Logistics Committee/Sustainability Subcommittee meetings
May 30th
Present: Lizzy Baskerville, Lauren Burnett, Shirley Chalmers, Dianne Feeley, Angela Garcia, Kim Hunter, Sarah Hayosh, Catherine Keffer, Evan Major, Craig Regester & Alan Scheurman.
Sustainability subcommittee met first. The two goals are that the USSF 2010 will leave no footprint and that in the process of the forum key Detroit sustainability issues such as the incinerator and food sustainability will be highlighted through workshops, trips to areas of the city, etc.
1. BIKES—Lizzy Baskerville met with the Hub Collective the day before and said they were eager to work on the project of having 5,000 bikes for the 2010 USSF. (The Hub is also willing to lend bikes for the event.)
- How to advertise that we need bikes? Through a list of bike collective, through asking organizations and collectives to donate, through the USSF web, through newsletters and list serves. If we had 100 organizations donate 50 bikes, we would meet our quota.
- In addition to bikes, we will collect helmets, locks, repair materials, bike kits.
- Lizzy agreed to draft a letter that we will review.
- Catherine Keffer will put together a list of bike shops in the Detroit area.
- Evan Major will research with a friend later this week.
WE NEED TO HAVE AN ADDRESS WHERE THE BIKES AND OTHER MATERIALS CAN BE SENT.
- Where can the bikes be sent, repaired and stored? We know that King Solomon Church is open to the storage, but how many can fit there? Can we set up a repair shop there? NEED MORE RESEARCH HERE.
- We would also like to have bike racks donated. We think Detroit will be amenable to placement.
- We need to recruit about 50 volunteers to repair bikes. The Hub Collective is willing to do some of the trainings. One suggestion: Could we offer registration or bike ownership for so much work? Sara Hayosh works with hundreds of volunteers re tree planting projects and is willing to see if Youthville might be interested in this project.
- Areas where we might find people interested in learning how to repair bikes: Catherine will find out if we might be able to make a presentation to middle school/high school teachers re the USSF and specifically bike repair.
- We will also need to develop a system of keeping track of the bikes, developing an inventory and a tagging system.
- Where would we stage the bikes during the USSF? One logical place is Hart Plaza, but we may want to set up bike racks and have an east side/west side staging area.
- Will also have to come up with a plan of how to distribute the donated bikes following the USSF, through schools and organizations.
2. Water—How do we have water for thousands? We are assuming water fountains at Cobo and WCCC but will have to check. Want to have pitchers of water at Cobo, churches, and other meeting spaces. At Hart Plaza and Youth encampment will need to have huge water containers and ask (on the website) for people to bring their own containers. We will also investigate having them (some for free and for sale). Catherine will research the possibility of setting up a water project for Hart Plaza and/or Youth encampment. Shirley Chalmers will investigate what kind of containers we would have on hand. Angela Garcia is going to investigate possibility of having containers donated or given to us at a deeply discounted price. NEED TO CHECK TO SEE WHERE ATLANTA GOT THEIR LARGE CONTAINERS.
3. Recycling—We will need to talk with Cobo and other spaces about recycling, specifically setting up clearly marked sorting bins. In Hart Plaza and Youth Encampment we need to set up our own system. Sarah Cozel, who wasn’t able to make the meeting, is interested in working on this. Want her to be in touch with Detroit Recycling.
4. Food—We briefly talked about how we wanted as healthy a food court as possible. Sarah Hayosh and Angela Garcia are going to build a list of possible food providers.
5. Hotels/motels/dorms--Maureen Taylor, Dianne Feeley and Shirley Chalmers are working on securing rooms/beds. UPDATE: Dianne and Maureen Taylor met with Sales Manager at the Mariott; she has given us a contract to look over and sign by the middle of July. Tom Stephens from the NLG and Dianne wrote up questions regarding some provisions of the contract. After reviewing these, Maureen forwarded the list Dianne wrote up to the NPC Finance Committee. Dianne has also sent in a letter of intent to WSU to reserve 500 beds in their dorms.
6. Youth Encampment--Shirley had found that the grassy area along the river belonged to the Detroit Riverfont Conservancy and was in touch with Mac McCracken. NOTE: Since the meeting Mr. McCracken said they will be constructing a park in that area all 2010 so it is not available but he will check and see what other park areas might be possibilities.
6. Transportation--Topeka Dixon and Sharon Taylor, from MWRO, are working on transportation. They will a) talk with SEMTA rep about possibility of putting on extra buses going from the airport to downtown on Monday, June 21 and Tuesday, June 22 as well Saturday, June 26; b) talk with DOT rep about getting a discounted rate card (maybe a ticket of 5 rides for $2-3) for use on city buses; c) talk with DOT rep talk about using handicap accessible vans to transport people from hotels to Cobo or other nearby venues; d) with People Move rep about a similar discounted rate card, e) talk with Greyhound about discount for chartering a bus coming from other cities or for discounts on individual tickets to the USSF.
- Shirley agreed to call Northwest to find out about a group rate.
7. Children's Tent--Lauren Burnett agreed to begin to look into what is needed to prepare for the Children’s tent.
8. Craig Regester will contact Southwest Solutions to see if a) some of the youth they are working with might be interested in bike repair and whether they might have projects people from the USSF might fit into for next June.
- Next meeting
- Tuesday, July 14 at the Café Con Leche (W. Vernor at Scotten, across from Clark Park) the Sustainability subcommittee will meet at 5:15PM, the Logistics committee will meet at 6PM.