Public meetings were held on Wednesdays April 15, 29 and May 13. Items discussed:
Transition Initiative
Food and Farming
Building and Housing
Technical Trainings
Green Business Development
Leadership Training
Stalled Projects
Completed or Upcoming Projects
Upcoming Events
Transition Initiative
On Tuesday, April 28, 2009, the Sonnenschein Green Initiative hosted the 4th Green Evening Cafe. The public event was held from 6-8:30 p.m. at the Emporium. Transition Town Hohenwald was the theme for the April Green Evening. Speakers at the event included: Former Sonnenschein Chair and current Editor of the Lewis County Herald, Becky Newbold, Chamber President Mark Graves, City Vice Mayor Dustin Flowers and others.
Please click here to read the full report.
On Friday May 8, 2009 we received official acceptance into the Transition Town Network. We were granted approval from the network to do our Transition Unleashing on June 6, 2009. Please click here to read more.
Food and Farming
The Food and Farming Working Group has been meeting twice a month. There main project is the development of a Community Garden.
Click here to read about their ground breaking event and to read about Community Gardens.
The Food and Farming Group is looking for donations of the following items for their garden:
mulching materials: newspapers, cardboard, shredded paper; framing materials for beds; peat moss; vermiculite; natural fertilizers; wood chips for paths - Contact Bob Ogden at zoldfartz@yahoo.com
Lastly, an update on the Farmer's Market and Community Kitchen: There were about 4 meeting held regarding the development of a Farmer's Market. There were two other initiatives within the community also discussing different types of markets, all complimentary to our ideas. The Sonnenschein group decided in early May to table this project for two reasons. First - the group wanted to focus their attention on the Community Garden and second, the group saw that the other initiatives were moving forward and we hope to give our support to those efforts.
On the community kitchen front - we're moving slowly in finding funds for such a project. We have a few ideas about locations for the kitchen.
Building and Housing
Jerry and John Risner of Buffalo Valley Inc., have given several presentations to the group on a new green home that Buffalo Valley with support form Sonnenschein, is building on the corner of Walnut and Second Street. Construction may begin as early as this month. The building will incorporate energy efficient materials, solar hot water, water catchment and a Permaculture designed landscape. Click here to read more. Jerry is also applying for grants that would potentially enable green retrofitting in Middle Tennessee.
Technical Trainings
The Tennessee Technology Center at Hohenwald has partnered with the Sonnenschein Green Initiative in the development of a grant for a Green Jobs Technical Training Program. If the training is funded it will hopefully begin in September of 2009 and run through August 2010. The curriculum would include technical trainings in Permaculture, Agroforestry, Sustainable Design, Energy Analysis, Green Building, Weaterization, Solar Hot Water Installation, Photovoltaic Installation, Geothermal Installation, BioChar, Vehicle Conversions to Electric and Vegetable Oil, Ethanol, Biodiesel, Green Business and Career Development.
Green Business Development
One of the primary goals of the Sonnenschein Initiative is Green Business. We hope to help green existing businesses and to develop or attract new businesses. To this aim, Sonnenschein is gearing up for the second Financial Permaculture Course and Green Business Summit to be held September 22-26 in Hohenwald, TN. At the course in 2008, local stakeholders helped design business plans for ethanol production, a green incubator, a green marketplace and several farming initiatives. To prepare for the 2009 Summit, we're creating allies with potential green business stakeholders in the community. Keeping the same themes from 2008: food and farming, building and housing, fuel and energy and green business - we hope to identify opportunities within the community to either build on last years designs or to create effective designs that support he interests of potential local stakeholders. Once we determine our needs, we'll look to invite national experts in that field to attend the event as content instructors. We hope that the community will help guide us in preparing for the Summit. The next Green Evening Cafe on May 26 will partially focus on what green businesses Hohenwald and Lewis County could most benefit from.
Also, related to Business Development, Mark Graves, as Chamber President, recently formed a Green Business Development Committee for the Chamber, as a result of a recent Chamber retreat and strategic planning with the state of Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. The goal of this new Development Committee is to educate current businesses to capitalize on green energy and efficiency. There first meeting will be June 4. City Vice Mayor, Dustin Flowers stated that the city realizes the opportunities for a green economy and that is why the City supports becoming a Transition Town. Their first true step in support of this effort is renaming the industrial park on Swan Avenue the Hohenwald Eco-Industrial Park and in targeting new Green Industry.
Leadership Training
Our group decides that we wanted some leadership training at each of our meetings. We asked Debbie Landers, alumni and instructor during our local Leadership Lewis Trainings has been giving 10-15 minute presentations on leadership development during each of our public meetings. It is our aim to train up leaders within this initiative. So far we have received very positive feedback from the group regarding these presentations.
On a slightly different note, our group has put together a statement on purpose and decision making processes. Here is what we've come up with so far. Click here for details.
Stalled Projects
Green Sewage Treatment Facility: We found out in early May that the proposal for the constructed wetlands for the new Sewage Treatment Facility in Hohenwald were presented to the facility engineers. It was said that they liked the idea but did not approve the design because they feared that it would stall or impede the flow of federal and state funds into the project. The city has decided to table the 'green' design and move forward on the original design and time line proposed by the engineer. The City Recorder, Mark Graves stated that the city was still interested in potential 'green' designs once the facility is constructed. He noted that there may be additional grants available specifically for constructed wetlands or other green projects that could be applied to the Sewage Treatment facility in the future.
Complimentary Currency: In 2008 the local Chamber of Commerce started a complimentary currency called a Chamber Buck. Similar programs are being run elsewhere in the state of TN, in the city of Lebanon for example. Click here to read a previous post about Chamber Bucks.
There was so much interest in the program that the Sonnenschein group decided to have a few conversations about it during our bi-monthly meetings. Every time it got brought up people were very interested in learning more about the topic and the useful success stories from other towns and cities using complimentary currencies around the world. To find out more you can do a search for Ithica, New York, Totnes England, Damanhur Ireland. There are many many more but these are the ones I've personally experienced or read about. As Sonnenschein started learning about these successful case studies we decided to arrange a more formal discussion around the topic by organizing a 3-day Complimentary Currency workshop in September. The goal for the course was at the very least to educate the public about these successful case studies and to make the local Chamber Bucks program more effective in creating a local multiplier effect.
As word spread through the community about our interest in having this conversation around increasing local wealth through a local complimentary currency, a number of people in the community and some in political office immediately opposed the pursuit of any such effort. Comments ranged from fear of socialism to fear of isolation from the global market and concern over replacing the federal note system. In our research (and by no means do we consider ourselves well educated on the subject), we have not found anything suggesting that these concerns are valid - on the contrary we found that complimentary currencies are just that - complimentary, and that they have most often added value to and stimulated local economies. Although our group is still interested in finding out more about working solutions from around the world, we've decided to table the 2009 Complimentary Currency Course and also the Complimentary Currency working group. Our main focus right now is Local Economic and Community Development, Green Business Development and Outreach Education and we have enough to work on right now to keep us very busy. We don't see it strategic or effective for our group to be working on something that has caused such controversy in the community.
Completed Projects
The Lewis County Green Guide was printed and distributed. Please click here to read more.
The Sonnenschein Initiative has a new website this week.
Please visit www.sonnenschiengreentn.org.
Upcoming Events
May 26 - Green Evening Cafe on Green Business Development.
June 5-7 Sustainability Forum - Please click here to read about the Forum
June 13 - Start of Summer Permaculture Series - Please click here for details.
