North Quabbin Energy
Meeting on Thursday, June 28, 2007
Millers River Environmental Center
Attending: Don Audet, Janice Kurkoski, Pat Larson, Jane Manring,
Tom and Joanne Rich, Cathy Stanton
We started the meeting with a potluck dinner and a viewing of our "Taking the Mystery out of
Recycling" video, taped in May.
Announcements
- Tom reported on the most recent regional energy committee meeting in Greenfield.
The "Bosley Bill" or Green Communities Act is working its way through the state legislature, and
may be voted on by the end of the summer. The Pioneer Valley planning group is looking carefully
at it as it develops to see how it compares with the regional energy plan drafted last year.
- "Taking the Mystery out of Recycling" has aired 14 times on AOTV so far.
We will contact libraries in the nine-town region to see which ones would like us to send them a
DVD or video of the show.
- A special town meeting was held on June 27 to vote on increasing the amount of the bond issue
for the Athol transfer station. The article passed overwhelmingly, so the project will be able to
move forward.
Town energy committees
So far we have information about six of the nine towns concerning the formation of energy committees
or task forces. Warwick has convened one already, while Athol is in the process of doing so. New Salem,
Orange, Phillipston, and Wendell have not and have no immediate plans for this. We are still waiting
to hear back from Erving, Petersham, and Royalston.
We agreed that we will keep working to promote the idea of each town having some kind of committee or
task force to keep energy issues on the agenda for town governments. Some ways that we could help
to support these efforts are:
- use our list of contacts to locate people in each town
who may be willing to serve on town committees
- offer web space on our site for newsletters, updates, and information-sharing
- share information from existing groups - eg. Janice is willing to write up notes about what she
has learned and done so far in regard to helping to make Warwick Town Hall more energy-efficient
- support possible collaborative projects in the nine-town region
Pat will continue to talk to people on our list and other people in Orange. She will also contact
Don Campbell in Northfield. Jane will talk to David Ames to see what is happening in Athol, and
will follow up on a contact in Phillipston. Cathy will follow up on a contact in New Salem.
Fall movies
North Quabbin Energy will sponsor two films about energy in the fall. One will be held at
Wheeler Memorial Library, the other at the North Orange library. Proposed dates:
- Wednesday, Sept. 19, 7 p.m.
- Wednesday, Oct. 1, 7 p.m.
Pat will check these dates with the libraries.
Other business
Pat will send information about future NQE meetings to the Athol Daily News calendar listing.
We tabled the discussion about creating a template for community presentations; we will return
to this at the next meeting.
We will also revisit the MREC energy-efficiency project ideas at a future meeting. Cathy is still
waiting to receive information about oil and electricity use from MREC.
Next meeting
Wednesday, July 25, 7 p.m. at MREC
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