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Minutes of the first meeting of Acton MCAN chapter
Meeting was on Monday Feb. 2, 2004 at 8:00 pm in the New Vew Common House.
Attendees are listed below (with contact info - thanks to Marc for typing those up!)
Three part agenda:
1. Introductions & what brought us here
2. Learning about MCAN from Marc & Lori, our official Outside Agitators.
3. So, what do we want to do?
1. Introductions & what brought us here
A common theme in the introductions was that folks had a history with various
environmental groups, and wanted to do something locally - with more concrete and
realizable goals.
2. Learning about MCAN from Marc & Lori, our official Outside Agitators.
Marc and Lori told us about MCAN (Massachusetts Climate Action Network), which is the
state-wide coordinating body for citizen's groups working on greenhouse gas emissioon
reductions, aka 'carbon pollution'. In some municipalities, the town or city is taking the
lead, in others it's the citizen's groups. Towns and cities that are committed to action
usually belong to a international group called CCP (Cities for Climate Protection), which
in turn is a campaign of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives
(ICLEI). CCP has a US headquarters in Berkeley CA. Interesting statistic: Five hundred
local governments are participating in CCP, representing 8% of global greenhouse gas
emissions.
The citizen's group in Massachusetts have mostly formed in the last five years. In some
cases, existing groups took on the MCAN chapter role (such as 'Newton Green Decade').
Typical activities include:
-Writing and advocating for the passage of municipal declarations of carbon emissions
reductions.
-Making sure town buildings have free energy audits, and following up on resulting
recommendations.
-Encouraging citizens to get audits & follow up on results.
-Energy-efficient light bulb exchanges.
-Measuring overall town-wide emissions & creating a reduction plan.
-Other municipal bylaws or declarations: purchaing more fuel efficient cars, building to
LEED standards, etc.
MCAN info is here: http://www.massclimateaction.org/
A nice brochure on early steps is here:
http://www.massclimateaction.org/MCANdocspdf/Early%20Action%20Items.pdf
MCAN also advocates for state-wide issues - we learned some about progress in getting the
state to promulgate a carbon emissions reduction plan.
3. So, what do we want to do?
People were enthused (it could have been the chocolate). We came up with the following
next steps:
We will meet again Tuesday March 2nd here in the New View Common House. (7:30 this time).
Steve Long to write up a short note to the Beacon about this meeting. (Already DONE! See
below..)
From the introductions, we learned that the best way to get folks to these meetings is by
CALLING THEM. So, an action item for everyone is to consider who you think would be a
great addition to our group, and give those folks a call.
A smaller group will draft a top-level strategic plan for the group, for review at our
next meeting. (Tom to write first draft, Dan & Adam to review).
An early step will be asking the town if they have had recent NSTAR energy audits done for
town properties.
Another early step will be meeting with the selectman and bringing them up to date on what
we are doing, and enlist their support, or at least understand their concerns.
We also need a NAME for our group. The conversation about the name also overlaps with
clarifying what our mission is. We also can't do much publicity or other work until we
have a name.
It was noted that our meeting space, otherwise wonderful, had a bunch of low-efficiency
lightbulbs shining down on us. Dana agreed to contact the right neighborhood committee to
take action on this. (Adam note he could get deeply discounted prices as a board member of
EFI).
We also decided to have a launch event / PARTY in April or May (sometime after we have a
NAME). The concept is for a "state of the Acton Environment" summit, but in a
low-key way. We would have a rep from each of the many environmentally-involved groups in
Acton have 2 minutes or so to quickly update the assembled folks on the state of Acton's
environmental health form their particular perspective (how many bluebirds fledged? How
many wetlands variances granted? Any new Conservation Restructions granted? and so on).
And then back to the drinking & eating & general merriment. There won't be an
Acton Earth Day this year - there will be a great deal of overlap between the attendence
for this party and the usual Earth Day suspects.
Nan & Matt agreed to help make this party happen - set a date & place & get it
moving along to the point where more volunteers will be needed.
I agreed to write up these notes & look out over communications & coordination
issues. I squashed a movement by Tom to make me Supreme Honcho. I think he was afraid he
would become Supreme Honcho if I didn't. Instead, I think we can rotate these sorts of
things among anyone interested - we have a very qualified, friendly, quick-thinking group,
most of whom could easily step in as leaders at any point.
Or maybe it was the chocolate.
-Jim
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