If you haven’t been to a meeting lately, the winds of change are blowing through Grayson LandCare! We very much want to have members involved in projects that benefit our citizens and our landscapes, so we are moving our emphasis to active projects,focusing on fewer meetings and more action!
If someone has a passion, expertise or interest in doing something that fits with our mission, they will present it at a monthly meeting (mini-Ted talk) and invite others to sign up for that project (meaning, actually be willing to help with it). If a project demonstrates interest by at least three people and they need some seed funding, they can ask for a mini-grant from the funding that was previously allocated to committees and now will be in a mini-grant fund. The decision makers will be a small project committee, or a subset of the Board (not firmly decided yet).
On Monday, August 15th at 7 pm, we will have our first Mini-Ted Talks. This is our regular monthly meeting and it will be in our office on Courthouse Drive. Instead of a speaker, we will have 4-6 projects presented, with time to sign up and discuss. So far, we have on the agenda:
- Nancy Liebrecht, who has been working with others in the Fiber Guild to produce local custom yarns from local sheep, goats, alpacas and rabbits. Their ultimate goal is to have a spinning mill here, while there are still residents who know that equipment and how to operate and repair it.
- Mickey Cunningham, who is working on getting a small wood-drying kiln in the county that would enable forest owners to get top dollar for their hardwoods.
- John Fant, who will talk about the water-quality monitoring effort that he and Rob Meinecke have continued. Tom Simpson is unable to attend but is willing to lead this effort, with interest from others
- Ruth Ross will present the Land Stewardship Contest, a project that has been ongoing for nine years but continues to evolve. We should have more support from, and participation by, the local high school this next year, and we need several people to share the duties to make this annual event successful.
This structure will allow newcomers with expertise and passion to step up and start helping us right away, as well as long-timers who have a burning idea that just won’t quit… (mine is recycling, but it hasn’t formed itself into a project yet).
I hope MANY of you will be able to join us for the August meeting.
Please invite anyone you know who would be interested. All guests are welcome!