8 December Notes

8 Deceember 2011
Quinebaug Valley Greens Local
Meeting at the Joshua Hyde Library , Sturbridge, MA

Attendees: Maureen Doyle, Matt Maselli, Gus Steeves, Daphne Stevens

A recommended book about Local Food: The Town that Food Saved by  Ben Hewitt
Rules for Radicals by Saul Elinsky

Chicken Update: The Planning Board of Southbridge , MA is sending a recommendation to the Southbridge Town Council to update the by-laws to include backyard chicken raising; the recommendation says: 6 hens, in an enclosure, on one acre of land, with their poop in a container. The Town Council will debate it and send it back to the Planning Board for revisions.
            --Gus has written an article for the S. Evening News about the ongoing saga of chicken rearing with in the town

Update on Growing Places Garden Project in Clinton, MA: daphne did contact them but has not heard from them yet

Letter to endorse Jill Stein: Daphne and Gus will send the letter written in the last meeting and Maureen will send her own.

Suggestions for Better Meetings: Matt gave us some suggestions based on his experiences doing community organizing in New Haven, CT (a much larger city). He told us of some success stories (including keeping guns out of a local KMART) and then suggested two approaches: a house party (with one single goal; place large sheets of paper around the room with ideas of ways to reach that one goal; people can stand by the sheet they like and the methods can be narrowed that way (by eliminating the sheets where no one is standing)) or individual meetings with people from larger meetings. (This is a good way to get to know people and to build up trust. He did mention that his experience was with one overseeing paid organizer (who works at it for 40-60 hours a week).

Green Communities Update: The Town of Sturbridge shot down the Green Communities designation based
on several vocal people who talked about the increase in housing requirements. L

Next meeting: we will meet after the holidays on Thursday, December 29th, at Joshua Hyde Library at 11am