Join us for the screening of SEED
Join us March 15 at 6 pm at King Street 185 for a viewing of SEED. Bring a potluck dish and your own non-disposable place setting and join us. The potluck starts at 6 pm. The movie starts at 6:30 pm.
Moving to Conservers host compost panel at Pisgah Group Sierra Club meeting – folks are changing their habits!
Thursday, February 22nd at 7 pm the Pisgah Group of the Sierra Club hosted Moving to Conservers, who delivered a panel presentation on composting. Elizabeth Pell of the group organized a panel that consisted of herself as moderator, Maureen Copelof of Brevard's city council, Kenn Webb of Transylvania County Solid Waste Authority, Ron Wingard a county resident, Bart Renner of the county extension office and Zoe Muhalis is a 15-year-old high school student. The meeting was well attended and a lot of questions were asked. I spoke to one couple after the presentation and they have decided to build their own compost bin. Fantastic! I think the most powerful part of the presentation for myself was hearing what Ron had to say. He and his wife had started to compost on January 1st of 2018. He said, as a result, he expects instead of taking over 20 bags of trash to the dump this year he will take 6 or less! Wow! That is a lot of waste [...]
Building a toolkit to help neighbors teach neighbors about composting options in Brevard and surroundings areas
Moving to Conservers is a local group that explores ways to implement changes we want to see in our community. Currently, we are working on implementing a community compost program with a goal of removing organics from the landfill so we can put them to work creating soil for local gardening projects. We kicked off the project February 1st and are moving full speed ahead. It was agreed we would organize using community advocates who will reach out to their neighbors and design solutions. In order to organize that, we need to develop a toolkit to be used by these neighbors. So we are. We have asked people to answer this question: What do you want in hand when you knock on your neighbor's door or host a house party? Members have started responded. As we collect the information, I will add it here. We have asked for all input by February 8th. Please feel free to share your thoughts. Once we have our initial list, we will [...]
Compost collection project moves forward in Brevard and surrounding communities
On February 1st, individuals came to King Street 185 for a discussion on starting curbside composting in Brevard. There was a wealth of knowledge and ideas shared in addition to a potluck. And the food......always outstanding. Thank you, King Street 185 for hosting the event. We enjoyed our meals while watching this video from the show Growing A Greener World: The Compost Pedallers. It is a great show and worth the 25 minutes to watch in my humble opinion. Two next steps were agreed on: Collect information on all the compost sites already in existence. Designate those that are willing to accept compost drop-off from citizens Organize using community advocates who will reach out to their neighbors and design solutions to collect organics so they can be used to create soil. It is exciting to see so many people come together towards making our community even more amazing.
Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus: The poor are rock stars. We idolize the wrong folks.
The poor are some of the smartest and most resourceful people we have in our society. They are survivors and that makes for an amazing education.
Every dollar spent is a vote – vote local. Moving to Conservers group invest in local farm
"Every dollar is a vote." a financial advisor for environmental funds recently said at a local Sierra Club meeting presentation. Agreed and keeping money local and using our votes to support what we want to have here and stay here is priceless. A lot of times the things I treasure here cannot get traditional financing for a few reasons. There are numerous ways to invest locally. Recently, our group pulled together and to date we have purchased $1000 worth of shares from a local farm to give them upfront capital for the upcoming growing season. We are buying a portion of the upcoming year's harvest. Support for local ventures can use your upfront support and pay back in a variety of ways, depending upon the laws of your state. For a great example of these options in action, check out this investment site Investibule: https://investibule.co/
Do you want to start a co-op in Brevard? How about an investment club that supports local business? Let's end inequality in our community!
Awhile ago, we sent out a survey and asked folks to let us know if they were interested in participating in a "think tank" house party program. Many responded that they were interested and some even supplied their contact information. So we gathered and continue to gather. Currently, we are using the Post Carbon Institute’s online video course Think Resilience as the basis of our study. You can view the first 6 videos of the course for free. Introduction Energy Population & Consumption Depletion Pollution Political & Economic Management We are about to wrap up that course and are moving forward to the next step. What will that be? We do not know but we have a lot of ideas. Our discussions have been focused primarily on strengthening our local economy and building our resilience. Does that mean we start a series of co-ops in Brevard? Does that mean we invest in our local economy and stop sending our money to Wall Street? Does that mean we start [...]
Words of wisdom from one of youngest think tank participants – Emma
We have a community of local people who are gathered together, primarily through an email list. The community grows all the time. Some of us get together for house parties to study and discuss. Currently we are using the Post Carbon Institute's online video course Think Resilience as the basis of our study. Some like to do trail work and show up when we attend organized events in the area. Some are doing the video course on their own and some just enjoy getting the emails we send. This is what we are about: honoring each person and their time and their personal choices. My husband and I are working to become a zero-waste house. We have already learned from others in our community and appreciate the sharing. We are keeping a list of tips shared by the community here: A list of things citizens are doing in Transylvania County to reduce their carbon footprint. Please feel free to share your tips and we will add them to [...]
The Gift of Time Pop-Up Coffeehouse: A celebration of the joy in simplicity
On Sunday, December 10th, a group of friends reserved the gazebo on Main street in Brevard and set up a living room complete with hot cider, coffee, tea and cookies, lots of cookies. We set up a sign on the sidewalk that explained we were a pop-up coffeehouse and asked folks to share a kind thought and join us, and they did. It was wonderful! Folks in downtown Brevard share kind thoughts We played checkers, relaxed and enjoyed each others company. We met some wonderful people. The veteran's history museum opened up and we met Ken Corn who shared a cup or two of coffee with us and invited us in to see the museum and use the facilities. We met Harold who has a display in the museum. When planning to set up the space we agreed to make this a zero-waste event and we did! We each brought something from our homes and it came together as a beautiful, peaceful and loving space to [...]
A list of things citizens are doing in Transylvania County to reduce their carbon footprint
[et_pb_section bb_built="1" _builder_version="3.0.47"][et_pb_row _builder_version="3.0.47" background_size="initial" background_position="top_left" background_repeat="repeat"][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text _builder_version="3.0.90" background_size="initial" background_position="top_left" background_repeat="repeat" background_layout="light"] A group of us are meeting on a regular basis and discussing the material we are studying in a course called Think Resilience. We are using this think tanks material as a springboard for discussion and it has been fascinating. Each member is doing what they are personally comfortable with in regards to changing their behaviors from a consumer to a conserver. One item we have heard repeatedly is folks would like a list of what others are doing to get some ideas so I asked members to submit what they were interested in sharing. I will add their good works to this list as I receive them. Thanks to all who are participating and sharing! Just a note on the tab titles. So many of these actions span titles, making it is hard to pick which one to put it under. For example, buying local food helps reduce packaging but also greatly reduces transportation [...]