Meeting Minutes for July 13, 2005
Attendees: Jim O’Rourke, John Crist, Andrew May, Mindy Gates, Birge Dayton, Leah

The Conservation Hike

The Conservation Hike which preceded the meeting was a success! In total ten people participated and there were several new people who were not members of the committee. Two just happened upon the hike while they were heading to Mt. Higby for a solo hike so they joined us. Two others joined us as the result of the press releases that were sent out. And two heard about it through the AMC short notice list. And the others were Conservation Committee members. In addition, two men from Fox Channel 61 tv station attended and took video that should be put in a segment on their “Day Trips” series on Thursday, July 21^st at 10pm. The group hiked to the top of Mt Higby where they took two VisVol readings at separate points on the mountain. At the end of the hike, the people who were new to either AMC or Conservation were invited to join the Committee for pizza and a brief meeting back at CFPA, however none were able to attend. They were all encouraged to join the AMC if they were not already members (3 were interested) and they were all invited to future Conservation Committee meetings.

At the Meeting, the group discussed the following topics:

1. Conservation Workshop

After some discussion about the date, the group decided to try to coordinate a Conservation Training/Workshop for Saturday, November 12^th, with an optional stay over and social that evening. The location must be determined as well as presenters confirmed for that date. The goal is to have these two items decided by August 1^st so that we can start promoting the event. It was suggested that someone contact Leo Kelly on the Education Committee to get assistance/advice on planning a workshop. The group agreed to try for a grant through the AMC Conservation Programs Committee – while we would be last on the list because we already received a grant this year, the group felt it was worth trying for. Possible budget items include: space, presentation, food, materials. The Conservation Committee still has funds that could be used to match.

The group agreed that they would try to address the following items during the training:

Overview of current conservation issues in CT and nationally

- Global state of environmental movement -- Open Discussion

Overview of Advocacy – Presentation

- Working with elected leaders

- Hand out legislative packets

How to talk to others about conservation issues such as when on hikes
Engaging Chapter in Conservation – possible facilitated planning session

Take Aways –

Location: Andrew was going to look into getting CFPA site and Mindy was looking into White Memorial (Result: White Memorial is not available any Saturdays in Oct/Nov.)
Presenters: Jim was going to check with someone he knows about presenting on how to advocate/lobby at the state capitol and Mindy was going to touch base with Faith on what she could do. Jim also suggested it might be good to get an expert on conservation in CT to speak such as someone from DEP
Andrew and Mindy will work on putting the grant together and submitting by August 1^st.

2. River Cleanup on September 17^th

The group agreed they would do the River Clean Up on September 17^th and discussed some details. Birge listed the hike with the AMC as leader and Andrew agreed to Co-lead. Hopefully this will be a project of the Pratt and Whitney group for that grant. The issue of how to get the garbage out of the area on the day of the event was discussed because there were some obstacles to this. The town charges at the dump. There was a suggestion to try to get a dumpster donated. Or perhaps some of the Pratt and Whitney grant could be used for this purpose.

Take aways

· Jim agreed to look into getting a dumpster donated for the day.

· Work on Pratt and Whitney grant – will this project be used for the grant? (Result: Aimee agreed it could be but other projects are also needed for the minimum 15 volunteer hours for 5 Pratt Employees)

3. Possible Workshop at Annual Meeting on November 5^th

The group discussed the Annual Meeting on Nov 5^th and agreed it might be a good place to get the word out about the Nov 12^th training and the Conservation Committee in general. It was decided that we would try to do a workshop at the Annual Meeting on Conservation. An idea that was discussed is a forum or discussion about current conservation issues. This would provoke interest in conservation by those who attend and also be interactive as opposed to just straight presenting. We might want to try to put something together or get someone to speak about current issues to start off the discussion. Jim was going to talk to Program Committee or Dale about whether there is space for us to do a workshop.