Meeting: Saturday 4th January 2025 @ 10:30AM
Join Online Meeting: bit.ly/climate-network
Agenda:
- Community Check In
- Announcements
- NextGen Playground Update
- Wintertime Scheming: where do we want to put our collective group energy in 2025?
- Determine Next Meeting
Notes:
- Community Check In
- @syd is thinking about what it means to be a young person coming up on their 10 year anniversary of living in Morris. It feels cool to be so connected to this community, and also strange to think about the fact that she has 10 conscious adult years of living in one place.
- @wenkaiguan is thinking about the New Year and is looking forward to spending time with his wife in Morris during this new semester.
- @Nic_McPhee should have been thinking more about the semester that is starting soon. He had a very nice trip to WI for the holidays with family. He read two very nice non-work related books.
- @Susan_Gilbert got a newsletter from The Quakers charity arm about things going on in New Mexico where they are helping support small farmers deal with climate change. It was a little point of hope to read about them helping small farmers cooperate, share resources, communicate, and deal with water problems. It was an encouraging story, and she was grateful for it because it does not always happen!
- Debby Stark is interested in everything about ecology and better ways of creating energy. She recently attended the City Council meeting regarding the NextGen playground project. She has been considering drafting something to say at the next meeting.
- @Vern shared about the Finnish gender neutral pronoun “hen”. Hen is wearing a heated vest (A Christmas present!) that is wonderful and exciting. Vern learned about explosive hyperventilation and it has released the tightness in hens chest. Hen is back to writing again, hooray!
- @cberthiaume is dealing with the housing lottery. They are excited to be moving to a new place, but understand the chaos/change it will have on them during the process.
- Announcements
- Volunteer Water Monitoring in the Pomme De Terre River Watershed
- Pomme de Terre has over 50 sites that need volunteer water monitors and 7 of those are “high priority”! - Updates to MPCA Volunteer Monitoring Program - Pomme de Terre River Association
- Learn More: Volunteer water monitoring | Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
- Climate and Debt Justice from the Caribbean to the Midwest
- Amid increasing extreme weather events across the globe, justice in climate and debt vary based on geography and identity. Kick off the 2025 season of Breakfast Info Bites with University of Minnesota’s Fayola Jacobs, Ph.D. and host Isabel Huot-Link to learn about climate and debt in the Caribbean, and their impacts on Minnesota.
- Register Here: Webinar Registration - Zoom
- Stevens County Organics 3-Year Anniversary Celebration
- Come hear a celebratory update on three full years of Stevens County Organics Recycling! Learn about how the program is doing, ask questions, and celebrate the folks who make it all happen. If you are interested in getting started with organics recycling at home or your business, this is the celebration for you! Saturday February 8th at 1:00PM in the Morris Public Library Community Room.
- Support Dylan Young for the University of Minnesota Board of Regents
- Friends of East Side Park Meeting: Sunday 5th January 2024 @ 3PM
- Join Online Meeting: Launch Meeting - Zoom
- Please share this link with other supporters of an alternative site for the destination playground proposed by NextGen.
- At the Zoom meeting, we will discuss strategies for making our case at the upcoming Parks Board meeting on Wed. Jan. 8 at 5 pm at City Hall Senior Center, (when NextGen will be seeking a recommendation to build at East Side Park), and the Public Hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 14, at 5:15 pm at City Hall Senior Center, which will take public comments on the project prior to the City Council voting on the proposal.
- To get more involved in this conversation email Liz Morrison: morrison.em@gmail.com
- NextGen Playground Update
- NextGen is a group of young people who work at Superior who are developing an accessible destination playground they want to be in Eastside park. There is a group of the community who is highly against the Eastside development because it would diminish a deeply valuable green space and tree canopy that lives in our community. We had lots of conversation about what this is, why we oppose it, what upsets us about it, and what we think will happen. There will be more conversation with a group directly working at the issue on Sun. Jan 5th at 3PM (info above).
- Tabled until February… Wintertime Scheming: where do we want to put our collective group energy in 2025?
- Determine Next Meeting - Saturday, February 1st at 10:30AM online at bit.ly/climate-network