Stockton Ecomunicipality Group Meeting

Thursday, November 1, 2007 at 7 pm (Meeting #3)

Summary:

For those not attending one or both of the previous two meetings (September 20, 2007 and October 4, 2007) Sue Anderson included a brief review:

At the first meeting, the group decided to create a “Find It In Stockton” Directory as a means of listing good and services within the Town and providing an inventory of what already exists in our boundaries.  In addition, the group came up with a survey for the directory and an article on its efforts to be published in the Town Newsletter.

The second meeting included discussion of two possible projects for the group to pursue – introducing some measure to encourage replacement of incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs or studying the prospect of harvesting methane gas from our landfill.  The group decided to start its first project with light bulbs.  Cindy Davis and Alec Linde were to check on compact fluorescent light bulb donations.  Also, any web design information and ideas should be brought to the next meeting.

At the third meeting, Tara Stormoen, a grant writer for Portage County, provided great insight regarding the best types of organizations, projects, and data to supply the greatest opportunity for grant money.  Tax exempt organizations have better chances for grants.  Matching funds are available, and sometimes those funds can be matched with in-kind donations (volunteers giving of their time and resources) instead of just matching money.  Also an organization which has not applied for tax exempt status can partner a project with a school or any other non-profit and let that agency be the fiscal agent.  But to obtain grants, data is needed.  After much discussion, the group decided to go with two projects:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.      <!--[endif]-->To replace incandescent bulbs in a whole house.  Cindy Davis has a homeowner with several children whom she thought would work well for the project.  As Tara suggested, the homeowner will keep track of light bulb usage for an approximate 3-month period before switching bulbs and the same amount of time after switching bulbs.  Tara will provide an easy checklist spreadsheet for the owners to report their data on.  This project will provide “soft” data for a grant.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.      <!--[endif]-->To partner with Bannach Elementary School in Stevens Point in an educational light bulb project where students observe the differences in utilizing incandescent vs. fluorescent bulbs in class using line loggers and lamps.  In addition, each student involved in the project will receive 1 fluorescent light bulb to take home and replace a bulb in his/her home.  It’s hoped that these activities could be paired with hands-on curriculum n math, science, survey techniques, etc.  This project, with the students gathering the data, would provide “hard” data for a grant.

These first two light bulb projects will be named “Bright Idea.”  To assist with resources for these projects Kim Becken will check with KEEP, Vic Akemann will check with SPASH, Sue Anderson will check with MREA, and Sharon Reichert will check with John Zellmer at Bannach Elementary School.

Regarding the group’s web site:

Mary Maller has already discussed our situation with a UWSP professor.  He has agreed to having some of his students work on our web site as their class project.  He plans to attend our January meeting to discuss web designing options should we go that route.  The rest of the group is to think about what they visualize for our ecomunicipality web page prior to the next meeting.

The group will continue to have its meetings on the 1^st Thursday of every month.  The next meeting will be Thursday, December 6, 2007, at 7 pm in the Town Hall.  Agenda items include:  Light Bulb House Makeover, KEEP, MREA, Ecomunicipality Web Site, and possibly discussing Group Goals.

Submitted by,

Sharon Reichert