Green Action Group

December 4, 2008

Present: Janis Albright, Louise Davis, Sarah Ellsworth, Leslie Gatcombe-Hynes, Barbara Merrill, Dick Merrill, Elsa Peters, Ed Saxby, Jim Van Hoeven

Ed Saxby led our meeting and each person had an opportunity to share particular concerns.

The Mission Board approved a $50 honorarium for our October speaker Ray Sirois. Leslie provided a card which we all signed and expressed our appreciation to Ray.

The Mission Outreach Team will be including in their budget request an item for the Social Witness Ministries Fund. This will provide a source for expenses like an honorarium. Greg Wyman will keep us informed.

Barbara spoke with Guy Gledhill, a member of the House Committee of the Administration Team and invited him (or a Committee member) to come to one of our meetings and educate us about the work his group is doing regarding greening our church.

Barbara suggested we consider the possibility of working with the Eskimos, the Hilltop Guild, and the church school in suggesting programs relating to our stewardship of the earth. This would give us an existing group with whom to work in our educational efforts.

Jim donated the book “Redeeming The Creation” by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson to the Green Action Group’s section of our church library. Louise added more articles to the reference notebooks she is creating for the library.

Elsa Peters met with us for a discussion on Communication.
We agreed to write articles relating to Earth stewardship for The Beacon on a regular basis. Articles for the Beacon should “educate the community and further their faith with this community”. The articles might be part of the Green Corner or they might fill up to a half page. Dick will do an article for the next Beacon.
Our minutes are posted on meetinghousehillminutes.blogspot.com. Elsa has an article in the current Beacon that includes information about blogs.
We are able to put announcements in the bulletin and just need to contact the Church Office.
Elsa encourages us to think about personal invitations (i.e. a telephone call) to encourage people “to participate in the things we care about”.
Ed suggested generating a list of people who would like to have access to a computer site where information about caring for our earth could be shared.

Ed would like to have a meeting in January or February where we generate ideas of what people can do themselves relative to greening their homes. Leslie talked about the Green South Portland group that is offering to help people make their homes more energy efficient. Jim will contact Roger Addor to see if the Eskimos might be interested in joining us in this effort. Sarah suggested presenting very practical ideas based on what people might benefit from right now—such as how you could prepare a meal for 6 people on $3. She also mentioned the concept of Eco Angels wherein we could help each other and share our skills and knowledge.

Janis reported on the work to complete our Mission statement and on some suggested additions to the book list she generated for our Green Space in the library. We will work on these at our next meeting.

Louise shared information about a 90 movie that she highly recommends for a program that we would arrange. Ed will look into this possibility.

Dick reported on a program he attended at Maine Audubon. Rick Renner, Portland architect and designer of 2 LEED Platinum-rated green building homes was the presenter.

Ed shared with us several relevant items of interest including work by the Maine Council of Churches and its Environmental Council and some thoughts about the new administration in Washington in January and possible impact on the environment.

We decided to continue meeting on the last Thursday of each month. Our next meeting will be Thursday, January 29, at 7 pm in Davidson Lounge. This arrangement has been cleared with Cyndi Alden.

Respectfully submitted,
Barbara Merrill