• We will continue to circulate our petition about keeping the proposed Athol Business Park retail development as "green" as possible. Tom is monitoring the progress of this project.
• People have been picking up the copies of "Northeast Sun" that we have put out at the Athol Town Hall.
• Janice attended the Sustainable Energy Summit at Smith College on April 28. She was struck by the number of town energy committees that now exist. We discussed past and potential future ways to coordinate with some of these, along with benefits and disadvantages of spending time on intra-group organizing vs. doing local activities.
• Pat proposed that we have a future discussion within NQE about nuclear energy, with the possible goal of presenting a show on AOTV.

"Taking the Mystery Out of Recycling" show on AOTV, May 15, 6 p.m.
Plans for the show are moving along. Steve and Janice are working with two groups of students to produce skits/performances to be taped before the show and edited in to the final version. Pat has recruited two crew members and we are still looking for a third person to help with the taping. Speakers lined up so far are Phil Leger (Towns of Athol/Royalston), Jan Ameen (Franklin County Solid Waste Management District), Priscilla from the Orange transfer station. Cathy is still working on recruiting a fourth speaker, probably from Phillipston or Warwick.
The plan is to tape the show on May 15, edit it quickly, and have it air sometime in May, with repeat showings through the summer. Information about recycling options for the nine North Quabbin towns will be posted on our website; Susan Paju is working with Cathy on gathering this information. We need a live audience to be in the studio for the taping. There will be time for some questions and answers at the end of the show; people wanting to submit questions should call or email Cathy (cstanton@tiac.net or 978-249-5174) in advance if possible. We can also use the website to post answers that we aren't able to get to during the show itself.

Presentation at North Quabbin Community Coalition meeting, May 18, 9-11 a.m.
We have been invited to make a half-hour presentation to the NQCC, a coalition of area social service groups. Deb Habib from Seeds of Solidarity will also be presenting; she has a PowerPoint show that will give people an overview of some issues relating to energy, so it seems to make sense for us to focus on doing an activity that gets people thinking about concrete things they can do to make a difference. Pat brought an "energy survival kit" made by Hattie Nestel, and will make some of these for May 18, containing a clothespin, some seeds, a candy (representing the sun!), and one of our NQE bookmarks. Pat, Don, Brian, and perhaps Janice will attend the event.

River Rat parade de-brief
For the second year, we had a presence in the River Rat parade, with six "green" (renewable fuel or high-mileage) cars and several people participating as walkers with the Seeds of Solidarity/Millers River Environmental Center float, puppets, and banners. Steve and Janice did a great job of organizing the cars and signs. There is a good write-up, with some photos, on the "Step It Up" site. We agreed that this was well worth doing, and that we should plan on being a part of the parade again next year.

Request for speaker at Mahar Regional High School
The high school is looking for someone to speak (by May 16) to two classes of seniors who are studying global warming. Cathy and Brian will pursue this.
Since it seems that there may be an increasing number of requests of this kind, we agreed to spend some of the next meeting developing a basic presentation (with handout materials and/or activities) that people from NQE could give for various groups in the community.

Films at Orange libraries Pat has been asked to organize the showing of environment/energy related films at the two Orange libraries. "Kilowatt Ours" and "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" are the likely choices for this. Since we are already busy in May, and since it is hard to gather audiences once the summer starts, it seems to make sense to do this in September, perhaps with the films shown two weeks apart. Pat will take the lead on organizing this.

Next meeting
Wednesday, May 30, 7 p.m. at MREC

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