First Parish in Concord
Green Sanctuary Group
First Parish > Green Sanctuary > Meeting Minutes
Meeting Minutes
March 16, 2008
This is a summary of what transpired in an extremely productive Green
Sanctuary meeting at 12”15 on Sunday the `6th. Anyone who was there is free
to contribute additions or modifications.
Present: Berni Jenkins, Bob Andrews, Betty King, George King, CC King, Jay
Barnes, Peter Nobile, Peter Norton, Lori Pazaris, Jim Pazaris, Andy Proulx,
Richard Ward, Barbara Wheeler
Peter Nobile informed the group that he had spoken with Liz Chafin-Davis and
Pam Howell regarding the linkage between Green Sanctuary and the RE program.
Liz has agreed to be our primary liaison. She may not be able to attend
meetings, but will keep us informed and work with us on integrating green
curriculm and projects into the RE program.
Bob informed the group that Eric Van Loon had volunteered to speak at the
Earth Day Service on April 6. He will address both the movement toward
making First Parish an accredited Green Sanctuary church and the SAC/Green
Sanctuary promotion of the Low Carbon Diet program within the church.
Bob also reported on a recent meeting with Sue Beck. Sue has agreed to help
with recycling and needs to be contacted about how she can get involved.
Barbara Wheeler, Sue, Beck, and Maria Cox need to coordinate their recycling
efforts. Sue will also help with consciousness-raising printed materials.
Several of us were taken by surprise by the date of the Earth Day Service,
which is earlier than usual. The timing has made it difficult to carry out
all of the ideas we had about that Sunday. We agreed that we will focus on
that particular Sunday just on the service. CC King, who was briefly
present at the meeting, will be the lead person in developing plans for the
service, working with Eric Van Loon and Peter Nobile. This subgroup will
determine who is preaching on that Sunday and coordinate with him/her as
well as with Beth Norton on the music selection.
Jay Barnes led the group through a proposal he had developed for a number of
projects, all to be carried out within the time between March 30 and May
4,marking the advent of spring and the various observations of Earth Day.
The plans which emerged were:
* A Green Gift Bag project will be headed up by Betty King, who will
work with Hay Barnes. These will be special Green Sanctuary cloth bags for
shopping, packed with environmentally relevant items and information. The
bags will have a Green Sanctuary logo, prepared by Peter Nobile. Betty will
pin down some funding for the bags, which will be sold for a reasonable
price during coffee hours. Berni Jenkins volunteered to help, as needed.
* Energy Efficient Light bulb Installation. This has already begun,
but will continue throughout the church. Andy will be the lead person for
this, and will coordinate with Doug Baker. The light bulbs may be included
in the green gift bags, with information about them, including the proper
way to clean up if one is broken. Information about this was recently put
out by MCAN; and Peter Norton will see to it that the information is on the
Green sanctuary website.
* First Parish Trash Study. Jay Barnes will work with others (Barbara
Wheeler, Richard Ward, Maria Cox, Jan Power ? ) on an audit of Sunday
morning management of trash and recycling. Trash and recycling items will
be sorted and weighed on three Sundays, most likely 3/23, 3/30. and 4/6).
This will lead to recommendations for future management.
* Green Sanctuary Coffee Hour Table. Peter Nobile agreed to plan a
series of coffee hour exhibits, all pertinent to Earth Day. The GS table
will be used to publicize all of our projects. Peter will do a large
tri-fold poster for the table. Green gift bags can be sold at the table.
Quizzes can attract interest.
* RE Program earth Day Elements. Peter (and CC? ) will touch base
with Liz and Pam about a special youth project for Earth Day, which might be
presented as part of the Youth Service on May 4. Barbara Wheeler will pursue
implementation of her idea about getting kids involved in collecting
discarded sneakers and grinding them up for recycling.
* Low Carbon Diet for Earth Day. It was agreed that Eric Van Loon
should be asked to be the spokesman about LCD in the Earth Day Service and,
in general, to be active in promoting the formation of LCD groups at First
Parish.
* Greening the Church by Purchasing green cleaning products. Peter
Nobile will touch base with Maria about this and work with Doug on it.
Progress on all these projects should be reported to the congregation in a
Sunday service.