North Quabbin Energy

North Quabbin Energy
Meeting minutes
Sept. 17, 2009
Millers River Environmental Center

Attending: Judy Northrup Bennett, Donna Caisse, Steve and Janice Kurkoski, Pat Larson, Jane Manring, Brian Nugent, Cathy Stanton

Garlic and Arts Festival, Oct. 3 and 4
Planning is well underway for this. Steve and Janice will be picking up pop-up tents and other things from NESEA for set-up the week before the festival. (Set-up starts on Sunday, Sept. 27 from 2-5 p.m., continues Tuesday, Sept. 29 from 10 a.m. on, and goes all day Friday, Oct. 2.) We still need additional volunteers for our table, particularly on Sunday afternoon. Pat will send a reminder email about this to our list. Janice will make name tags for volunteers.

We are in pretty good shape for literature to hand out. We will use up what materials we have on hand and will print or acquire a few more (biomass info sheet, 350.org flyer, etc.). We will have postcards for Massachusetts residents to sign asking Senator Kerry to support the inclusion of full environmental reckoning for any new biomass plants built with federal funding. Jane will donate stamps to be put on the postcards. Pat will get the copy for the cards from Tina Clarke, who is working on this campaign.

Brian will bring winserts to demonstrate, and we will have winsert manuals available for people to take (with a donation encouraged). Brian is also working on a prototype of a hot air window heater that he will try to bring and demonstrate at our table.

We talked about what kind of activity we should sponsor to publicize 350.org’s international day of action on Oct. 24, and decided that we would have a walk from the Athol town hall to the Orange town hall from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Oct. 24 with a banner that we will get people to help with during the Garlic and Arts Festival. People can write resolutions on strips of cloth that we will fasten to a long banner saying, “Stop the climate crisis: 350 ppm.” Janice and Donna will bring safety pins to fasten the streamers. Pat will register our event on the 350.org website.

Brian came up with a good, succinct explanation about what 350 means: “350 is the parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at approximately the 1990 level; today it’s about 390 ppm. If we get back to 350, the temperature rise that is currently happening is expected to stay two degrees above today’s temperature, which is bad enough but not as bad as what will happen with a rise above that level. October 24 is an international day of action designed to raise awareness of the figure and the crisis, and to give people a definite target level to bear in mind.”

Town energy committees
Royalston: Donna reported that the new committee is in the process of being formed.
New Salem: The new committee there has started meeting.
The FRCOG representative who is providing technical assistance to the towns collaborating in our regional “Green Communities” consortium will be in the area on Oct. 29. North Quabbin Energy will try to find a meeting date when we can host people from the various town energy committees, as a way of supporting what they’re doing, strengthening the connections among towns and people, and talking about Green Communities and other things. We will work on planning this at our next meeting.

Winsert manuals
People took copies of the manual to donate to area libraries. We still need to distribute them to Petersham, Erving, and Phillipston libraries. Cathy will take care of this.

Next meeting
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Millers River Environmental Center
Potluck at 6 p.m., meeting at 6:30

To North Quabbin Energy home.

The Northeast Organic Farming Association’s annual summer conference is always a goldmine of ideas about local food systems and growing/finding/marketing good, organic food. For information about this year’s conference, to be held at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst from August 7 to 9, click here.

Return to North Quabbin Energy home.

July 14, 2009
Millers River Environmental Center

Attending:
Neil Anders, Judy Bennett, Donna Caisse, Hal Gillam, John Jackson, Steve and Janice Kurkoski, Brian Nugent, Linda Paquet, Pat Roix, Bruce Spencer, Cathy Stanton

Announcements:
• The GreenStart program has undergone some changes. There will no longer be matching funds for towns from the Renewable Energy Trust, and towns need to submit plans between August 21 and Nov. 30 for using their existing funds for energy-related projects. Towns can find the amount they’ve raised by visiting the Renewable Energy Trust website.
• Cathy is interested in reading E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful and possibly discussing it with others in the group. Contact her by email (cstanton@tiac.net) or phone (978-249-5174) if you are interested in pursuing this.

Possible regional North Quabbin collaborations and projects:
The remainder of the evening’s agenda was taken up with a wide-ranging discussion sparked by an announcement about a call for applications from the Franklin County Regional Council of Governments, which has been named a “technical assistance provider” for the Green Communities Act and which is inviting municipalities to submit applications to be designated as Green Communities. This designation will be a step toward applying for various kinds of funding for energy-related projects.

Hal spoke about a proposal that has emerged from Athol town government to see whether other towns in the nine-town region want to join together to have the North Quabbin as a whole become a Green Community. Apparently multi-town proposals will be looked on with favor by the state. Municipalities need to meet various criteria and to show they are working on reducing energy use in order to be eligible, but the application process is not labor-intensive. Phil Delorey in the Athol planning department has offered to contact the towns’ selectboards and see if we can get this onto a meeting agenda before the August 7 deadline. Hal is working on this with Phil and asked if North Quabbin Energy would like to be involved. It also seems to make sense to involve other groups thinking about energy issues—the town committees, Hands Across North Quabbin/Green Economy Task Force, North Quabbin Community Coalition, and perhaps others.

Overall, response to the idea was positive. We discussed the pros and cons of this kind of regional collaboration. On the plus side, it seems like a way to bring together the somewhat scattered efforts that are already going on, and to pursue projects that might start in one town but be replicated in others and/or benefit the region as a whole. Questions were raised about the work involved in coordinating a multi-town effort, the possibility that towns might not want to support projects outside their own borders, and what happens if towns want to opt in or out of the process once it starts.

In brainstorming possible ways to build on this idea of a more regional approach to energy issues, we touched on a number of topics:

• Pat and John brought an idea to the table that the Athol town energy committee has been considering, which is to find a way of capitalizing a local business producing an energy product or service. The committee was originally thinking of ways to attract “green businesses” to town, but Brian proposed the idea of focusing more on low-tech than high-tech, and perhaps starting a coop or business that could employ local people without a great deal of training. Lynn Benander from Coop Power spoke to the group about how the coop could help with this. One possibility is to get 50 new Coop Power members (at about $1000 per share) which would allow us to have a North Quabbin regional affiliate and to tap into Coop Power’s financing options for a new business or coop. Winsert production and weatherization were two of the ideas that have been proposed for this. The Athol committee would like to know whether this is something they might pursue along with others in the region.
• A committee from Coop Power has been continuing to work on the idea of having a pellet production facility in Greenfield. Bruce is involved in this. We talked about the possibility of promoting district heating systems for municipal facilities in the nine NQ towns (or however many wanted to sign on for the Green Communities designation) which could provide a steady market for pellets produced in Greenfield, benefiting both the towns and the proposed plant.
• Steve argued for being realistic about future big projects, and for continuing to emphasize conservation and reducing energy use wherever possible, rather than pursuing new technologies as a first step.
• Cathy suggested that we come up with a compelling project or set of connected projects (for example, getting a weatherizing coop/business going plus working with towns to tighten up their buildings and move toward biomass-fueled district heating) and use that to generate interest in the towns.
• We returned to an old idea that keeps coming up, which is to work on doing some public education and consciousness-raising about the actual amounts of electricity that people use in a month, how that compares with others’ use, and how it can be gradually reduced. Janice noted that we can fairly readily get figures broken down by town and type of use from National Grid, which might serve as a starting-point for this kind of effort. Bruce mentioned a recent Boston Globe article about a controversial plan to have low-income customers pre-pay for a limited amount of electricity each month. Steve and Janice mentioned the Washington Electric Cooperative in Vermont which charges incremental rates for electricity depending on the amount of use (the rate goes up with heavier use). This approach might be something we could work on on a regional basis, by showing what the averages are in the different NQ towns and challenging people to lower the figures.

After this discussion, we decided that NQ Energy will support the Athol-initiated FCRCOG application process by writing a letter of support and by working on getting people from our list of contacts to attend selectboard meetings in support of the proposal. It is our hope that this will strengthen the network of connections with other groups thinking about energy in the region. As this progresses, we will work on thinking about feasible regional projects or ideas that would benefit the whole nine-town region, including perhaps creating a Coop Power affiliate in the North Quabbin, and working on creating a coop or other business doing weatherization (which might train people to make winserts, particularly the wooden frames). As this is developing, we’ll continue trying to articulate a larger-scale vision for how these ideas might fit within longer-term plans that are applicable to all of the nine towns (for example, a replicable district heating plant model that could provide a market for locally-produced pellets). Cathy will work with Hal and others to draft a letter of support before the August deadline.

Other business:
• Linda asked for ideas and suggestions for how to respond to the Petersham town government’s request that she and her town energy committee work on getting some kind of renewable energy system for the Center School. Bruce suggested speaking with Rob Rizzo who is now working at DOER. Other people mentioned the Green Schools initiative through the Mass. Technology Collaborative.
• We approved in principle the idea of having Randy Kehler come and speak about the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in September, but no one at the meeting stepped forward to organize the event. We will see if Elaine Reardon, who proposed the idea, wants to take the lead on proposing a date, finding a location, doing publicity, etc. A library or the Environmental Center were suggested as possible venues. Pat Roix will speak to others in the local area who are working on nuclear-power related activism, to make sure our efforts would not step on their toes.

Next meeting:
Following up on a previous discussion, we decided to pursue the idea of seeing whether Tina Clarke of Montague, whose new home recently won a recent Zero Energy award for most energy-efficient new home in the state, would give us a tour. The first choice for this was Aug. 26, with a backup date of Sept. 2. Steve and Janice will check to see if this will work. There were some unanswered questions about whether or how to combine this with a meeting, which we will need to resolve.

North Quabbin Energy
June 10, 2009 meeting
Wendell Library

Attending: Donna Caisse, Janice and Steve Kurkoski, Pat Larson, Brian Nugent, Elaine Reardon, Bruce Spencer, Jonathan van Ranson, Cathy Stanton

We began the evening with a tour of the new Wendell Library by library director Rosie Heidcamp. For some photos from the tour, click here.

Announcements:
• The new North Quabbin Food Coop is getting ready to start up. Organizers have been meeting weekly and are planning to start ordering soon. Anyone interested in being in their Yahoo group can do so by going to the group’s home page.
• We have heard from a state DOER worker who is looking for energy group contacts in order to spread the word about the Green Communities act and possible future funding possibilities. It looks as though it would be good for town energy committees to get onto their radar in some way.
• Seeds of Solidarity is doing a garden tour and workshop this Saturday on no-till gardening.
• While Wendell does not have a town energy committee per se, it does have a group called Wendell Sustainable which is doing similar work. This group is promoting the idea of Wendell as an “intentional energy-saving community” and will work to get a resolution on energy conservation onto the next town warrant, with the possibility of asking the selectboard to appoint a town committee.
• This year’s SolarFest in Tinmouth, Vermont will be on July 10-12. There will be almost 100 workshops! Steve and Janice will be there, as always.

“Going Green at Red Apple Farm“
We are invited to be part of the ribbon-cutting festivities for Red Apple Farm’s new 15 kw wind turbine in Phillipston on June 24 from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. We will have a table, Brian will demonstrate winserts, and we will hand out various things including our new biomass statement, the local food brochure, and our pledge form. There will be a panel discussion as part of the event. Pat, Brian, Cathy, and perhaps others will be there.

Survey of electricity use
Elaine and Janice have been gathering data about electricity use in our area. This is part of an effort to present evidence to counter the Entergy and Madera Companies’ assertion that their nuclear plant expansions or big biomass plants are needed because of demand that has been calculated using the average figure of about 650 kwh per household per month. We discussed this effort, and it was suggested that it might be more effective to try to get this information from National Grid (i.e. town-specific averages). The overall goal is to make the case that people in the area can use much less if they put their minds to it, and to support conservation over construction of big generating facilities.

Possible nuclear information session
Randy Kehler is interested in doing a presentation to our group on Vermont Yankee. We will send an email asking if there’s interest. Elaine will write a paragraph about it. This might be an informational event, perhaps held at a library, for the fall.

Biomass plant
We discussed the Pioneer Renewable Energy plant proposal in Greenfield at some length. The Greenfield Zoning Board of Appeals meeting has been rescheduled for Monday, June 15 at 7 p.m. in the Middle School cafeteria. A citizens’ group is recruiting experts to talk about various aspects of the plan; this is part of the strategic opposition to the proposal. Bruce pointed out that state forest management policy is in some disarray at the moment, with no consistent management plans or policies, which is making it difficult to assess what might happen with biomass harvesting on public lands. After considerable discussion, we refined our basic statement as we have been drafting it. We focused on two key points: that expanded biomass harvesting is likely to damage the long-term health of the forest, given current harvesting methods and prices, and that the proposal as it stands is simply too big. Ideas that circulated in this discussion included:
• We need to walk before we can run – there is a “panic push” for green energy now, but this kind of big facility is too large and it poses too many unanswered questions.
• This idea is premature at best – we should start smaller, and probably stay smaller.
• Sound ecology has to be the base for green energy – large, centralized power generation is inherently not green!
• This project is likely to take the wind out of the sails of any potential smaller or more local biomass plants
Janice and Bruce will work on coming up with a list of names of officials that we can send our letter/statement to. Cathy will re-draft the statement for letters, and will customize the statement for specific officials or agencies. Cathy will also finalize a two-sided handout for the general public.

Next meeting
Tuesday, July 14, 2009. Potluck dinner at 6, meeting at 6:30. Millers River Environmental Center, 100 Main Street, Athol.

Red Apple Farm is hosting a Green Talk and Ribbon Cutting for its 15kW Wind Turbine on Wednesday, June 24 from 4 to 7:30 p.m.
Celebrate – Educate – Rejuvenate!
Panel registration begins at 3:45 p.m.
Your hosts: The Rose Family
Red Apple Farm
455 Highland Avenue, Phillipston, MA 01331

Please Pre-Register today by calling Monica Elefterion at 508-755-7400 ext. 229 or emailing melefterion@worcester.org (so that the hosts can get an accurate count for food)
SCHEDULE:
4:00 pm: Panel discussion and Q & A on topics including:
Sustainable and renewable energies, Green & Agri-tourism, Farm Energy Programs for MA agriculture, new energy related state regulations and federal incentives.. and more.
Participants will include:
. MA Office of Travel and Tourism, Jonathan Hyde, Green Tourism
. MA Dept. of Agriculture, Gerald Palano, Renewable Energy Coordinator
. NEXAMP, Will Thompson, project managers on the turbine
. MA Renewable Energy Trust – represented by a state expert on renewable energy
. USDA – Dick Burke, Director of Business and Community Programs
6:15 pm: Ribbon Cutting on 15kW Wind Turbine (click here to see pictures of the turbine)
Followed by: FREE “Business After Hours”

Back to North Quabbin Energy home.

April 8, 2009
Millers River Environmental Center
Attending: Brian Nugent, Tom Rich, Cara Cleveland, Janice Kurkoski, Jane Manring, Linda Paquet, Pat Larson, Cathy Stanton, Donna Caisse

Potluck supper at 6 p.m.

Announcements:
• April 19, 1-4 p.m. – Climate Leadership Workshop at Smith College with Philip Rice from the Sustainability Institute
• April 30, 10-11:30 a.m. at Greenfield Community College downtown campus – Conservation and green energy grants for both public and private sector
• May 1-2 at UMass Amherst – Sustainable Energy Summit – Brian will be demonstrating winserts in exhibit hall on Saturday – Pre-registration is until April 10 – All-day workshops on Friday on various topics
• May 7, 6:30 p.m. – Free seminar on home energy saving at Athol Town Hall, focusing on insulation – Mass. Municipal Assn. speaker
• May 16, 10-2 at Elks Club in Orange – Family Fun Day – Orange energy committee will have a table
• Ribbon-cutting for wind turbine at Red Apple Farm – 3rd Thursday in June – We are invited to be part of event – we will decide at next meeting what to do/give out.

Energy Expo de-brief:
• Pat wrote up a detailed report about the Energy Expo listing what we did, etc., for use in planning next year. Some highlights:
• Attendance was much lower, probably because of the very nice weather – about 900 people (down from 1,500 last year).
• Generally worth doing and we are interested in doing it again.
• Pat has delivered door prizes to winners.
• The talks were not well attended and we probably won’t do them next year.
• We had too many recycling barrels – need to have just one station for all recycling – also need to talk to vendors earlier/more thoroughly to get message out about composting/recycling
• We ended up with 12 “green” vendors in the hallway, as well as some vendors in the gym who sold energy-related products. The vendors seemed pretty happy despite low attendance.
• The winsert demos went well. Brian reported that he was about as busy as last year.
• According to the pledge slips we handed out, most people are focusing on lights (CFLs and turning off unused lights) for their energy conservation efforts. People are also buying energy efficient appliances, lowering heat/water temperatures, and having energy audits.

“Biomass 101” presentation in Greenfield
Janice and Steve went to this event, which was sponsored by Greening Greenfield. Pioneer Renewable Energy (Madera Co.) is planning to build a 47 megawatt plant and has applied for a MEPA permit. Steve and Janice reported that there is some real tension in community around building of very large biomass plants to generate electricity. Bruce Spencer would like NQE to make a statement opposing this; the public comment period is until April 14. Janice reported the figures that about 79-80% efficiency can be achieved when using biomass to produce heat, but using biomass solely to make electricity reaches, at best, 34%. Various projects like this are in the works, and they are being promoted as green, home-grown energy, which may be very misleading. Many groups are opposing these plans, including the Massachusetts Forest Products Association (see their press release on logging of state forests for “dirty biomass” projects), and RISI, an information provider for the global forestry industry. Bruce will draft a letter, with input from others, expressing North Quabbin Energy’s concern about the proposed Greenfield plant. We may try to do a panel discussion about this issue at the Garlic Festival.

Winserts
With the remaining money in our New England Grassroots Environmental Fund grant, we will print more manuals, purchase DVDs of the workshop from AOTV, and buy winsert supplies for other groups to use (including Manny King’s youth group at the YMCA). Brian will talk to MREC about when and where to store their winserts, now that heating season is coming to a close. We don’t need to do a final report on the grant until September.

Odds and ends
• Janice asked us to be thinking about good speakers for the Garlic and Arts festival.
• Karen Powers at Green Market Farm has expressed interest in helping us distribute our local food brochure. NQE will reimburse Linda $45 for printing the brochure.
• CET is doing a “Take Charge” campaign, with a brochure similar to the one we produced for this year’s Home Show. When we reprint ours, we will perhaps make it part of this larger campaign.
• Jane attended the Green Economy Task Force quarterly meeting. The group was revising its mission statement again. Manny reported on the winsert project at the YMCA/Valuing Our Children.

Next meeting
May 9, 5 p.m. potluck and tour of masonry heater/solar thermal system at Linda Paquet’s house. Those interested should RSVP and receive directions via email or phone.

Back to North Quabbin Energy home.

Meeting minutes
March 19, 2009

Attending: Pat Larson, Annette Suzor, Steve and Janice Kurkoski, Phil Delorey, Linda Paquet, Cathy Stanton, Cara Cleveland, Brian Nugent

Announcements

• Cara just passed her LEED certification exam!
• The Barre selectboard approved a new energy committee, with both Jinx and Howard as members.
• The Town of Athol just got a $290,000 DOER grant for energy upgrades to town buildings.
• Coop Power and other organizations are sponsoring the annual Energy Summit on May 1 and 2 at UMass/Amherst. We will inquire about having a winsert table on Saturday for Brian to do demos, and will revisit this topic on April 8.
• The Athol Master Plan would like to incorporate an “Energy and Green Development” segment
• A new energy committee may be forming in Royalston. The Warwick committee has been asked to act as a mentor for this group.

Home Show
We are set for volunteers for Friday afternoon. Tables will be picked up at the Athol Town Hall at 4 p.m. People putting out signs can pick them up any time during the week at the Chamber of Commerce. These need to be put up on Friday evening, taken down Sunday morning, and returned to the Chamber sometime during the week.
We have various handouts and brochures, including the food brochure made by Linda Paquet. Jane Manring has made buttons for us to wear and/or give away. Pat is working on getting light bulbs, MassSave brochures, EnergyStar appliance info, etc. We will print our own brochure with energy-saving tips and a pledge form for people to sign. We have a number of prizes to give away as door prizes for those who fill out the pledge form. Cathy will do the final printing on Friday afternoon.
Speaker posters are ready to be posted. These and posters about the recycling raffle have also been emailed to people on our list.
Phil Delorey will try to get easels to display materials, and will coordinate this with Cathy.
Rick Innes is bringing bins for compostable materials. Pat will pick up recycling bins on Monday. Linda will make signs for the bins. Compostable utensils have been ordered through the Chamber of Commerce.
We may make a poster telling people about “Earth Hour” (March 28, 8:30-9:30 p.m.).

Future meeting plans
We may try to take a field trip to the Wendell library to see their “green” features. We could combine this with a picnic in warmer weather, perhaps in June. Our planned potluck at Linda Paquet’s house on May 3 will be changed to May 9. We will meet at 3 p.m. for a tour followed by a potluck dinner.

River Rat Race
Janice will see about registering for the race, but Pat Roix may not be able to paddle in the race. We will talk on April 8 about this event.

Next meeting
Wednesday, April 8, 6 p.m. for a potluck supper followed by meeting. Millers River Environmental Center.

North Quabbin Energy
Feb. 18, 2009 meeting
Millers River Environmental Center
Attending:  Pat Larson, Pat Roix, Linda Paquet, Steve & Janice Kurkoski, Brian Nugent, Cara Cleveland, Cathy Stanton

Potlucks/discussions
Ten people attended the recent potluck at Pat Larson’s house to share ideas and talk about ways that we might connect to the “Transition Towns” initiative. It was decided that we would not formally pursue that connection, but would certainly use some of those approaches and ideas in our work in the North Quabbin region. Ideas shared included: ways to start a town energy committee (on behalf of Barre), supporting Green Start sign-ups for area towns, writing pieces about energy for local newspapers, newsletters, and websites (eg. “how-to” columns, perhaps in coordination with the Hands Across North Quabbin/Green Economy Task Force education committee). Future educational meetings for NQE were discussed, including a potluck at Linda Paquet’s house this spring to see her masonry stove and solar hot water system, in combination with a potluck dinner. We will ask people to RSVP for these potlucks, so hosts know roughly how many to expect.

Home Show/Energy Expo March 28
• We should continue to call back potential vendors who expressed interest but haven’t signed up yet.
• The speaker list is almost complete. We have speakers on solar thermal, solar PV/community solar power generation, sustainable agriculture, GCC “green learning,” weatherization, windows, and more.
• We need to sign up volunteers for various tasks: roadside signs, setting up, table staff, recycling station, floaters to give people a break at tables, presentation area, clean-up. Pat Larson will coordinate the volunteer sign-ups.
• We will decorate the Chamber of Commerce window to advertise our “Got Green? Get Local!” theme. Linda Paquet will coordinate this.
• Recycling: We will borrow recycling bins from Franklin County Solid Waste Disposal. Steve and Janice will pick these up. We will also have regular trash containers available, but will hope to use them minimally. We’ll recycle all bottles and cans. All food vendors are being asked to use paper or compostable items, which Rick Innes from Clearview Composting will take. The Chamber will help by supplying paper plates and cups. Pat will draft a letter to the food vendors to explain our goal of composting/recycling as much waste as possible. We will ask the Chamber to purchase the compostable utensils on our behalf, and to use that as part of the proceeds they have agree to give us this year.
• We’ll hold a raffle drawing at 6 p.m., giving away a Dean’s Beans gift basket and accepting old (name-brand) printer ink cartridges and cell phones as entries. Items collected will go to Athol and Orange schools for their recycling fundraisers.
• Town energy committees will have a presence at our NQE table. We will also promote Green Start sign-ups. Linda is asking Ken Levine to make a North Quabbin map showing where there are town energy committees already and which towns could still start them. We’ll also have a free literature table in the cafeteria. Janice and Pat are working on getting literature
• Brian will do winsert demonstrations in the cafeteria during the day.
• Cathy will go on Managers Corner on AOTV on March 11 to publicize the Energy Expo.

River Rat Race
We may need to find a canoe for this, as Janice’s is very unwieldy! We will figure this out in March, and perhaps have a work bee in April to decorate the boat and paddlers (Pat Roix and Janice). We also need to check what the arrangements are this year, as there are questions about both the logistics and the sponsorship of the race.

Winsert workshops
We had a total of 21 attendees at the two winsert workshops, plus seven people from NQE. Many towns in the area were represented, and many people talked about wanting to pass the idea along in their own networks. We have spent $575.73 of the $1000 grant so far. Manny King’s youth group at the YMCA is making winserts for their own homes and helping to make them for the Valuing Our Children building, and we decided to use $250 of the remaining funds to help them buy supplies. We will also earmark $150 for making DVDs of our edited tape from the workshops. At some point we will follow up with the workshop participants to see how they’re doing with making frames on their own. If this is proving to be a barrier for people, we will suggest ways that they might get help with ripping lumber or making frames.

Next meeting: Thursday, March 19, 6:30 p.m.

The Environmental Task Force of the Hampshire Interfaith Council is pleased to present:

Transition Towns: A Wonderful Model for Enhancing 
Community Vibrancy & Creating A More Secure World

Presenter: Tina Clarke, Transition Towns Trainer and Consultant, Sustainability Institute  www.sustainer.org

WHEN:          March 22, 7:00 p.m.

WHERE:        First Churches Northampton
                       125 Main St. (Route 9). 
                        Enter at side door, across from the Iron Horse

A handful of citizens in the U.K. asked the question:  how can our community increase our local economic resiliency and address the challenges and opportunities of rising energy costs and climate change?  They launched a new movement, “Transition Towns”, which is now spreading around the world.  Tina Clarke is one of a handful of certified Transition Towns trainers in the U.S.  Come hear why the Transition model has been so successful and connect with local people interested in “launching Transition” in the Valley.  Tina will share a slide presentation from the founder, Rob Hopkins, and other Transition Towns trainers.  On April 25-26 we’ll offer the full 2-day “Training for Transition” for people who would like to know more. 

For more information about Transition Towns:  www.transitiontowns.org  & www.transitionus.org

You can reach Tina Clarke (413-549-6834), tinaclarke2@comcast.net.

This program is free.  All are welcome.

Have you ever wondered where your electricity comes from and what happens when you flip on the switch?

Filmmaker Jeff Barrie offers hope as he turns the camera on himself and asks, “How can I make a difference?” In his journey Barrie explores the source of our electricity and the problems caused by energy production including mountain top removal, childhood asthma and global warming. Along the way he encounters individuals, businesses, organizations, and communities who are leading the way, using energy conservation, efficiency, and renewable green power all while saving money and the environment. Through their learning experience, viewers discover how they can save hundreds of dollars annually on energy bills, and use a portion of the savings to purchase renewable energy.
Kilowatt Ours invites viewers to help build a net zero nation, by conserving energy to the greatest extent possible at home, then using clean renewable energy to provide the electricity used.

Attend a showing of Kilowatt Ours on Sunday, March 8, 2009 at 6 pm at the Petersham Memorial Library. This often amusing and always inspiring story shows, “You can easily make a difference and here’s how!”