easy chair!
1. Warwick Foodshed Locavore Map (Orion Blake and Chad Pilieri)
Presentation by Orion about the new locavore map, which can be found on this webpage. Members are requested to look closely at the map, use it, share it with friends, and if errors are found, report them to the Map Team by sending emails to the address: locavores@sustainablewarwick.org
Publicity for this is needed: articles in paper; print version(?); Dirt Magazine; Hook Magazine; QR code; presentations to Town Supervisor and Village Mayors; presentation to Chamber of Commerce; outreach to high school students.
2. G-Suite Activation (Orion Blake)
Sustainable Warwick now has access to G Suite through Google. Among other things, it allows us to use email addresses like “Bill@sustainablewarwick.org” and have messages automatically forwarded to Bill Greene’s personal email address. If your committee would like to set up an email address, please contact the Steering Committee at our new email address. steeringcommittee@sustainablewarwick.org.
3. Green Screen Committee Report (Bill Greene)
In accumulating information for the latest Green Screen reports, the committee got the idea that they wanted to communicate more about their observations than they could express just by relaying what the politicians have to say. But there is a legal question of what SW can say as a non-profit. Could the committee say more about their observations in emails to Sustainable Warwick members without crossing the line of endorsing candidates? Can anyone recommend a good lawyer to help us investigate this?
4. Sustainable World Book Club (Christina Thomas)
We’ve been discussing book issues with the library, which still can’t do interlibrary loans, and thus cannot acquire multiple copies of books for us to all read. For now, everyone will read their own book and we’ll discuss which books should be on our reading list when we resume normal operations. Reminder: You can always find the upcoming titles on the Sustainable World Book Club page and on SW's Events Calendar.
5. Community Garden update (Geoff Howard)
As of two weeks ago, 4 gardeners could be in the garden at once. As of yesterday, 10 gardeners can be there at once. The garden is growing really successfully this year, and the emphasis this year will be producing tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers and other things that are easily donated to the food pantries. Check out our webpage for photos and contact information.
6. Wawayanda Creek update (Geoff Howard)
A winter storm in December did lots of damage to the creek. Earlier plans to clear streams were delayed, so Saturday June 6 they started work on clearing the creek. Most likely next June will be the next big boating event. Visit the Wawayonder's Facebook page for updates.
7. Zoom Garden Plot (Chad Pilieri)
We’ve switched to alternate Mondays and now start at 8 PM instead of 7:30 PM. We have a steady group of participants with 15 to 20 people each time. Beginning gardeners are especially welcome to join and get their gardening questions asked. You can also catch up on meetings you missed, videos of the zoom sessions are posted on our webpage.
8. Vegetarians & Friends (Michael Helme)
We are still meeting on the second Monday of every month. For more information (and photos!) go to our webpage.
9. Steering Committee needs your support
The Steering Committee frequently receives requests to join in with other organizations by signing on to letters to governmental officials. At the request of the Steering Committee, Mary and Bill Makofske will help with these sign-on letter requests, which sometimes are submitted with tight deadlines. As the head of our growing rapid response team, Mary and Bill have agreed to contact Steering Committee members about sign-on opportunities, but if they do not hear responses, the Steering Committee is giving them permission to make the final decision for SW and carry through with signing on when appropriate.
10. Discussion on Sustainable Warwick and Climate Justice (Please check out the Statement Against Racism on the Community2gether website.) There was general agreement that it is important to communicate how issues like climate change and pollution are linked to racism and other forms of injustice. Sustainable Warwick is looking for a project to take on that would get people involved on the issue of climate justice.