Fall 2006 Meetings

December 12, 2006 Kimmel 905

What better way to end the semester than ice-cream! We took a short, but necessary, break from studying to indulge and talk about how much great stuff we did.

December 5, 2006 Kimmel 904

We screened An Inconvenient Truth. Even though it started late we had a good showing.

November 28, 2006 Kimmel 905

George Reis, from the NYU Garden Shop, was our guest at the meeting today. He talked about the interesting things that he has planned for the plants inside and outside of NYU buildings. We are getting closer to having a real composting program to handle the mountains of food waste and biodegradable waste, and we will be instituting native and sustainable plants starting in the spring. Starting around March, the Garden Shop will be able to use volunteers, and that is when EM will get involved! There are also student worker jobs available at the Garden Shop. Email George at gpr1@nyu.edu.

November 7, 2006 Kimmel 904

We treated ourselves to Newman O's and frosting in celebration of the excellent FreeMeet. After that we discussed the details of the hiking trip and got rowdy.

October 24, 2006 Kimmel 904

Ben Jervey came to talk about his book, The Big Green Apple, and it was quite an engaging conversation as there were only a few of us present. One of his favorite discoveries, he said, was the CSAs (community supported agriculture) around the city that get local farm fresh produce direct to city residents for super cheap. Go to our links page to find info on our very own Washington Square CSA!

October 17, 2006 Kimmel 904

This week we decided to plan a hiking trip! Nothing is enjoyable in quite the same way as a long walk through the woods. We are going to go on November 11, which is a Saturday. The two best ideas we have so far it to either go north on the Metro-North Hudson line or west toward North Jersey.

October 10, 2006 Kimmel 901 (we moved)

The last logistical issue for FreeMeet was taken care of. Brittany will head making food to sell during the event. It will mostly be sweets and munchies like cookies and muffins. The Enviro-Ed lessons will fall into three parts: Water Cycle, Conservation, and an Art Project. We talked about these and now have a few people working on each one.

We also now have a chance to get Ben Jervey, author of The Big Green Apple to come to our next meeting and do a Q&A before hand. Of course, he will also be selling signed copies at a discount. Look for that at next meeting.

October 3, 2006 Kimmel 904

The special Enviro-Ed meeting will be at 11am on Friday on the 7floor of Kimmel. Not Thursday. Contact Alev if you have further questions.

We fine-tuned the press release for FreeMeet. It now has a new subtitle, "At Least Something's Free at NYU." As soon as it is confirmed to be Nov 5, and not a switch to Nov 4, we will create the Facebook group to publicize FreeMeet. Everyone needs to keep bugging their RAs and CDEs to try and get the free-boxes in the lobbies of dorms. These will be great; we need to push them hard. Michelle will draw a flyer.

Nick and Amelia found a few community gardens in the Tompkins Square Park area that might be a good place to volunteer. Now all we need to do is call them until they return our calls.

Bob Butler, director of OSA, is very excited about the prospect of this. We should get lots of logistical help in that respect. We need to pick a date, contact recycling, and then go with it.

Intro to Earth now has some interested professors. But certainly we need more as professors are busy and cannot always fit their schedule with ours. Keep asking!

September 26, 2006 Kimmel 904

We have largely decided what avenues to take this semester, and we need now just to continue them.

Community Gardens is in a research stage. We need to find the gardens that are close to campus, and will offer opportunities for us to volunteer and participate in their activities.
The Free Swap (which we will probably change the name) is now in the advertising/publicity phase. Space, music, and logistics have largely been finished. Yet publicity is as important, if not more. We will have an extra meeting to go over these topics, probably on Friday.
To get Enviro-Ed rolling, Alev has a meeting with a biology professor to try to forge contacts into schools. Depending on the success of that meeting, we will either continue to seek out places in school curriculum, or possibly try and venture into after-school programming, which is easier to get into.
Intro to Earth is seeking professors who would do co-diciplinary lectures on the environment. If one of yours would be interested, ask them and tell us!

Thanks to Alev for the delicious veggies and peanut butter.

September 19, 2006 Kimmel 904

Unfortunately, Sarah was sick so we jumped right into the meeting. Lizzy the VP made banana choco-chip cookies that were surprisingly tasty, considering this was her first time making them vegan. We then went over the activities that we have been discussing, and accordingly, broke up into small groups to work on each idea. The resulting groups were community gardens, Enviro-ed, Intro to Earth, and Free Swap. Each group then discussed how to further the idea and make it into a real event or program.

September 12, 2006Kimmel 901

At our first meeting Helen started of by reading "Think Like a Mountain" by Aldo Leopold. It is an excerpt from The Sand County Almanac. After briefly discussing the nature of the selection, and doing names, we dove into the agenda.

Enviro-Ed. It is in an early stage of development, but there is lots of enthusiasm and it is well on its way.
electronics recycling. A great idea was made to try and formulate a 'cheat sheet' for recycling, possibly on a magnet, especially for freshmen.
Freecycle style event. We are still trying to find the space, but as soon as the happens, full scale planning will start immediately. A great suggestion was brought up for 'free boxes', like a mini freecycle, in dorms or Kimmel. Anything in the box could be taken for free and anything in the box at the time of the event could be brought to the room.
Intro to Earth lecture Series. It will have to be pushed back to at least late October.
community gardens. Many people were interested in this one. We just need to do some research into which ones are the most accommodating, and how best to work with them.
camping trip. Many were also excited about this possibility. A day hike in North Jersey in November would be tons of fun.
Many of us are really interested in energy in general. Possible avenues to explore are surveys of NYU buildings to see if they would be appropriate for solar or a green roof, populist campaigns of turning things off, or maybe a plan to have NYU divest their energy purchases to partly renewables. There are many many options here.

Rebecca said she would be interested in helping upkeep the website and Sagar said he would be interested in helping design graphics like flyers and posters. That's a big help, guys! We also went over strategies to try and advertise, real grass-roots, viral-style advertising.
This is a great start to the year. I love all the new faces!