Minutes of January 1999 Atlanta Group ExCom Meeting
Date: 05 January 1999 19:30 - 21:30
Location: Alan Toney's House
Attendees: Alan Toney, Lee Thomas, Larry Winslett, Mark Alexander, Ted Jackson, Janet Westervelt
Agenda: None
Quorum: Enough ExCom members to have a quorum
Minutes: December 1998 minutes accepted by acclaimation.
Lobbyist: An e-mail from Sam Booher stating that Neil Herring will be working starting next week. Chapter did not vote for a contract, but the Chapter ExCom will need to approve payment for services to be rendered as approved in the October 1998 Chapter ExCom meeting. The Chapter approved the same amount of money this year as last year for the lobbyist. It was Alan's belief that a contract is definitely needed to spell out what the lobbyist is supposed to do and say and should always support Sierra Club positions or remain silent. Larry could see how both Mark and Bob Woodall have valid points of view. It was felt that any disputes should be handled by the Political Committee or the entire Chapter ExCom per policies and procedures established by Sierra Club.
Atlanta ExCom Voting: The instructions omitted telling members to vote for 2 of 4 candidates.
Newsletter Articles: Should now go through Karen Austin at the Chapter office and not Katie Van Brackle. Karen should gather and edit the contents of the Atlanta page, though Bryan Hager had been doing the major editing in issues past. Deadline is January 10th for articles.
Treasurer Report: On target for 1998 budget, though revenues and expenses were well below projections. Atlanta Group has not paid $1,000 for newsletter cost sharing and will need to send Chapter the money. A letter was sent by Atlanta Group Treasurer to Georgia Chapter asking for an audit of the Chapter finances and enclosing a copy of the Atlanta Group's audit for 1997. To date, no response to performing an audit has come from Chapter.
Store: No report from Herb, as he was ill.
Fundraising: A thought put forth by Alan to use Southeastern Recycling to put out newspaper recycle dumpsters in parking lots without recycling. Southeastern Recycling will credit organizations sponsoring a recycling bin. Would need to get permission from landowners (e.g., shopping center managers) to have a recycling bin placed in the parking lot.
Programs: Need programs to be set up for April, May and June. Mark is thinking about becoming program chair.
Priority Campaigns: This year the Georgia Chapter has four priority campaigns: Zero Waste (funded, headed by Bill Sheehan), Okefenokee Swamp/DuPont (funded, headed by Josh Marks), Sprawl (funded, headed by Bryan Hager), and Forests (not funded, Conservation committee meetings only)
Local Conservation: Mark Alexander stated he is resigning from Conservation in the group and has not found a replacement. Mark will continue to be the contact for Forest issues in the Chapter.
Group Chair: Alan announced that this year will be the last for him as Chair of the Atlanta Group.
Membership: Bettye Harris received materials from National to distribute to the groups. Larry Parker was asked to run for ExCom in the Centennial Group. Larry, Carolyn Weber, Janet Westervelt, Donna Guest and Bridget (?) will work on straightening out the zip-code problems with new members being assigned to the wrong groups. Bettye's focus for membership is recruiting new members; our focus should be on activating existing members.
Adopt-A-Stream: Janet stated that in January biological testing will be done (Jan 23rd?). Chapter ExCom meeting is the same day, so the stream monitoring will have to be brief.
Earth Day: Lauren Gunderson, a Decatur High School student, is keenly interested in getting help to set up an Earth Day Celebration (Thursday, April 22) in the Decatur area. She is looking for avenues of help and ideas to coordinate this celebration. Initial planning meeting is scheduled for Friday, January 8 at 3:30 pm at Decatur HS.
Soil & Water: Alan noted that the City of Atlanta efforts to control erosion and sedimentation were deplorable. Fulton County is improving their efforts. DeKalb County has their permit revoked for three weeks with the requirement to perform significantly better. A permit request from Cherokee Golf and Country Club was rejected when members of the Fulton County Soil & Water Conservation District toured the proposed facility and found that the engineering company made patently false assessments of the conditions of the grounds.
Outings: Larry Parker, a relatively new member, was told by the Chapter Outings Chair that though he has gone through a Leadership training course, he would have to re-take the training. Lee Thomas has given the go-ahead to Larry to get his First-Aid and CPR recertification and assist on a Sierra Club outing. After meeting those two requirements, Larry would become a Group Outings leader. Lee expressed the need for more outings leaders and that he would put together a training session later this spring. We need at least two or three more outings leaders to begin to fill out the calendar with local trips.
Web Page: Ted demonstrated a prototype Web page that he had been working on.
Last updated: 17 Jan 99