Minutes From 16 June

16 June 2011
Quinebaug Valley Greens Local
Meeting at the Joshua Hyde Library , Sturbridge, MA

Attendees: Maureen Doyle, Gus Steeves, Daphne Stevens

Time: 11:00a

We discussed the article that will appear in Sturbridge Times.
We discussed the regional Peace Meeting that occurred in Worcester last Saturday. Gus and I attended. We recapped the discussion on the People’s Budget, Gordon’s ides, and Chris Horton’s foreclosure idea.
We revisited and reinforced our decision to set up a GRP local, the Quinebaug Valley Greens.  So, we looked at the MA Green Party Organizing Manual  again. We reviewed some goals:
          --”in short, a good group will be effective, fun, and participatory.”
          --is there a curriculum at Bay Path about agriculture?
          --contact Charleen Cultler, from the Last Green Valley, about doing programs on food (specifically, growing local food)
          --founding a Grange
          --connecting with Quinsigemond College: can we host a speaker or present a program there?
           --Daphne suggested creating a list of local farmers and farmers’ markets; talk to them and find out the requirements of each. To promote them
          --working on allowing backyard chickens (working with town zoning boards, what should a local ordinance look like? The number of chickens allowed, not allowing roosters, etc) , local gardening and fruit tree.
          --would local farmers have input into these town/city issues?
          --there is a man who spoke recently to the Worcester City Council about backyard chickens; what happened? Gus has his name and number.



-- http://www.tlgv.org, Phone: 860-774-3300
From first meeting:

GUS: share info received from Dimitri’s step mum disputing the  flicker effect
DAPHNE: research green solar field research and the Norfolk solar field project
MAUREEN: Contact Sandy Quigley, from Sturbridge. Sturbridge had a presentation about solar hot water recently
EVERYONE: work on creating our own education about these issues
MAUREEN: Contact Charlene Cutler about speaking about the food supply.
DAPHNE: Find out the name of the person from the Worcester Food bank.
GUS: Do you have contact at the Worc. Food Bank also?
From the last meeting:
GUS: register on doodle.com
GUS: Please submit the press release that you wrote.
GUS: Contact Nancy Shields and invite her to a meeting.

From this meeting:
GUS: update on press release and getting it translated into Spanish
EVERYONE: has anyone gone on the email account or looked at the blog?
GUS: do you have the name and number of the man who spoke before the Worcester City Council?
GUS: Talk to Michelle Buck (The Town Planner from Leicester and Spencer); what is their situation like (regarding backyard chickens and goats)
GUS and MAUREEN: send monthly MDAR mailing to Daphne
DAPHNE: Call the registered Greens from your town list
GUS: Contact the Holistic Health and Raw Food Counselor whom you met recently

Next meeting: Two weeks from last meeting
11am, Thursday, June 30th at the Joshua Hyde Library, Sturbridge