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SalemRecycles Meeting Minutes
February 3, 2015
6:30p 3rd Floor 120 Washington Street, Salem.
Members Present: Tony Keck, Lynn Murray, Myrna Soper, Nancy Gilberg, Geri Yuhas, Carol Hautau, Beth Melillo, Julie Rose
Absent: Liz Vago, Flora Tonthat, Erin Huggard, John Roberts, Susan Yochelson, Penny Neal
Guests: Katie St. Hilarie
Tony Keck opens the meeting at 6:30pm.
NEW BUSINESS
- Approval January 3 Minutes. Meeting minutes approved as written by committee members.
- Website Meeting. As part of a review of current information on the GreenSalem website a subcommittee will form in order to discuss layout and content. The subcommittee will be formed of Julie Rose, Flora Tonthat, Nancy Gilberg, Beth Melillo, Lynn Murray.
- MassRecycle award. Nominations are due on February 14th. Lynn Murray completed writing the nomination. The voting process will involve a combination of social media campaigns. It is also suggested that Mayor Kim Driscoll be volunteered for her significant contributions toward greening Salem.
Other:
- Emeritus Status. The SalemRecycles Emeritus status was created last year to indicate volunteers who served on the committee 5 years or more and made a significant contribution, yet, who were moving into a less strategic role. However, due to the significant contribution of Eva Mossberg over the last year it is recommended that she be given Emeritus status, despite lacking the indicated 5 years, for her significant contribution in launching the monthly newsletter. All in favor.
- Salem Sustainable You. An email from Liz Vago was discussed regarding the possibility of a starting or fostering a learning collaborative in order to promote recycling in the community. Initial discussion included asking what form this could take, such as a webinar, video tutorial, weekend or night workshop and who would present material. The idea will be housed on the ‘parking lot.’ See ‘Other’ below.
Old Business
- Cigarette Butt Recycling Update and Promotion
- A subcommittee of Julie Rose, Susan Yochelson, Carol Hautau, Lynn Murray, Nancy Gilberg, and Myrna Soper met to discuss Cigarette Butt Recycling last month. Findings and discussion include the need to adopt ownership of the program through drafting a report of what can be down. Once the initial report is written it will be reviewed by the rest of the committee.
- Dropbox. Continue to upload even and promotion pictures as you can. In between events, if you see examples of good or bad recycling/composting/trash in Salem, please take pictures and upload. Dropbox can become a good repository for “stock photos” of recycling/composting in Salem for the website, blog, and Facebook.
Correspondence
- Facebook. 1088 followers. In order to continue boosting the reach, in the past contests and giveaways have been used. However, currently, they seem ineffective. A strategy will be to reach out to city councilors who maintain public Facebook pages in order to share the work of the committee and other information.
- E-Newsletter. Susan Yochelson has created a draft for a reworked newsletter format. This will be up for review by Nancy Gilberg and Julie Rose.
- GreenSalem. See above regarding website review.
- Monthly Blog. Two posts were published in January: Greening your New Years Resolutions, and Solutions for Cold Weather Composting. Ideas for Feb include a book review, information about cigarette butt recycling, and plastic bag recycling. Discussion also involved ideas about creating “How to” guides, such as “How to get your landlord to support recycling.”
- Dual-Stream Recycling Guide. Continue to promote on multiple channels.
- Themes for 2015.Over the next several months continue to promote: Cigarette Butt Recycling. Sharing Initiatives such as the Drop and Swap, and Sorting Recyclables especially plastic bags from curbside recycling.
- Curbside Composting Update. Currently there are 980 participants who collect an average of 11lbs/household.
- Mandatory Recycling Update. There is nothing changed to report or update since the January meeting.
- March 28 Book Swap update. Committee members should promote the event via facebook, as well as hang signs. Meeting attenders signed up via a sheet passed around. The committee is still planning to use Goodwill as a vendor to take leftover books from the swap.
Other
- General Committee Announcements
- Community Outreach. Nancy Gilberg proposes that the agenda item “Community Outreach” be added each month in order to address specific issues in the community that could be tackled with focused attention of volunteers each month. Examples include Olde Salem Greens Golf Course recycling, or ways to target certain demographics such as new homeowners in Salem.
- “Parking Lot.” Due to the enthusiasm of committee members there are frequently initiatives proposed which require more hours than current volunteers can manage. Julie Rose and Beth Melillo suggest creating a “Parking Lot” document to record the ideas, including a summary of the idea, date proposed, and the initiator so that ideas can be prioritized and tackled as time and volunteers surface to run the initiatives.
- NAGLY. Local group is hosting a teen’s clothing swap. SalemRecycles members will promote this event, which is a good way to spread the word about the sharing economy, as well as capture the interest of younger generation about recycling.
- School Composting. Initial conversation about composting at Salem schools has begun.
- 2015 Dates Discussion. Proposal to refrain from meeting during July approved. Volunteer appreciation date set for June 11.
- Earth Ships. Guest Katie St. Hilarie shares information about EarthShips, houses built entirely of recycled materials in various parts of the country and world. Nancy Gilberg mentions that founder of movement is featured in a documentary, which SalemRecycles could consider to show at a future date.
Next Meeting: March 2, 2015. 6:30pm. 3rd Floor, 120 Washington Street.
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