This meeting will be led by @Nic_McPhee !
Online Meeting: Saturday 1st November 2025, 10:30am online @ bit.ly/climate-network.
Join Online Meeting: Launch Meeting - Zoom
With agenda items, upcoming events, or more email wcmncn@googlegroups.com
Agenda:
Accessibility practice idea: Please state your name before you speak.
- Community Check-ins
- Updates
- Container Farming Project
- Movie Theatre Slide
- Revisit WCMNCN purpose
- what is our group culture?
- Winter plans?
- community conversation/video screening/gathering
- shorter video to allow for more conversation time?
- field trips?
- Glacial Lakes Candlelight Hike Feb 14th
- Upcoming Events
- Next Meeting
- December 6th
- Meeting leader?
Notes:
- Community Check-ins
- @Nic_McPhee (he/him) teaches computer science at UMM, he asks “what do you get out of being at WCMNCN meetings or what would you like to get out of these meetings?”, Nic appreciates getting to spend time with people he wouldn’t otherwise talk to
- @Agkilian (she/her) moved to Willmar to work for Nature Conservancy for next few months, shes appreciates getting to meet people and actually knowing them enough to say hello in town.
- @Stardrop appreciates the resources she learns about via the group, and also the camaraderie. Its encouraging to know and interact with people who are on a similar train (emotional, political, community minded) in order to support one another.
- Garrett (he/him/they) it is great to be in a space where folks don’t feel on strong ends of the pendulum of “this is fine” or “this is only a fire hose of bad”. Garrett hopes to find some more solutions on a small scale/community level. He has also gotten into birds because of how many bird people are in this group.
- Vern values this group because Morris is one of the most isolated places he has lived. Vern has an activist gene and wants to contribute to social change. He felt bad about not connecting in person at the SWELL trip with friends.
- Barbara wanted to make community with people who are politically progressive. She felt a little confused as a newcomer about what the purpose of the group is, and “is hungry for a bit more”.
- @Susan_Gilbert (she/they, trying to use they more) Sue is here because after the climate strike there was a motivation to do something! Sue is here for their mental health and to spend time with people who at least believe there are things to do to help our world. For Sue the WCMNCN is about doing something to make our community better (they reminded us that the organics project was started because of WCMNCN help & effort).
- @cberthiaume (they/them) agrees with Barbara, and also they appreciate the community aspect. “Any good activism relies on the underlying connections.” They crave projects but also understand the ways in which everyone (and themself) are stretched thin.
- Matty (he/they) is Syd’s partner and appreciates when he does show up to meetings. The WCMNCN has reaffirmed his love for the earth and his urk with the corporations. He appreciates the wide net that has been cast for ages, types of people, and interests in the group. He loves how people can come together to nerd out about things.
- Adele (she/her/they) (Hunter’s mom) Adele appreciates this group as something that has supported Hunter & Anna and not been fueled by hatred, she thinks about the human aspect in regards to food and nutrition.
- Hunter (he/him/they) thinks that this group is helpful as a community group that isn’t focused on the doom and gloom. He thinks that if these things can lead to actions that makes it even more meaningful. This group isn’t an echo chamber, it has varying perspectives and that gives us meaningful conversations where we can bounce ideas around and add to them.
- Dan (he/him) enjoys this group because of the diversity of people and the progressive perspective. Dan values hearing what people are thinking and the relationships we build. He likes learning who people are and what they do in the community (everyone is always doing something, there are so many of us!). Dan is not as interested in more projects (in this group) as he is building relationships and being with people.
- Syd (she/they) the WCMNCN is a playground for practicing leadership and and community building. To Syd, this group is people power and a method for experimenting with different models of community building than the ones that are more mainstream/corporate.
- Updates
- Container Farming Project
- WCROC will hire someone for the farmer position hopefully in the next couple months
- Farming will hopefully start moving along in the new year
- We will check-in again January 2026
- Movie Theatre Slide
- Lets talk about how we want to define ourselves so we can give @Jeff some solid language for the Movie Theatre slide, knowing that it will probably be up for a long time.
- Revisit WCMNCN purpose
- Who are we?
- Current WCMNCN purpose: To promote individual and group action toward a resilient, equitable and sustainable community through modelling behavioural change, conversation and education.
- The word climate does not show up in our purpose, is that an issue?
- Barbara: Advertising works with simple messages that evoke emotional connections
- Neighbors, conversing, community, people view this group as “Syd Bauer” (we/syd don’t want that)
- Barbara: From my experiences in the last six months: A supportive group of friends, who share some feelings about community”
- Anna: A short message for ad I would think is “creating conversation about climate and community”
- Is our group name something we should change?
- Sue says they call this group the “Climate Network”
- Kim: The name is too confusing for any kind of good marketing because no one can remember it- that’s part of why it’s just “Syd’s thing”
- Captain: have we ever considered “Community Climate Network”?
- Are we trying to expand or are we content with who we are and what we are doing?
- Examining purpose/culture/explaining ourselves to others helps us shift and grow with time. Our group likes to practice effective and caring/connected group process. We practice relational work (examining our culture is relational work).
- What word can we use that defines both ecosystem and community? Is there a word that people associate with both humans and non-humans?
- In being small we can know each other and work together, in growing we might be able to “achieve more” but might know each other less.
- Lots of our efforts are longer term, cultural shifts. When people talk about “doing something” they seem to mean they want a project they can check off and achieve. How can we strive to do both long term cultural work and have some short term achievable/feel good tasks?
- Something that might help people feel “achieved” is if we document the things we do during the year more. It might be nice to have a list of things that the Climate Network participated in to showcase that we are active in ways beyond conversation (which is still very, very valuable activity).
- Tabled until next meeting: Winter plans?
- community conversation/video screening/gathering
- shorter video to allow for more conversation time?
- field trips?
- Glacial Lakes Candlelight Hike Feb 14th
- Upcoming Events
- Next Meeting
- December 6th
- Kim will guide the meeting! Captain will be on backup!