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Area Meetings! |
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Community Resiliency Meetings In the "old days" ˆ and by this I mean 6 years ago ; - ) ˆ a "sustainability group" formed in Cummington. It met monthly. It sparked a lot of great projects and fostered a ton of strong relationships. It served to build community, knowledge and skills to address problems of how to live effectively in this rural area, in these troubling times, and to begin to make a difference. Projects included the sewing center, food preservation and gardening skills workshops, toy exchanges, mushrooming and foraging exchanges, preparing wild edibles potlucks, the 350 photo project, a sustainable energy tour, salons, Earth Day celebrations, the HHuge Wagon food sharing project, the Old Creamery sustainability library, an auction to purchase the Creamery a dishwasher to do away with paper dishes and silverware, book talks, movie viewings and much much more. Out of that group, or in parallel, there developed a number of sympathetic groups including a perennial food group, the Bag Share, a seed saving group and it's new Hilltown Virtual Seed Library, the "engineers," the Old Creamery Coop, the Guyette Farm community garden, a non-GMO group and much much more. I conceived the Community Resiliency Summit in March as a way to bring together these disparate strands, to reconnect newcomers to a bigger picture, and to reach out to the wider community. That wider community includes those who participate in institutions like the churches, the schools, the health center, and town government, pillars of the community that to my mind could benefit (and benefit others) by participating in a community-wide discussion. That discussion has only begun, but I would like to see it continue. There are two meetings in early June, which are open to anyone who would like to brainstorm how to perpetuate a process of broader community dialog and coordinated action. On Wednesday, June 5, at 7:30pm at the Village Church, we'll have a circle meeting during what had traditionally been the time the sustainability group met. That's a loose session, and we'll make the agenda when we arrive. No RSVP required. On Monday, June 10, from 6 to 8 pm, there's a meeting at the Hilltown CDC. That's to continue the dialog begun April 20, which is part of a broader "Sustainable Corridor" project of the United Way and the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. At that meeting we will specifically focus on the idea of creating a Hilltown Engagement Council, focus on public safety/emergency response and explore an agricultural/farming project.
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