Sustainable Stockton Meeting Minutes

Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 7:00 pm, Town of Stockton Municipal Building

 Attendees:  Sue Anderson; Jeanne Dodge; Donna Literski; and Sharon Reichert. 

Meeting Minutes.  Minutes of 06-04-09 Meeting were approved (Donna/Jeanne; all in favor). 

Summary of Tour at Whitefeather Organics.  We had a great turnout for the Whitefeather Organics Tour on July 21, 2009—about 50 people attended, with 1/3-1/2 of the participants being residents of the Town of Stockton.  Tony Whitefeather took us on an extended tour of his CSA farm.  He offered up great explanations for their methods of farming and composting.  One of the most notable things he mentioned was that CSA farming requires a great deal of variety in order to be successful.  Also, it’s best to sign up for a CSA share early, so Tony & Laura can plan the next year’s growing season with the number of shares needed in mind.  Many thanks to Tony, Laura, and their gang for providing an interesting tour for all of us. 

Sustainable Workshop in Ashland Update & Grants Proposed.     A diverse group of people including Mary Maller and Sue Anderson, attended a week-long workshop up in Ashland, WI, entitled, “Midwest Regional Collaborative for Sustainable Education.”  The workshop held at Northland College provided an unusual venue—as a participant, you were responsible for your own learning.  Mary and Sue acquired some tools that will probably prove useful to our group sometime in the future such as possibly forming a coalition here of folks with common interests and acquiring funding for seed grants. 

Stockton Town Park Report.  The Town Plan Commission is just starting plans for the Town Park land which sits adjacent to the Town’s municipal buildings.  So far, the Commission plans to go forward on designating a parking lot for the park, which would have its access off of Custer Road; providing a bike rack in the parking area; and dredging the park’s pond to give it some more depth and return to its previous, more natural state.  The Commission plans to work with Melissa Baker, a new Town resident and Forest Recreation Professor at UWSP, on a survey to Town residents on what they’d like to see done at the Park.

 Website-General Ideas to Present to (UWSP) Computer Science Dept.  Committee would like to see improvements to SS website including:  addition of a carbon calculator; easier navigating from goods to services; a blog page and/or bulletin board, a community notice page; improved graphics and addition of more photos; and more availability of answers to technical software questions.  Some of the group will meet as a subcommittee, so we can get a sense of what we want to take to Tim at UWSP Computer Science Dept., so it can be formulated into a possible project for some of his students.  Members should report back at next meeting with ideas on what to change on website that we know how to do and what to change on website that we don’t know how to do.   

Incentives for Reducing Solid Waster (Peter Gangsie).  Mr. Gangsei wasn’t in attendance, but the group briefly discussed some problems with our solid waste disposal.  One problem is there’s no incentive for people to reduce their waste on a county level.  Another problem is there’s more glass recycling being produced than the system can handle, and no one knows what to do with the excess that’s piling up.  We could use someone to promote the current troubles with recycling in order to find better solutions to the way we handle the recycle process.   

Chris Egle’s brochure.  Chris Egle is no longer part of the group promoting these community listings, so this no longer provides a possibility for SS promotion.   

Schabel Fall Tour.  Hans Schabel has agreed to have a tour of his property this Fall.  However, setting a definite date has been difficult, since Dr. Schabel is not certain when his own forester will be coming in to perform practices on his land.  Since we really would like a tour date soon so it can be advertised in the Town Newsletter, Sharon will contact Dr. Schabel to see if he’d be willing to do a Spring tour of his property instead—when we won’t be at the mercy of forester’s schedule.   

 Film Discussion Series for this Fall/Winter.  Committee plans to host documentary series with MREA again this fall/winter.  Mary Maller, who manages this event, thought we’d pick the following 6 Thursdays (the second Thursday of the month) as movie dates (5 movie dates and 1 snow date): Oct 8 & Nov 12, 2009 and Jan 14, Feb 11, March 11, and April 8, 2010.  Even if we don’t have all the movies identified right away, we can at least tell folks to “save the dates” in our Town Newsletter blurb.  Group will need to check with Mary to see what responsibilities of film series we can help her with and figure a way to streamline posting of posters for event.  Also, someone will need to check if these dates work for MREA.

 Find it in Stockton Directory Publication this Winter, including “leaf” criteria.  Jerry Piesik has generously volunteered again to print our Find it in Stockton Directory.  He will print an 8 ½” X 14” document for us with spots of color.  However, someone else will need to provide 3 reams of 24# Xerox 8 ½” X 14” paper for the project.  At this time we don’t have the criteria ready for which businesses should be tagged with a leaf for good sustainability practices.  Hopefully, that’s an addition we can make to next year’s Directory publication (maybe a self exam with point values for each answer?).  Group plans to give a shout out to committee members to help with envelope stuffing & paper for printing the Directory.  Sue will see if Mary can contact Christy regarding helping with the Directory and get back to Donna.  Our deadline to have the materials ready is December 15^th.    

Items for Next Town of Stockton Newsletter.  Additions for Directory; Film Series Dates, Schabel Tour (Fall or Spring?), Call for Website/Joomla Programming Skills, and Next Meeting Date/Time. 

Open Discussion/Future Projects/Idea.  Sharon to check with Doug Stingle of MREA to see if it would be okay with SS using MREA event info (like its Solar Tour) in our monthly e-mails, website, etc.  Sue mentioned that Farmshed will be raising money for a grant to get local foods in our schools at Christian’s Bistro on Aug 24^th.  SS may want to help sponsor an annual community event –possibly sledding and hot chocolate at the Town Park in February.  The Park has an excellent sledding hill on it’s north border.  It could serve as means to get the community out on a beautiful winter day and promote the Town Park and sustainability.  We could have a call-in number for the day of the event if the weather/temperatures are questionable.  Vic Akemann may be able to provide snowshoes for folks to use.   

Next Meeting.  Next meeting of Sustainable Stockton will be on October 1, 2009, at 7:00 pm in the Town of Stockton Municipal Building. Respectfully Submitted,

Sharon Reichert, Secretary