Outreach & Communications Group

Meeting Minutes:

July 8, 2003

Pat Hurlock, Pat Horrocks, Victoria Webb, Sarah Caspar, Tom O’Donnell

Outreach and Communications Events

1. Pat informed us that the Exton Mall is planning an environmental outreach event at the mall on Oct. 17-18. This is a place where we could have an outreach activity. The thought was to join the League’s green canopy demonstration with some of our C&O – GHGRTF info on an adjacent table.

The event is Friday night and all day Saturday. Pat can attend a League table for the demo and she can oversee an Outreach activity. If we had a “survey” card ready it would be a good place to hand it out to the public. We could also have materials from the information group, and other County plans

2. How about we do educational programs at the school? Kids take home a pledge and have it signed with the date for a Town Hall meeting announcement.

3. Tom volunteered to ask Andy Dinniman to help with a Town Hall meeting. All we need is to structure our ideas a little first so Tom can present our goals. Barbara McElvanie-Smith. A PECO representative would be helpful. UPenn professor Dr. Carl Ulrich.

4. Can we put together a list of pertinent readings? This could be a handout and be sent to school librarians. Pat will try this on a couple of librarians. This is also a list for our handout materials.

5. Ask Steve about venue for a TH meeting. Pat will call West Chester Univ. to find out what fee is applied to use Philips Hall Memorial Auditorium for Town Hall meeting. How full is there calendar? West Goshen meeting hall is good too. Pat will see what other events are occurring in Sept. around the County to see if it makes sense to piggy-back.

6. Tom will bring in the 5000 lb diet book for the group to review.

Budget

1. Sarah brought up the budget and the fact that we need to know how much money we can use for various projects.

We need for Steve to give us the budget that we can work with. Tom will ask Steve for a status and be ready to reiterate our group’s needs. To do so we need a list of time and money needs. We started one for the “all hands meeting” and can revise that pretty easily.

Survey:

Purpose is to help Commissioners gain an understanding of the publics views toward energy and GHGT.

Here are some sample questions:

• Do you think the County should spend money to lower the effects of climate change in our county?
• Do you think the county should reduce it energy usage?
• What do you think are the most important activities related to climate change?
• To conserve on fossil fuels in the county would you:
• Carpool
• Would you support investing in more mass transit
• Would you support no-idle zones
• Consider alternative fuels for new car purchase
• Use bike or walking paths if possible
• Telecommute if available
• Kids walking to school if they had a safe path

Tom will invite Dave Ward and his webmaster to lunch next week. The purpose will be to discuss web support and the idea for a survey.

We need to get the Steering Committee involved in O&C. Send announcement to chairs of committees letting them know that we want your participation, ask about their thoughts about TH meetings scheduled in Sept –Nov, number 1-2 TH events.

Other

Pat has some ideas for a tree canopy project that would be great for Agriculture & Forestry to undertake.