Minutes May 8 2012: May 24 Solar 101 Solarize acton event, Summer events, Drop/Swap debrief, cups that melt, and more.
Jim Snyder-Grant
Green Acton Meeting Minutes
May 8 2012
Attendance
Debby Andell, Greg Andell, Heather Haines, Dana Snyder-Grant, Ellen Forte, Jim Snyder-Grant, Michelle Sielbert,Sue Cudmore,Karen Herther, Kate Crosby (by phone for one agenda item)
Drop Swap – Went well, but it was a little slower than years past. We had 250 people this year and last year it was closer to 400 people. We needed to bring in about $1100 to break even and we brought in about $1300 this year. Got money from Metech and from items left in the drop area. Shredding wasn't as well used, but the company was happy to be there. Some thinking was shared about how this will work next year. Contact drop...@greenacton.org if you would like to help with planning or staffing for next year's Drop/Swap. Last year this was a major fundraiser for other Green Acton activities, not so much this year, so we should add fundraising/budgeting to a Fall discussion.
Green Stripe Cups – Donated by AB PIP STEM from Community Skate event. Green Science activity after Concord did their water bottle ban. These are compostable cups which need to be properly disposed of in order to be composted. Want to do Flat Stanley sort of project with the green stripe cups. If the cup is exposed to direct sunlight they start to compost. They will go into yard waste at the transfer station. Cups are about $0.10 each. PIP and Green Acton have extras if anyone needs them.
Solarize Acton – Chris Schaffner and Greg Voss are co-coaches of Solarize Acton. Last week Chris and Greg went to a solarize event to learn how the project will work, and how they can be successful coaches. We want to get a large number of people to get into the program to try to get as many people involved in order to lower the price as much as possible. The price of panels is already below market value. First event to get the word out will be Solar 101 May 24th at 7 pm at the Acton Town Hall.
There is a sign up area at the SolarizeMass.com/acton site for people who are interested in signing up. You can reach that same place by going to www.acton-ma.gov/solarize They will do a initial assessment with Google Earth to tell you if you are facing the wrong direction or have too many trees and then if it seems like you are a good candidate they will come out to the house. Along with coming out to the event they encourage people to get Energy Audits.
Have handed out pamphlets at Drop Swap, Green Flag event and it is on the Green Acton website. Karen says to send it to AB PIP so they can send it out. Ask Debra to make it something that can go out in an email. Send out to Susan Mitchell-Hardt's list, Patch, Beacon, put on Green Acton facebook page. Greg will look to get a format that could be embedded in an email instead of having an attachment. Jim will ask Sagewell to send an email to their Sagewell list to tell people there is another opportunity to sign up for Solarize Acton.
There were 9 vendors who requested to work in Acton. The state will have a pro go through the offers to make sure that everything is good. Will be first come first served and will see if we can get a tour of houses with solar installations once they are complete. Households and small businesses must sign up by September 31st and get approved in order to participate in the program. Most installers will offer partial lease or full lease options. If you do the lease you get rebates rolled into the price if not you would get the rebates later. 5 kW is the average for a house and the market cost before rebates is $25,000 to $30,000 and after rebates $15,000 to $16,000. Solarize program prices will be even less then this. This is not with the tax deductions for the program, which will drive the price down considerably.
Sagewell Thermal Imaging– Sagewell has done all their driving around and scanning. Now their analysts have to go through the data to get people a report. Can go to the Sagewell site at sagewell.com/acton to check and see if the report is done. People should get an email when the report is available. Suggest that Sagewell put the Solarize Acton in the email to people when their reports are available.
Gathering Info from Volunteers – Jim will be sending out a questionnaire to Green Acton to get some information about who is onvolved with Green Acton.. Ask people for contact info and what are you interested in and what activities are you involved in or interested in being involved in. Use this as a discussion for the Fall to get more people involved.
June Meeting – Will be at Jones Tavern. Jim will contact Ann Sussman about the logistics of making the meeting happen.
Initial agenda for June:
have Green Chemistry school group come if they are wiling and able.
Plan July meeting/potluck
Do a debrief of Solarize Mass Solar 101 event, and enlist help for next steps.
Other Summer Meetings
Should we have meeting in the summer and who will organize? Will have a meeting in July. We will try to have the event at New View and will try to do potluck with short meeting and then fire with roasting of marshmallows. Have some of the older kids do some activities with the younger kids.
Dana will reserve the time on the New View calendar. Late Breaking News – Dana writes: “I've just reserved the Half Moon Hill Common House for Green Acton's summer potluck on Tuesday evening, July 10”
Kate Crosby 1. Update on 350.org rally on 5/5 at Concord's Old Manse with Sophie from HS and Sophie spoke at the event and did a great job speaking. 2. Green Flag event was great, Kate took 4 students down to the statehouse today to get their state award and now looking at possibility of going to DC for a federal award.
Movie Night – Dana saw Economics of Happiness in Concord a few weeks ago and it was great. They did panel discussion after the movie. Two books mentioned in the movie or by the panelists: Better Not Bigger and Slow is Beautiful Can buy the movie for $25 as an individual, or a group can buy it for $125. Dana will investigate how to buy or borrow a copy suitable for a showing or for passing around.
Other Announcements
Dana saw No Impact Man and it was very interesting.
Karen – Heard someone speaking this morning about having non-profits look at what their impacts are in the community and how they can evaluate what their organizations are doing.
Jim – Green Drinks group will meet in Maynard at River Rock Grille May 10th at 6:30.
Green Needham people had a short movie to discuss organic lawn care along with a presenter. Library has done presentations before about green lawn care. The state has someone who comes and does presentations about organic lawn care. Woman named Ann McGovern. Would be a nice agenda item for the Fall. Might put on the discussion list to see if other people who were interested in working on this.
Meeting Evaluation Comments Likes this conference room for meetings rather than the meeting room downstairs. Good combination of agenda items. Nice to have everyone do a go round at the beginning. If we had a larger group could start the meeting in smaller groups. This room would be a challenge if we had a larger meeting.