Green Team Meeting – Minutes 1/26/21
Participants: Don Hermes (Chair), Claudia Swain, Darlene Hermes, Tom Sherman, Katherine Condon, Kathy Gibson, Wally Young , Fred Evenson, Olivia Evenson, Karen Richer, Jackie Kanis
| Agenda item | Discussion | Action | Responsible |
| Call to order | The meeting was called to order at 6:35pm. | Zoom | Don |
| Mission Statement | “OUR MISSION IS TO PROMOTE CONSERVATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES IN OUR CHURCH, OUR HOMES, AND OUR COMMUNITIES.” | Don presented the agenda and asked for updates. | Don |
| Old Business/ Reviews Reports from boards and team members: | |||
| 1. CARI, Climate Action RI | Claudia attended a webinar on how a bill becomes a law. She will be attending another webinar about the bills that are being put forward in RI.
A. CARI also questioned candidates and then endorsed political candidates who emphasize environmental issues. Many of the endorsed candidates have now been elected. Teresa Tanzi was our local candidate that was endorsed. B. New York is divesting their pension fund completely out of fossil fuel companies. |
C. Chase Bank protest actions were put on hold temporarily due to Covid but they are going to do a car parade on the last Monday in February to keep up the objections to Chase’s red lining and fossil fuel investments.
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Claudia |
| 2. Hikes, Reviews, New Plans | The January hike at Ninigret Park was well attended.
The next hike will be February 21st at the great swamp, They will be meeting at 1:00. Hikers should remember to protect against tics. Hunting season will be over by then, so wearing Orange may not be necessary. |
Claudia will continue to put the information in the E-light and the Youth Connect. |
Claudia
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| 3. New Environmental Banner for the Church | A Company in North Kingstown “Signarama” made the frame for the front of the church and they will create the banner to fit. The size for our banner would be 3 feet by 5 feet. The cost would be just over $140. for Signarama to make the banner. Katherine and Olivia presented some ideas to the group for the banner.
The group like the wording: Earth God’s gift to us Our responsibility to the Future The church website will need to be put at the bottom of the banner. |
Katherine will attend the Executive Board to present the banner for their approval and then follow up to get the banner made. | Olivia, Katherine
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| 4. Status of Church Solar Installation
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Don Met with the executive board and presented the proposals for the solar installation. They were in support of the project and have approved it, but it will now need a final vote of the congregation at the annual meeting.
He has met with Sol Power again and discussed optimizing the number of panels which would now be 114. If approved they will provide 100% of our usage. The building has 40 year roof shingles and they are only 8 years old so we can safely install upon the present roof. The permitting process takes about 4-8 weeks. The number of panels may be changed slightly. Installation should take about a week with inspections at various points. We will have to install a new meter and it could take another 4- 8 weeks for approval of the electric. It will possibly be June by the time it would become operational. The total cost of the proposed project is $113,852, but we are getting a $35,292 grant from the state, so our cost would be $78,560. or approximately $700. per panel. Don also met twice with the finance committee to discuss the different options for financing the project. Funding would be provided through grants, a capital campaign, and then a loan from the endowment for the remainder. The energy savings would allow for this to be paid off in 6 years. The church cannot get a tax credit but we can sell the $27,000. tax credit to a real estate entity to further reduce our cost. |
Detailed articles are being put in the elight and sent to the entire congregation leading up to the annual meeting. |
Don, Darlene |
| New Business | |||
| Poet – Food for Thought | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwOvBv8RLmo
“Earth Rise” |
This is a video of the poet Amanda Gordon and people will be watching this on their own. | Mary Rhoda and Claudia |
| 1. Review of Green Team Annual Report
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Don sent the report out prior to the meeting for the team to review and make comments. | Don | |
| 2. Publicity and Celebration of Solar Installation | We would be ready to start in April so we will do publicity in conjunction with Earth Day to promote attention to what we are doing as an example of climate action. We will involve newspapers and TV in a ribbon cutting celebration and follow up with photographs and progress reports throughout the installation. It will kick off the capital campaign and focus on benefits to the community as well as the church. | Don | |
| 3. Grant Writing to support the cost of Solar Installation | We will seek out some grants to supplement the cost of the project. Claudia has done some grants and is looking into what might be available to us. Don has a list of charitable trusts in RI and has checked some of the banks. We are looking into government grants and other options. Katherine offered to help with the writing of the grants.
https://www.tgci.com/funding-sources/RI/top/ |
Claudia, Katherine, and Don will work on obtaining grants. Jim Blackerby might be able to help too. They will get together for a grant-writing brainstorming.
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Claudia, Don, Katherine
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| 4. A New Initiative
A Church Garden? A Community Garden? Role of Master Gardeners?
Other?
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On the east side of the parsonage there is an area where a possible garden could be set up. We may want to look into the idea of a Community Garden. There are some master gardeners at the church that could help with this idea.
Wally suggested asking Eric from Sol Power to measure how much sun we have in that area. If it isn’t possible on our property, we may want to consider having a plot at the South Kingstown Community Garden. |
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| Next Meeting | Next upcoming meeting will be announced. | All team | |
| Adjournment | Meeting adjourned at 7:40 PM. | All team | |
Minutes submitted by Katherine Condon
| GREEN TEAM VOLUNTEERS | |||
| PDCC Board Members | PHONE | Board Represented | |
| Don Hermes | dhermes33@gmail.com | 401-783-6314 | Missions |
| Tom Sherman | tomsherman@cox.net | (401) 261-1630 | Missions |
| Jami Schafer | jamimarie93@gmail.com | (605) 351-3420 | Missions, Pending end of Corona |
| Claudia Swain | claudia.swain@gmail.com | (401) 265-8226 | Stewardship |
| Darlene Hermes | dhermes44@gmail.com | (401) 749-9590 | Church Family Life |
| Earl Clarke | ebcjr0811@gmail.com | 401-363-5299 | Property Management |
| Peter Swain | peteswain1956@gmail.com | (401) 641-4402 | Deacons |
| Jim Mcmonigl | mcmonscience@hotmail.com | 401-447-8757 | Deacons |
| Christian Ed. | |||
| Music | |||
| Hospitality | |||
| PDCC Members at large | |||
| Bill Silkes | Bill@americanmussel.com | pending end of Corona | |
| Jackie Kanis | bloomingwork@gmail.com | 401-789-4193 | |
| Katherine Condon | katkcondon@gmail.com | 508-259-6742 | |
| Walter Young | wyoung62@gmail.com | (401) 258-2114 | |
| Non-PDCC Support People | |||
| Cindy Buxton | cabuxton@cox.net | 401-789-3744 | Kingston Cong. Church, and IPL |
| Chris Hubbard | chris@cmhubbard.com | 401-601-0523 | SK Sustainability Cmtee, and consulting Hydrologist |
| Katherine401- Gibson | kmg4612@verizon.net | 401-364-6479 | St. Augustine Episcopal Church, Kingston |