Green Neighbors, Regular Meeting, January 9, 2017, 6:30pm

Due to emergency closure of Petworth Library, the meeting reconvened at Petworth Citizen Reading Room, thanks to support from Paul Ruppert.

Chair:Ruben

10 supporters attending

Report on Polar Bear Plunge: Catherine

Green Neighbors is again fielding a team for this years PBP (January 28, 2017) as we have in the past.  The plunger team so far is Catherine, Max and Nick.  Fund raising has just begun.  We need a team total of $1200 before GN begins to share 1/2 in excess of that amount.  Discussion of the event, transportation sharing.

Update on Green Neighbors Website:Annette

Annette has been updating and expanding the GN WordPress site (https://greenneighborsdc.org/) and Facebook page.  There has been higher than normal visitation. A goal is to make the resource page for our neighbors as well as a place to promote our projects.  One current inclusion is showcase of members’ New Years resolutions, combining both “big picture” goals and personal ones.  Discussion of methods of promotion of the site, as well as who might be able to contribute useful articles.  Sources of event and other information were also discussed. Anyone who wants to receive notifications of website updates should sign up to “follow” the website.   You can also just “like” pages within the website, without receiving notifications.

Continued Discussion of Green Neighbors mission and goals.

A consensus seems to be developing that GN should continue to combine very local work with support for work at a more “big picture” level.  Remaining inclusive and non partisan was underscored, while understanding that some aspects of our environmental and climate work will necessarily involve taking what can be conceived as a partisan position in defense of that work.  Discussion of how to continue to attract newcomers.  Again, a stated goal of being a clearinghouse for information as well as a promoter of activity. We will start an online discussion of our goals for 2017 – Catherine will set up a Google doc that all members can use to make suggestions. We will also look at what other environmental groups in the DC area are doing, in order to see what’s out there and get ideas for our work.

Next Meeting: February 13, possibly again in the Reading Room, with Annette facilitating.

Announcements regarding McMillan Park, as well as upcoming trainings