SUSTAINABLE SANCTUARIES COALITION

August 4, 2008

MINUTES

Attendance:

Cheryl Landes – Country Club Christian

Patty Brown – All Souls Unitarian Universalist

Gary Showalter – Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist

Mani Mani – Old Mission United Methodist

Barbara Chaplin – Leawood United Methodist

Susan Pavlakis – Unity Church of Overland Park

Al Pugsley – Village Presbyterian

Karin McAdams – Penn Valley Friends

Carol Meyer – St. Pius Catholic

Jackie Palmer – St. Francis Xavier Catholic

Curt Straub – Unity Church of Overland Park

Barbara Stillman – Colonial United Church of Christ

Diane Kuhn – Colonial United Church of Christ

Mid Lawrence – Shawnee United Methodist Church

Elaine Horn– Climate and Energy Project

RoseTherese Huelsman – Guardian Angels Catholic

Rick Gasaway – Christ Lutheran

Call to order:

Al Pugsley opened the meeting at 7:00 with a prayer.

The July minutes were approved.

Resource sharing:

· Susan – Her Green Team has been active. The associate minister
has called for the use of compostable dishware, and she brought samples.

· Curt – Being from the same church, he shared that his men's
group has decided to use reusable dishware permanently and would like
to apply this policy to the whole church. Unity is planning to start
offering accreditation for green churches.

· Karin – the Earthcare committee for her yearly meeting created
a strong statement on vehicle use and other environmental needs which
was accepted by the meeting.

· Mid – would like to find a bumper sticker that explains driving
slowly to save gas. Others are looking for one, too.

· Mani – His minister accepted all of the Green Team's proposals.
He brought pictures of his impressive rain collection tanks.

· Patty – All Souls was certified as a Green Sanctuary. They are
sponsoring a nature book group, which will be studying, among others,
More, a book on population and women's issues.

· Jackie – Her church's fall auction will be raising money for a
more sustainable sprinkler system. They are looking for a practical
way to compost food waste.

· Gary – asked about ready-made sustainable houses. Earth Ships
were mentioned. His business is proposing an alliance with farmers in
the Greensburg area for pelletizing crop waste.

· Carol – her parish is sponsoring a four-week green series in
the fall. She will give us more information at the next meeting.

· Diane – wants suggestions for sustainable communion cups.

· Barbara – asked about affordable trees and learned that the
Kansas Forestry Association has inexpensive saplings.

· Rose Therese – showed a booklet of meditations called Nature
Stations; these are for sale.

· Eileen – Interfaith Power and Light is having a statewide
meeting August 20 in Emporia. They now have a $5000 grant from their
national organization and are seeking one to help start a Cool
Congregations program in this area.

Education Committee:

Peter Sawtelle, executive director of Eco-Justice Ministries, has
agreed to do a presentation to interested church people under SSC's
sponsorship. The date will be October 17 and 18, and could well
include a Friday evening talk and a Saturday morning workshop.

This presentation would be especially relevant, as he is experienced
at connecting faith with green ideas. This may be an excellent
opportunity to reach out to new people. There could be displays by
some of our congregations about their green activities. The committee
will continue to search for a central venue and could use public
service announcement to publicize the event.

The committee asked for input on what kinds of education we need to
consider. This started a lively brainstorming session. Some ideas were:

· Teaching how to start a green team

· Focus on some very specific topics in depth, e.g. using CFL's
or compostable dishware

· Also look at broad topics such as encouraging a change of worldview

· We shouldn't duplicate the work of other organizations, such as
Bridging the Gap

· Information alone doesn't seem to change behavior – Eileen
cited focus groups from CEP that have attempted to learn what makes
people seek environmental change.

· Children in nature – the book No Child Left Inside was mentioned

Internal structure:

The question has arisen: what authority does the leadership team have
to make decisions between meetings? It was agreed that the team could
use common sense, making routine decisions without a vote but
notifying the group of anything significant that occurred. Al will
write a resolution for approval at the next meeting.

The resource committee needs to meet in the fall; Al will set up a
meeting date.

The group voted to postpone any meetings falling on holiday Mondays
until the following Monday. This applies to the next meeting, which
will be on September 8.

The meeting adjourned at 8:45 p.m. to allow time for a short tutorial
on using the Yahoo Group. Susan showed Al how to check the SSC
email.

The next meeting will be held in room 127,
the usual place, on September 8.

Respectfully submitted,

Karin McAdams