Sustainable Stockton Meeting Minutes

Thursday, February 5, at 7:00 pm, Stockton Municipal Building (meeting #17)

Attendees:  Sue Anderson; Christy Weseloh; Mary Maller; Jeanne Dodge; and Sharon Reichert.

Agenda Items:

Meeting Minutes.  Minutes of Meeting #16 were approved as is (Mary/Jeanne; all in favor). 

Documentary Series/Advertising for March.   January movie, Affluenza, was cancelled due to bad weather.  Group will show Affluenza in April this year instead.  Mary will check to see what date(s) in April the MREA building would be available to show the movie (SS first choice-Tuesday, April 7^th; 2^nd choice-Thursday, April 30^th).  Mary will send out PSA’s for the February film (Crude Impact), and she’ll try to get an article on the film in the SPJ as a guest opinion on the editorial page.  Sue will enter film information in the community calendars.  Christy will facilitate at the February movie.  Sharon and Donna will bring popcorn.  Members can call people they know who might want to come and help put up posters throughout the community. 

The March documentary movie, The Power of Community, will be shown Thursday, March 12, 2009, at 7:00 pm at MREA.  Sharon will work on the poster.  Sue and Mary will work on more of the publicity for the film.

Weatherization Workshop.  Mary and Donna attended the Weatherization Workshop SS co-sponsored on January 27, 2009.  The workshop was presented Kelly Zagrzebski of Wisconsin Public Service (WPS).  About 5 people attended the workshop including an Alliant Energy representative.  Mary thought the presentation by Kelly was a bit of a promotion for the WPS, and we may want to rethink sponsoring this sort of event in the future.

E-Mail Lists/Usage and Update.  Group discussed how to send out messages to SS e-mail list.  Committee decided to send messages to e-mail list via blind copy, so e-mail addresses of individuals aren’t shown (Christy Weseloh/Sharon Reichert; all were in favor). 

MREA board members with a proposal and be approved by them.  MREA may consider an offer from us, especially if we have a mutually beneficial relationship.  To become an official non-

profit 501(c)(3) organization requires money (to pay a lawyer) for filing materials, finding people who are willing to serve as board members, and other tasks.  Both Farmshed and ICE will probably be going through the nonprofit process in the near future.  It may be beneficial for our group to postpone making a decision on this matter until we can learn from Farmshed and ICE’s experience.   

Website Fees.  Fees to keep the Sustainable Stockton website up have been coming out of pocket from some members.  Committee may want to think about having a fundraiser to help with these types of expenses and/or ask for sponsors to cover some of the day-to-day costs.  Possibly we can get some sort of checking account to pay for the everyday bills SS has.  Christy will check with Community First Bank to see if we would qualify for free checking or how much a checking account would cost for the group.

Open Discussion/What We’d Like to Accomplish.

Announcements:

·       Local Food Fair will be held on March 3 at SPASH.  Local potatoes with toppings and desserts will be served and organization information tables will be available for perusing materials.  Fair needs volunteers to clean up and needs (non-monetary) sponsors.  Group agreed to be an official sponsor for the event (Sharon Reichert/Jeanne Dodge; all were in favor).

SS “To Do” Possibilities:

·       Host a discussion group for the summer.  If decide to do this, should get information to the Town of Stockton by mid March or so for possible inclusion in its April Newsletter.

·       Tour businesses on our Find It in Stockton Directory--Possibly White Feather Organics and/or Hans Schabel’s property.

·       See if businesses in Stockton are willing to give tours of their companies to Stockton residents.  

·       Help Town of Stockton Plan Committee with planning the park property around the municipal building.

·       Start up some sort of carpooling program and/or carpooling information availability.

·       Add a “Free Cycle” type of list to our website.

·       Have folks from current ecomunicipalities speak at an upcoming meeting—probably start with Ashland/Washburn ecomunicipality since it is a rural community like our Town.

Next Meeting.  March meeting will be held on Thursday, March 5, 2009, at 7:00 pm in the Stockton Municipal Building.

Respectfully Submitted, Sharon Reichert, Secretary