Green Sanctuary Committee Meeting July 11, 2005 Minutes Attendance: Chair: Tom Swigart Marney Bruce, Marie Sauter, Jessica Turner Minutes Recorded by Tom Swigart Next Committee Meeting, August 8, 2005, 7 p.m. 2005 Tables: ----------- Jan -- Native Plants -vs- exotic invaders -- Marie Sauter Feb -- Houseplants and their health benefits -- Marney Bruce Mar -- Composting -- Sue Singley Apr -- Earth Day May -- Simple Living -- (Marney Bruce?) Jun -- Closing loop on recycled products -- Sandra Smith-Gill/Sue Singley Jul -- Closing loop on recycled products -- Sandra Smith-Gill/Sue Singley Aug/Sep -- Various Food Topics -- Everybody Oct/Nov -- Home Winterizing -- Marie Sauter Dec/Jan -- Holiday Simplicity -- Marney Bruce 2006 Tables: ----------- Feb/Mar -- Planting Apr/May -- Spring/Green Cleaning We discussed upcoming table themes (see latest above). To support the September 18th Farm Fair we will have various food themes for Aug/Sep. We will include some things from past displays + items about CSAs, local eating, pick-your-own foods, and saving the Bay with food selections. Table displays will be bi-monthly from now on. The table still seems crowded to folks, so some more thinking and arranging may be needed. Jessica, in her new poosition as Office Admin, will make sure our table themes get into The Unison. Woohoo! and Congratulations! How else can we support the Farm Fair? - any ideas can be run past Meg Menke, who is leading the Fair, or the GS committee. For the erosion gully, Jessica will be able to take rocks from future building site, but doesn't know when exactly. They will need to be transported somehow. Dave Hutchins in going to re-grade the parking lot some, so there is not as much run-off down the gully. Marney is thinking about Trumpet Creeper vine as something that will help with the gully - she will try to get some. There was a letter to the editor in the Frederick News-Post about what a great job "somebody" did in cleaning up Elmer Derr Road!! We just need to make sure our neighbors know it is us. We discussed the proposal by our neighbors that they give us money towards sound barrier hedges between Elmer Derr Road and the highway. It was agreed that this would be a major undertaking in getting the authorization to do something like this. It will require a lot more thinking about whether it's even possible before we could decide if it's a good thing. Marney believes that it would be a good idea to survey the congregation about what more they want to be done in regards to Green Sanctuary issues. She suggested a good place to conduct the survey was by using the www.surveymonkey.com website. The site allows 10 questions and up to 100 responses per month for free. Marney has a list of some "base" questions from another survey that she will e-mail around to committe members. There is an 8000 year old rock shelter at Fox Haven used by an indigenous culture from 6000 BCE to 1600 CE. Fox Haven is a sustainable living farm very near our church. We would like to set up a "field trip" to visit the site, where archaeologists having been working to study and preserve the site. Perhaps October would be a good time to arrange this - Marney is looking into this very neat possibility. [Thanks Marney!!!] Marie noted that there have been and are currently many digs in our area along the C & O Canal. Perhaps we could visit and even work on one??? Another neat possibility. www.planetnatural.com is another good place to look for natural products. We talked about having an environmental expo in October to balance April's Earth Day. We could talk about solar energy, stream restoration, and other topics that could be tied in to the congregational survey. Further discussion of the greening workshop was tabled since Sandi was unable to make the meeting. Please send any agenda items for next time to Tom or Sandi.