North Quabbin Energy
Meeting on Thursday, November 8, 2007
Millers River Environmental Center, Athol
Attending: Don Audet, Janice and Steve Kurkoski, Pat Larson, Jane Manring,
Brian Nugent, Joanne and Tom Rich, Flat Stanley, Cathy Stanton
Announcements
- Steve, Janice, and Pat attended the CET workshop in Hadley this morning to find out about
energy-related initiatives for municipalities. The central insight that they came away with was
that it's important for people to make connections with their utility companies to find out what
is available for funding, services, and support.
- The Athol Town Manager is still looking for two more people to fill out the new town
energy committee. We brainstormed about ways to find good candidates for this.
- Kilowatt Hours was shown on AOTV this past week, and will be shown again. The
Power of Community cannot be shown on TV because of copyright issues.
- Regional energy committee meetings have not been happening recently at NESEA, but may be
starting again soon.
- Rural Development, Inc. has energy-efficient houses for sale in Athol to low-income buyers,
and is looking for ways to publicize them. We brainstormed ideas on how to help with this.
Energy expo (March 29 and 30, 2008)
We have had a second planning meeting with the North Quabbin Chamber of Commerce, and things are
moving along on organizing the combined Home Show and Energy Expo. We discussed the following:
- Vendors: The cost of a booth for the whole weekend is $150. We talked about whether
this would keep away some of our potential vendors, but ended up deciding that the price was fair
and that it would be too complicated to try to work around it in some way. We looked at our list
of potential and actual vendors from last year's Energy Expo and added some names of other possible
vendors to it. Cathy will get this list to Steve Raymond and will review the draft letter to
vendors when it is ready. That mailing will go out sometime this month, and at our December
meeting we will figure out how to follow it up with phone calls to vendors who do not sign up
immediately.
- Program: We will be able to use the auditorium for some kind of programming. We will
work on developing a list of presentations soon, particularly after we know which vendors will be
attending.
- Children's activities: We can use a somewhat separate area off the cafeteria for
children's activities. Jane is working on this and may try to get some high school students
involved.
There is another planning meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 13 at 2:30 p.m. Tom Rich and Brian Nugent are
planning to attend.
Film series
We had a very brief discussion of possible films and locations for the next film showing. We
may work with some of the area churches to co-sponsor films in future. Pat will follow up on
this.
MREC building projects
Brian is still waiting to hear back about a possible energy audit time. We ran out of time for
discussing this and will revisit it at the next meeting.
Other business
In the discussion following the film (which 14 people attended), the possibility was raised of
showing "The Power of Community" on AOTV. Cathy will investigate the copyright issues on this.
Next meeting
Tuesday, December 4, 7 p.m. at the Millers River Environmental Center.
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