Firstly,

I want to say how grateful I am to have been a part of CCUU's Green Sanctuary Team since its inception in August, 2015.  It has been a privilege getting to know our congregation, and becoming acquainted with the environmental issues surrounding the Louisiana and the Greater New Orleans area.  I will miss CCUU very much, but I look forward to our family's next step in Colorado.  I'll be watching you from afar and look forward to hearing about your progress as you continue this journey.

Peace and Love to You,

Claire Lute





Brief minutes from our last meeting, 7/13/3016.

Alicia Cooke, Howard Mielke, Kyle Reidy, and Rev. Jim VanderWeele were present.

Howard discussed his participation in the NOLA Masterplan rewrite, addressing issues of lead exposure, changes in standards for the medical community, contractors, acknowledging that there is no margin of safety for lead exposure.  He will be sending a summary to the team about his efforts.

Claire added remaining team members to the blog as authors, and will make Alicia admin on the blog.

Rev. Jim will contact our webmaster to add THIS very blog to the ccuu website

We had further discussion on the formal process of UUA Green Sanctuary candidacy.

Claire will give team Karen Brammer's contact information.

-TEAM needs to check their email for new links to google drive documents pertaining to candidacy application.  Claire will resend them, and will check to ensure that the initial environmental assessment questions are answered as fully as possible.

Alicia Cooke completed work on our congregational survey!  The link is here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf9pFC0M-w3UIg2Lc3l7_aRfMDfe1MhE61pD2KQRzs-Vy7FYw/viewform and was also sent to the congregation via email.

Alicia will be discussing the "launch" of the survey with the congregation on 7/24.
She-or Rev. Jim-  will also write a brief blurb for the newsletter

Team decided to offer Our Place in the Web of Life curriculum in the Fall of 2016. UU Ministry for Earth introductory video for OPITWOL will be shown to the congregation before offering the curriculum, and can be found here: http://uuministryforearth.org/EJ-Curriculum

Howard offered to be our new contact person for the UUA, and will be put in touch with Karen Brammer.  Claire Lute will send a final update as "chair," and will pass along Howard's information.

Electric bills for past 18-24 months should be documented
       Rev. Jim- call Jeff
       Howard- get copies of monthly solar production

Moving forward, team will find community leaders with whom to discuss environmental justice.
     Monique Hardin
     Andreas Hoffman

Rev. Jim will put into motion our rain barrel irrigation system.  We have barrels, the time is NOW to begin utilizing them.  Rev. Jim addressed concerns about water metering, gauges (and assured the team that the barrels can indeed be used like any other tank water source).

April 13, 2016- Green Sanctuary Meeting

At April's meeting, we were quite productive. First, I want to thank Alicia for her wonderful address to everyone in attendance at the GNOUU Retreat on Sunday. She eloquently stated the mission of the Green Sanctuary program, and emphasized the importance of environmental justice work within the UUA's framework. She stressed that our work in this process may be lengthy, and how we as individuals will need to work even harder- that the changes we all must make will require growth, effort, and sacrifice. She nailed it!

In leiu of formal minutes, I have a rundown of important points from our 4/13 meeting.

Here's you go:



Actionable Items:



EVERYONE: Continue to flesh out your sections of the questionnaire. At our next meeting, we WILL be ready to figure out projects for our Action Plan.


REV. JIM: :

Check with Jeff Cantin about Solar- panel- functionality, efficiency, accurate monitoring
Water Bills for a year- assess our consumption. Send scanned/PDF versions to Claire for GS documentation.
Possibly have Andreas from Green Light NOLA come to assess lights
Determine what is necessary to petition for restoring CCUU as a community polling place. Contact Susan Guidry


CLAIRE:

Obtain East Bank NOLA Water quality report, research reliability of report
Update our blog, send blog info to be printed in bulletin.
Begin GS Application for Candidacy



HOWARD:

Contact Adrienne Katner- addressing water samples
Send Claire PDFS of energy bills for GS documentation.
FAMILIES of CONGREGATION- TEST YOUR HOME SOIL! Test your local playground! <--Should we announce this on a Sunday soon? Address taking proper samples in the community?


ALICIA-

Add to survey questions: Do you have home sprinklers? Do they run after a rain?



KYLE:

Checking on govt. seed program- What seeds are available, for whom, and from what sources?


Also discussed:


Possible Ideas Composting at CCUU. Possibly becoming a site for community compost and community garden. Desire to possibly obtain rainwater barrels


Possibly get involved with the following:


Alliance for Affordable Energy – Casey DeMoss


Gulf South Rising


Having members of the congregation commit to calling/writing legislators about pressing environmental issues. We discussed having an environmental-political action initiative within the congregation.




Thank you so much!


-Claire

Here's a brief summary of what we're doing here!

Firstly,Why Become a Green Sanctuary?

The Green Sanctuary Program is a natural growth based in the 7th Principal: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.  Please see the UUA Green Sanctuary Program page to learn a bit more: http://www.uua.org/environment/sanctuary

CCUU began working toward Green Sanctuary accreditation in Fall of 2015.  A Green Action Team was formed by a few interested members of the congregation, and now includes Rev. Jim VanderWeele, Alicia Cooke, Claire Lute, Howard Mielke, Laura Miller,  and Sky Stewart.  Our team began meeting in December, 2015, after receiving approval from the Board to pursue accreditation.  We have only just begun our Congregational Assessment to gain a deeper understanding of our members' environmental impacts and action.

In the next few weeks, our team will meet again, and we will be involving the congregation in a personal survey of environmental actions (participation will be anonymous- we want to know what are members are doing, but we don't need your identity!)

We will continue to update the congregation on our progress on this blog.  We are excited to complete the assessment phase and to begin involving the whole congregation and wider community in more social and environmental action endeavors- through our Action Plan.

Follow our journey, and get ready to join our team as we continue to work toward accreditation and a greener, more just community.