Our May Meeting Update!

We have been busy planning!  We will ALL miss Sky Stewart as he moves on from Internship at CCUU. And we will certainly miss Laura Miller as she leaves us for Virginia, we'll gladly welcome her back in the Winter! Here is a list of Actionable Items from our 5/18 Meeting- you can see what we'll be doing in the coming month:

Alicia -Design congregational survey
-Contact Monique about possibility of future performance/presentation on Houma Nation/Shell/Wetlands/Native lands (2017)
-Contact/explore activist transportation needs

Rev. Jim- Termite control

Claire- Secure funds for Our Place in the Web of Life curriculum ($50 donation to UUA)
-Continue formal application for GS Candidacy
-Prepare brief congregational talk for Sunday, 5/29 *REVISED* TO 6/7!
-Contact Cynthia Ramirez about intergenerational environmental education offering (copy Rev. Jim)

Kyle- Contact Bill Fernandez about gardening, interest in seeds/helping with plant on a garden education day


Possible Projects for Action Plan (as discussed, now categorized)

Environmental Justice
-Lead Testing and Remediation
-Form action committee- interested individuals write/call/protest about LEAD (soil and water), OFFSHORE DRILLING, CLIMATE CHANGE/FOSSIL
-Transportation/Gas Collective for activist endeavors (protests, events, etc).
-Carpool

Worship and Celebration
-Monique from Houma Nation Poetry/presentation/Special Collection (2017)
-Commissioned Music
-Benefit concerts for environmental causes, perhaps twice per year?

Religious Education
-Our Place in the Web of Life course offering (Spring 2017)
-Intergenerational Education opportunity

Sustainable Living
-Conservation Education sessions (Chris Lute?)
-Offer garden day- plants/seeds/pots/education
-Birdhouses for kids?
-CCUU Building Improvements
-Leaks
-Water fountains
-Solar Metering
-RAIN BARRELS- ASAP!
-Gardens- food, butterfly
-Sustainable Coffee Hour
-Fair Trade coffee/tea
-Cloth napkins, reusable silverware, etc.
-Make recycling more VISIBLE- possibly design chart of what can be recycled
-Compost acceptable paper/food waste (again with visual!)
-Cloth towels in restrooms

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

Green Action Team meeting, 3/16/2016

Our team met tonight at CCUU.  Here are our minutes:

We opened with an overview of the Green Sanctuary accreditation process for new meeting attendees.

It was decided that Alicia will revamp the document which contains our assessment questions so that it is able to be edited in real-time by members of our team (thank you, Alicia).

Our team has broken the congregational assessment into manageable sections, and members will be in charge as follows: 

Alicia: Environmental Justice

Howard and Rev. Jim: Sustainable Living

Laura: Community Involvement

Claire and Kyle: Worship and Celebration and RE

The team will also send potential personal survey questions to Alicia, who will be developing and formatting a personal survey for the congregation to complete.  

We set a goal of completing the assessment phase by APRIL 15th! 

Also, it was decided that we will offer Our Place in the Web of Life as a course in early 2017.  

Announcement about our progress will be made on Sunday, 3/20 at the church service.

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.