SPECIAL MEETING
Tuesday, August 16, 2011, at 8:00 a.m.
Town Hall, 2nd Floor Conference Room
302 Main Street
Members:
Attending: Bob Fish, Bruce Sherwin, Pat Ingellis
Partner-groups:
Old Saybrook Land Trust: Sara Keaney, Janice Holland, Barbara Guenther, Bob Lorenz
Land Use Department: Sandy Prisloe, Christine Nelson
The Chairman called the meeting to order at 8:00 a.m. and opened the floor to discussion of outreach by the attendees.
There is a need to inform the town about overlapping efforts by local groups that all uphold the ethic of sustainability or long-term endurance of Old Saybrook as a community, an economy, and an environment. The common goal of the partners is to collaborate in better outreach and greater engagement of the residents, businesses, and visitors in conservation efforts that exemplify the ethic of sustainability in Old Saybrook.
Attendees continued to discuss the prospect of forming a partnership of groups in the community. There was discussion of being more purposeful about getting other groups partnered and at what level. The partner-group gathered to-date agreed to email suggestions of stakeholders before the next meeting to J. Holland.
The attendees returned to the working name of the outreach initiative as “Sustainable Saybrook” and agreed that there may be something more suitable once more groups were identified to be partners. There was discussion of a descriptive slogan. The partner-groups agreed that it ought to work with a graphic designer to create a logo.
There was discussion of specialized training or a kick-off meeting to orient partner-groups or the public at-large to the concept of sustainability. This might be organized for the spring but not before there was some substance to the wiki website.
The attendees focused again on the concept of using a website as the primary vehicle by which to raise townspeople’s level awareness of sustainable initiatives. The “wiki” website would allow multiple users to collaboratively create content and edit interlinked web pages via a web browser. The partner-groups would endeavor to support each other in separate but equal contributions to the wiki. Each partner-group would need a champion to keep contributions on-track. There was discussion about how to organize content and some of the methods used in existing sites about sustainability. There was discussion about avoiding an institutional feel to the wiki and to aim for more of an “in the know” community approach.
Brainstorming began about what features the wiki might have, including: a main article; a calendar of events; a subscribable and frequent newsletter/digest of updates; a topical list; a geographic list; links to partner-group’s webpages (and vice versa), such as the Town website; a history or archive of partner-group’s achievements; a regular topical survey; etc. The partner-group agreed to look for examples of website features that they especially like to print out and bring to the next meeting.
There was discussion of the level of access and control that the wiki would allow over different functions. The partner-group discussed that editing (changing, adding or removing material) would be limited to partner-groups but that the wiki may permit others access via comments and forums without enforcing content control.
The Chairman adjourned the meeting at 9:00 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Nelson
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