Relocalization Network › Let's Live Local - A Post Carbon Outpost in Pine Mountain, California › News › Summary of Sept Meeting

Summary of Sept Meeting

Mon, 2005-09-26 10:05 — Sarah Edwards
Body: 

We had another exciting meeting. Momentum is continuing to build as lots of plans are take shape and new possibilities are emerging.

In attendance: Jan de Leeuw, Jim Hanson, Gita Nelson, Peter Gullerud, Zena Dean, Paul and Sarah Edwards

Announcements

1. Our we have our new – Lets Live Local – We’ll use www.LetsLiveLocal.org but
we also have www.LetsLiveLocal.com which we’ll point to the org page if people
use com instead.

2. We’re registered as a Post Carbon Institute Outpost - There are many resources there at http://www.postcarboninstitute.org/ you can read and explore, ie:

· Outpost Manual – Post Carbon Guide to Low Energy Living
· Strengthening Local Economies – A free online book about alternative currencies and local sustainability
· Community Sustainability Assessment – to help a community assess what resources they have and what they need.
· The book Growing Food in the Southwest Mountains – 6500’
· The book Living Between the Cracks – about Social Enterprise as opposed to for-profit enterprise.

Post Carbon staff will help us personally and we can network with other communities through their web site. Just log on and sign up as a member.

Follow-Up Reports

1. Jim:
- Jim has a server for our site that will enable him to do what he needs to set up our
Dollar Board
- He and April are interested in an organic food co-op. We discussed many options:

· Mail order organic produce – Jan will check out
· Frazier Part coop health food service – Paul will check out
· San Joaquin Valley farmers – Jan will check out
· Coop shopping teams – shop for one another
· Commuters shop for a certain number of others
· Trip board where people post when they are going in or when they need something from town

2. Sarah Jane is in Bali but has been working on her summary of steps we need to take to get the land ready for next spring.

3. Sarah Edwards reported that:
- Our plan to buy the chickens is not working out. Zena is willing to Sue Alberti to
see if her could get hens or eggs from her.
- She has been unable to locate the Shillits regarding obtaining meat locally, but Paul
will check with Charlie Hall re Harmony Farms re coop buying.
- Sarah, Paul and Jim reviewed the British Peak Oil film and don’t believe it is a good substitute for End of Suburbia.
- Mar Preston encouraged us to write a grant proposal. Sarah will explore options for funding through the Rose Foundation.

New Topics

1. As Chair of the PMC Planning Committee, Paul was asked to identify four possible
future scenarios for the committee to discuss, including one on a sustainable
community. He asked our group to brainstorm possible names for that scenario and
came up with several suggestions. We settled on Hope Village: Local Sufficiency.
Peter has offered to illustrate the scenarios.

2. Our bus service to Frazier Park was a two-year pilot project that has now ended, just
as people here would begin to use it. Sarah will check with Patric Hedlund about the
status of this project and who to contact in Kern County.
3. The Post Carbon Institute Manual has a Personal Energy Audit Survey as well as a
survey we can each take to identify how dependent we are on non-local services and
large corporations E-mail her is you would like cc’s at: sedwards@frazmtn.com

4. We discussed doing an Earth Day event with the Sierra Club and the PMC Planning Committee and holding it as a PMC Club event – Celebrate the Forest. Paul and Gita will explore this. Sarah will explore what would be involved in having. David Cobb and/or Richard Heinberg present.

5. Zena talked with the group about local seeds and re-charged our thinking about a having a community orchard and also doing a fruit tree inventory of the community.

6. Over the next months while Jim is on tour Sarah will see if we can arrange to tour some sustainable local homes.

News

Here’s what’s cooking in Santa Barbara from Linda Buzzell. It’s something to we can aspire to that our Earth Day Event might foster.
Our next endeavor is an Earth Charter Summit in 2 weeks on the topic of Sustainable Santa Barbara that will bring in people from many sectors of the community to explore what immediate changes in the various sectors of community - health care, food security, education, energy use, business, land use, housing, etc. - we need to make in light of fossil fuel depletion, climate disruption etc. We'll have people from local government (the mayor!), police, fire, business, social justice as well as green and social justice folk. And we'll try to connect the dots between the "backyard" issues and the general well being of the whole community.

We had another exciting meeting. Momentum is continuing to build as lots of plans are take shape and new possibilities are emerging.

In attendance: Jan de Leeuw, Jim Hanson, Gita Nelson, Peter Gullerud, Zena Dean, Paul and Sarah Edwards

Announcements

1. Our we have our new – Lets Live Local – We’ll use www.LetsLiveLocal.org but
we also have www.LetsLiveLocal.com which we’ll point to the org page if people
use com instead.

2. We’re registered as a Post Carbon Institute Outpost - There are many resources there at http://www.postcarboninstitute.org/ you can read and explore, ie:

· Outpost Manual – Post Carbon Guide to Low Energy Living
· Strengthening Local Economies – A free online book about alternative currencies and local sustainability
· Community Sustainability Assessment – to help a community assess what resources they have and what they need.
· The book Growing Food in the Southwest Mountains – 6500’
· The book Living Between the Cracks – about Social Enterprise as opposed to for-profit enterprise.

Post Carbon staff will help us personally and we can network with other communities through their web site. Just log on and sign up as a member.

Follow-Up Reports

1. Jim:
- Jim has a server for our site that will enable him to do what he needs to set up our
Dollar Board
- He and April are interested in an organic food co-op. We discussed many options:

· Mail order organic produce – Jan will check out
· Frazier Part coop health food service – Paul will check out
· San Joaquin Valley farmers – Jan will check out
· Coop shopping teams – shop for one another
· Commuters shop for a certain number of others
· Trip board where people post when they are going in or when they need something from town

2. Sarah Jane is in Bali but has been working on her summary of steps we need to take to get the land ready for next spring.

3. Sarah Edwards reported that:
- Our plan to buy the chickens is not working out. Zena is willing to Sue Alberti to
see if her could get hens or eggs from her.
- She has been unable to locate the Shillits regarding obtaining meat locally, but Paul
will check with Charlie Hall re Harmony Farms re coop buying.
- Sarah, Paul and Jim reviewed the British Peak Oil film and don’t believe it is a good substitute for End of Suburbia.
- Mar Preston encouraged us to write a grant proposal. Sarah will explore options for funding through the Rose Foundation.

New Topics

1. As Chair of the PMC Planning Committee, Paul was asked to identify four possible
future scenarios for the committee to discuss, including one on a sustainable
community. He asked our group to brainstorm possible names for that scenario and
came up with several suggestions. We settled on Hope Village: Local Sufficiency.
Peter has offered to illustrate the scenarios.

2. Our bus service to Frazier Park was a two-year pilot project that has now ended, just
as people here would begin to use it. Sarah will check with Patric Hedlund about the
status of this project and who to contact in Kern County.
3. The Post Carbon Institute Manual has a Personal Energy Audit Survey as well as a
survey we can each take to identify how dependent we are on non-local services and
large corporations E-mail her is you would like cc’s at: sedwards@frazmtn.com

4. We discussed doing an Earth Day event with the Sierra Club and the PMC Planning Committee and holding it as a PMC Club event – Celebrate the Forest. Paul and Gita will explore this. Sarah will explore what would be involved in having. David Cobb and/or Richard Heinberg present.

5. Zena talked with the group about local seeds and re-charged our thinking about a having a community orchard and also doing a fruit tree inventory of the community.

6. Over the next months while Jim is on tour Sarah will see if we can arrange to tour some sustainable local homes.

News

Here’s what’s cooking in Santa Barbara from Linda Buzzell. It’s something to we can aspire to that our Earth Day Event might foster.
Our next endeavor is an Earth Charter Summit in 2 weeks on the topic of Sustainable Santa Barbara that will bring in people from many sectors of the community to explore what immediate changes in the various sectors of community - health care, food security, education, energy use, business, land use, housing, etc. - we need to make in light of fossil fuel depletion, climate disruption etc. We'll have people from local government (the mayor!), police, fire, business, social justice as well as green and social justice folk. And we'll try to connect the dots between the "backyard" issues and the general well being of the whole community.