VFN Monthly Meeting Minutes of 10/9/09
VFN Monthly Meeting Minutes of 10/9/09
Attendees: Dennis Derryberrry, David Dion, Sue Klein, Rob Williams, Chip Sawyer, Jared Cadwell, Ginny McGinn, Gregor Barnum, Jared Cadwell, Beth Schoellkopf, Dave Johnson, Susan Johnson, Tom Barefoot, Stan Ward, Joshua Schwartz, Charlie Hosford, and John Donaldson
1) First time attendees – Tom Barefoot is with Universal Micro Systems and is also involved with the Gross National Happiness American Project which “envisions a sustainable future, based on the use of a comprehensive set of social progress indicators that reflects our American values and truly supports life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (see gnhusa.org). Tom will cover the GNH efforts at next month’s meeting. Dave and Susan Johnson have recently moved to Duxbury from Brooklyn and are interested in sustainable energy, local currency initiatives and others.
2) Update on Local Community Initiatives Class taught at UVM – Josh and Chip provided an update on the activities to date (see last month’s minutes for a more detailed overview of the projects). Plans are for the students to participate in the November 1 Retreat and make final presentations of their projects on the evening of either December 2 or 9.
2) Energy Working Group Update – Stan gave a demonstration of the newly launched Energy Wiki (mrvenergy.org). This site created and maintained by the community will be the go-to resource for all things related to energy in the Valley. The goal is to keep this fact based, not opinion based and to keep it up to date. Among the many way cool features is “watchlist” which creates a RSS feed to send updates of any topics desired. All are encouraged to provide feedback and update the site. Several ideas surfaced during the discussion – getting Harwood students involved, using the wiki model for other working group projects or VFN as a whole, and sharing this facility with other communities.
Dennis mentioned the next Energy working group meeting will be November 3 at 6 pm at the Wait House.
3) VFN half day retreat – Ginny described plans for this November 1 afternoon retreat in the basement of the Waitsfield Church. It will start with a bag lunch and end with a potluck meal. It will include the UVM students, VFN “alumni” (i.e. prior retreat participants who should already have received an email invitation) and other active VFN participants and perhaps others. Attendees are encouraged to invite a guest who might be an interested future VFN participant but hasn’t attended any prior events. One of the objectives of the retreat will be to think of how to intentionally engage members of the community who can’t or won’t participate in the more formal VFN retreats, events, etc. Tracy Tsugawa, a facilitator from Vermont, will be helping. The agenda is still being finalized. Ginny would like a couple of volunteers to spend a few hours in the week of 10/26 to be a sounding board for agenda ideas.
4) Local currency working group update – Rob said this initiative will be built around “time banking”, like the Onion River exchange. Jen Higgins and the Rootswork board have tentatively volunteered to spearhead this effort.
5) Media working Group update – Rob and Gregor have formed the “Mojo Posse” (i.e. Mobile Journalism) which is hosting celebratory videos on a Youtube platform (see http://www.youtube.com/user/ValleyFuturesNetwork ). The first meeting of this group is November 6 at 7:45 am at the Big Picture.
6) Possible community potlucks – Sue mentioned the Warren and Waitsfield churches are interested in facilitating an ongoing Community Potluck to be held early evening one Sunday each month, starting after the New Year.
Next meeting is Friday 11/13 at the Green Cup.
Submitted by John Donaldson
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