Meeting: Saturday July 6th 2024 @ 10:30am
HYBRID MEETING!
If you would like to meet in person, join us in Syd’s yard (11 Elm Street Morris, MN) at 10:30AM on July 6th. Syd will have drinks and chairs, but you are always welcome to bring your own of either.
If you would prefer to meet online, Syd will have her laptop and a solid internet connection as well!
Join Online Meeting: bit.ly/climate-network
Agenda:
- Community Check In
- Announcements
- Sub-Committee Sharing
- Morris Model Newsletter
- Resilient Lawns
- Food Systems
- Determine Next Meetings
Notes
A WONDERFUL hybrid meeting with coffee, rhubarb crisp, gentle summer breeze, and a dog who wants to play fetch.
I forgot to take a picture while Vern was still on the Zoom and Dan was still present!
Community Check In
- @syd had a busy June co-coordinating the Morris Pride event and camping. She is excited that July has started off with her cleaning & refreshing the garage, and re-focusing back on her natural “yard” state.
- Dan Belgum has been noticing the scale tipped slightly too far to the “away from home” side as opposed to the “at home” side. He is blessed and grateful to travel to great places, with good people, and enjoy beautiful nature, but is ready to be spending some more time at his little homestead in town with his garden and flowers.
- Joel Tallaksen has been doing the exact opposite! He hurt his back in late May and has been spending his time at home, resting, recovering, and reflecting on what it is he wants to be doing, as he feels a bit stuck at home. He is glad to be feeling better, but knows that his recovery is a long haul one that will require continued effort.
- @cberthiaume is thinking about their time left in Morris (not much) and their time left to find a job (not much). It is conflicting to them because they would like to stay in Morris, but are not sure Morris has a job in the field they would like to be in.
- @wenkaiguan is happy to be back in Morris! He had a good time traveling to China and visiting with his and his wife’s parents and grandparents, but was thinking about how he missed this place and the work he does here. He and Joel spent some time at the end of the meeting brainstorming about how Wenkai’s work could fit into the Sustainable GeoCommunities grant project.
- @Vern is thinking about how much a shoulder injury can impact a person, and how he is excited to go spend time with family at the Mesaba Co-op Park (a place where the Finnish ethnic radicals organized the Range labor movement) near Hibbing, MN.
Announcements
- @cberthiaume is going to be tabling at Horticulture Night and would love any ideas, resources, or topics to share about. They will be sharing about mostly lawns & trees, but welcome other ideas!
- There are some great tree/plant/animal identification apps that we wanted to share here: iNaturalist, Merlin, Seek
- Friends of the Boundary Waters are continuing their work to stop Sulfide Mining in the BWCA. Dan is a member of this group, and an appreciator of the North woods!
- Emerald Ash Borer has been found in Pope County. It is IMPORTANT to not transfer firewood and to keep an eye on Ash trees (check out above mentioned identification apps).
Farmer’s Market Tabling
- This has been a wildly successful method of enacting our WCMNCN mission, “promoting individual and group action toward a resilient, equitable and sustainable community through modelling behavioural change, conversation and education”.
- @Susan_Gilbert, @Nic_McPhee, @syd, and Matty (Syd’s partner) have had a presence at all three markets so far this year and have asked questions like “What makes a resilient community?”, “Why do you come to the Farmer’s Market?”, and “What are some of your values?”.
- We have met new people, learned connections across the community, and through this continue to build our resilient community. ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO TABLE IS WELCOME!
- Vern will table with Syd on July 18th
- Dan will table sometime in late July/early August.
Sub-Committee Sharing
- Morris Model Newsletter
- Our next meeting we will chat more about the Newsletter, please fill out story ideas at this form: https://forms.gle/x4yahNPnaDAossjW7
- Story idea from Vern - What is a resilient community? How do we build one? What are the elements?
- Resilient Lawns
- @cberthiaume shared this pamphlet for folks who might not be interested in uprooting their lawn, but are interested in caring for it in a sustainable manner.
YOU AND YOUR LAWN-2.pdf (725.6 KB)- We will continue to look for sustainable lawns, gardens, and green spaces in our communit in the effort to build a map of these places.
- Food Systems
- There seems to be a lot of cool stuff going on in these areas right now! We would love to hear from Ed Brands about the food insecurity data he has collected. We would also love to hear more about the community garden project happening, potentially from Annabelle Scafe. Syd will invite them to future meetings where we can hear more!
Determine Next Meetings
- Our next group meeting will be on Saturday, August 3rd at 10:30AM. We will once again have a hybrid meeting if the weather cooperates!
