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Our meetings have started! They are open to all students, and will happen every Thursday night at 7:30 in the Public Safety Building on 146 in Clifton Park. Come to hear great ideas and good discussion, find out how you can get involved, and most deliciously of all, eat snacks.
Events such as a tour on a sustainable farm and having a fundraising garage sale will be starting in just a few weekends, so make sure you check the blog!
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Friday, May 4, 2007
Five projects
We've decided to focus on five projects: two large ones and three smaller ones.
The two main projects will be education in our community and raising awareness about the farmers' market and eating local food. The three smaller projects, which will require hands-on work, will be invasive species removal days, clean-up days, and making posters/brochures for you, our members, to display at things like garage sales. If you're interested in another project, let us know and we can try to work on it with you. These five projects seemed to be the most effective, low-cost way of keeping Clifton Park green.
1) Education can include teaching kids/families how to garden (or trying to work with http://www.cdcg.org/, a community garden group), getting forums, educating the public, and having speakers. We have a couple different places we could teach kids: girl scout/boy scout troops, day camps, and school (if it's before they get out, obviously). Our goal is to have at least one speaker a month- so we have to get started on our first one asap. Any ideas on who could be our first speaker? They can cover any relevant topic: green building, consumer choices, town policies, ways to save money, etc.
2) Farmers' markets are already in the area, but it would be great if we could get people to realize that buying locally is important by helping the region's value and economy. http://www.saratogafarms.com/ is a cool place to check out. There's a farmers' market at the St George's Church (across from Shen) starting around July. We can help publicize that one and help it out.
3) Garage sales are starting up, and it would be cool if we could set up material to display. You guys can make a poster about what environmental issues you're interested in and show people a list of what they can do to improve the area. Theoretically we could encourage people to plant native trees this way (instead of my original idea of having members go door-to-door). Any other ideas on what we can do in this way?
4) Clean up day- need to contact landowners first/town, but since other groups have done this before, I don't think it's too hard.
5) Invasive species removal day- this seems harder than the clean-up day, but it's more substantial. The Nature Conservancy deals with invasive species, and I've contacted them about us helping them. It seems like it should work out, especially if the Nature Conservancy already has resources for us to use (tools, seeds, permission for those areas). Ideally our group would continue after we leave Clifton Park, and this can be come a regular thing.
We're still having issues trying to figure out where to have weekly meetings. We're trying to get it set up at the library, but it hasn't been settled yet. Regardless, we will have a meeting- somewhere- May 24th (time still unknown). I think getting bumper stickers is an awesome idea, so let me know if you're interested in one so I can start ordering.
Also! Both Price Chopper and Hannaford offer paper towels and toilet paper used from recycled paper, not trees. Price Chopper will credit you 3 cents per bag you bring back instead of a new bag, and Hannaford will credit you 5 cents per cloth bag and 2 cents per plastic bag.
The two main projects will be education in our community and raising awareness about the farmers' market and eating local food. The three smaller projects, which will require hands-on work, will be invasive species removal days, clean-up days, and making posters/brochures for you, our members, to display at things like garage sales. If you're interested in another project, let us know and we can try to work on it with you. These five projects seemed to be the most effective, low-cost way of keeping Clifton Park green.
1) Education can include teaching kids/families how to garden (or trying to work with http://www.cdcg.org/, a community garden group), getting forums, educating the public, and having speakers. We have a couple different places we could teach kids: girl scout/boy scout troops, day camps, and school (if it's before they get out, obviously). Our goal is to have at least one speaker a month- so we have to get started on our first one asap. Any ideas on who could be our first speaker? They can cover any relevant topic: green building, consumer choices, town policies, ways to save money, etc.
2) Farmers' markets are already in the area, but it would be great if we could get people to realize that buying locally is important by helping the region's value and economy. http://www.saratogafarms.com/ is a cool place to check out. There's a farmers' market at the St George's Church (across from Shen) starting around July. We can help publicize that one and help it out.
3) Garage sales are starting up, and it would be cool if we could set up material to display. You guys can make a poster about what environmental issues you're interested in and show people a list of what they can do to improve the area. Theoretically we could encourage people to plant native trees this way (instead of my original idea of having members go door-to-door). Any other ideas on what we can do in this way?
4) Clean up day- need to contact landowners first/town, but since other groups have done this before, I don't think it's too hard.
5) Invasive species removal day- this seems harder than the clean-up day, but it's more substantial. The Nature Conservancy deals with invasive species, and I've contacted them about us helping them. It seems like it should work out, especially if the Nature Conservancy already has resources for us to use (tools, seeds, permission for those areas). Ideally our group would continue after we leave Clifton Park, and this can be come a regular thing.
We're still having issues trying to figure out where to have weekly meetings. We're trying to get it set up at the library, but it hasn't been settled yet. Regardless, we will have a meeting- somewhere- May 24th (time still unknown). I think getting bumper stickers is an awesome idea, so let me know if you're interested in one so I can start ordering.
Also! Both Price Chopper and Hannaford offer paper towels and toilet paper used from recycled paper, not trees. Price Chopper will credit you 3 cents per bag you bring back instead of a new bag, and Hannaford will credit you 5 cents per cloth bag and 2 cents per plastic bag.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Bumper stickers?
How cool would it be if we got Help Keep Clifton Park Green bumper stickers? We could even use it as a fundraiser if we buy 50 (they're about $70 for 50 including shipping) and charge four or five bucks for each one. Before I end up with 49 excess stickers, I'd like to find out who's interested in getting one. I think it's a cool way to advertise, and if you don't have a car, you can put them on your guitar case, computer... basically anything. If I can get at least 20 people interested, I'll get some stickers. Post a comment if you'd be interested in buying one (selling either at 3 bucks for no fundraising, or 5 for fundraising)!
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Battery recycling and some cool websites
I learned today that Staples (office supply store) accepts pretty much any kind of electronics that can be recycled, and both rechargeable and single-use batteries. Why are thrown-out batteries bad for the environment? http://newyork.earth911.org/master.asp?s=lib&a=electronics/bat_env.asp
Unfortunately there aren't any Staples in Clifton Park, but there are locations in Latham, Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, etc. Radio Shack (there's one in the CP mall that is no longer a mall) accepts rechargeable batteries (lithium, Ni-Cd, etc) but not single use ones (alkaline).
The site I posted about 100 ways to save the earth seemed to suddenly disappear- I swear, it was a real website a couple days ago! It appears to be back up again, and hopefully this time will stay: http://www.seql.org/100ways.cfm. Thanks to Liz for posting it! http://www.earth911.org/ is also pretty cool and has a lot of information on recycling household products.
I thought this was an amusing advertisement for Energy Star: http://www.getenergysmart.org/Files/Videos/pony60.mov
NYSERDA (NY State Energy Research and Development Authority) put out this list of how you can save energy: http://www.getenergysmart.org/WhereYouLive/EnergySmartWinter/EnergySmartWinter.asp#TipsVideo
It's not winter anymore, but there will probably be one again soon, and there are some non-winter related tips there too.
The Clifton Park - Halfmoon Public Library is pretty green- they used a lot of recycled materials, used the architectural design to use reduce the amount of artificial light needed, and 20% of all masonry was sourced regionally. http://www.cphlibrary.org/documents/about/environmental-flyer.pdf
I hope to see everyone at the climate change panel this Sunday there!
-Shona
Unfortunately there aren't any Staples in Clifton Park, but there are locations in Latham, Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, etc. Radio Shack (there's one in the CP mall that is no longer a mall) accepts rechargeable batteries (lithium, Ni-Cd, etc) but not single use ones (alkaline).
The site I posted about 100 ways to save the earth seemed to suddenly disappear- I swear, it was a real website a couple days ago! It appears to be back up again, and hopefully this time will stay: http://www.seql.org/100ways.cfm. Thanks to Liz for posting it! http://www.earth911.org/ is also pretty cool and has a lot of information on recycling household products.
I thought this was an amusing advertisement for Energy Star: http://www.getenergysmart.org/Files/Videos/pony60.mov
NYSERDA (NY State Energy Research and Development Authority) put out this list of how you can save energy: http://www.getenergysmart.org/WhereYouLive/EnergySmartWinter/EnergySmartWinter.asp#TipsVideo
It's not winter anymore, but there will probably be one again soon, and there are some non-winter related tips there too.
The Clifton Park - Halfmoon Public Library is pretty green- they used a lot of recycled materials, used the architectural design to use reduce the amount of artificial light needed, and 20% of all masonry was sourced regionally. http://www.cphlibrary.org/documents/about/environmental-flyer.pdf
I hope to see everyone at the climate change panel this Sunday there!
-Shona
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