Saturday, October 13, 2007

Proposed Mission & Vision Statements

Hello all,

The Steering Committee has been working on the following draft Mission & Vision statements for approval at the Oct 15 meeting. We'll next turn our attention to incorporation, formalizing our governance structure, and Goals & Objectives for the upcoming year.

Please review these statements and consider what parts of them you do (and don't!) identify with, and why. We're planning on a basic up/down vote of SWS members present at the meeting to adopt these statements as our working Mission & Vision Statements (with the understanding that they're open to further tweaking in the coming year as we grow our organization).


Thanks everyone!
@brian

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SWS Mission: Sustainable West Seattle educates and advocates for urban sustainability in our local community.

SWS Vision: We envision a West Seattle community of empowered citizens who actively lead us toward greater self-reliance, local democracy, social justice, and existence in harmony with life on earth.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

SWS Steering Committee Meeting Notes, Oct 1

These are the notes from our last Steering Committee meeting. Feel free to leave a comment below or contact us with any questions or if you would like to help on any of the noted action items.

Present: Bill Reiswig, Brian Allen, Chas Redmond, Gary Lichtenstein, Andy Silber

1) Our next general meeting (10/15) will revolve around an RTID forum with pro/con representatives. The proposed schedule is as follows:
7pm - Welcome
7:05-7:20 - Housekeeping: Mission/Vision statement up/down vote, call for tabling volunteers, call for sustainability scavenger hunt photos for our tabling exhibit
7:30-7:40 RTID Pro
7:40-7:50 RTID Con
7:50-8:50 Q and A session.
Wrap Up

2) Arranging the RTID Forum.
a) Organize by calling Madeline Ostrander, Sierra Club, Transportation Choices, Sustainable Ballard (Andy Silber - needs to happen Tuesday or Wednesday)
b) Flyer (Bill)
c) Outreach - call out to WS Blog, WS Herald, Chamber, MegaWatt, SW Seattle and Delridge District Councils (Charles)

3) Sharing the SWS Calender of Events
Bill will send Charles the Google calender he already started, and Charles will populate it with the dates we discussed tonight and share this with the SWS Steering Committee (Bill, Charles)

4) Tentative SWS Sustainability Fair
a) will occur on one of three weekends May 4, 11, or 18th, depending on availability of parking lot, ArtsWest, permits etc.
b) will be on a Sunday to leverage WS Farmers market crowds and central WS location, will use Arts West for transportation forum and other discussion events
c) Check parking lot availability/dates with Morgan Junction Assoc. (Charles)
d) Check availability of Arts West (Bill)

e) Need to form SWS Sustainabiltiy Fair Organizing Committee ( ?? )

5) Complete Articles of Incorporation with Washington State - Bill has the paperwork (Brian, Bill, Mary Ellen)

6) Complete and turn in membership with and joining of MegaWatt gathering of Neighbors (Bill)

7) SWS will have table at the Cascadia Convergence Oct 26, 27 (Brian will secure table, get details)

8) Improvement of SWS tabling materials/display for Cascadia Convergence, MegaWatt events
a) energy materials (Gary)
b) food and health materials (Bill/Tom O'hern)
c) transportation materials (Chas)
d) CAN materials (Brian-- can you do this by checking in with Ron and Stan about whether they are carrying them?)
e) Sustainability Scavenger Hunt photos

9) Open Space Forum - Camp Long Weekend Retreat (to be coordinated by Gary)
will be Saturday of Nov. 10,17 depending on Camp Long availability - will be an open space event designed to provoke thinking around Sustainability in WS. Please contact Gary with any questions on this one.

10) Winter Celebration in West Seattle - Multi Green-Non-Profit Gathering hosted on SWS's home turf (options and possibilities for this event being explored by Brian)

11) SWS Monthly Operations... what are those tasks that need to be covered for basic maintenence?
a) monthy SWS email newsletter (Bill)
b) monthly general meeting (Charles to create checklist of those items needed to operate each meeting)
c) monthly steering committee meeting (OK... who's gonna step forward to host the next one on Monday, Nov 5? :) )

12) Final Preparation of SWS Mission Statement / Vision Statement for up/down vote at 10/15 meeting (Brian)
final language of mission statement very close to Laura's #2 statement, with additional sentence discussed at meeting

13) SWS to remain engaged with SCALLOPS - next meeting at Cascadia Convergence (Gary, Brian, Bill)

14) SWS to potentially join SW District Council, and perhaps Delridge district council (Chas, ???)

15) Loosely discussed - Plan formed over the winter to send out emmissaries to all the neighborhood meetings to introduce Sustainable West Seattle, and to promote CAN materials... We would promote neighborhoods to have tallied competition to see who can sign up the most people committing to take climate action (for example).

Well..... thats a wrap. for those of you who missed it, it was a productive meeting with some good ideas... if any of them look appealing and you would like to get involved or add your two cents, email back in or call with a query.


Bill