**Drum roll please!**
You are cordially invited to our first meeting of the year! It will be held this MONDAY, AUGUST 31 at 8:30PM in the SADLER CENTER in TIDEWATER B. This occassion will mark the beginning of the ‘09-’10 school year as well as the very first meeting in our new location! We have waited quite a while and gone to many lengths to gain permission to meet in the Sadler Center, so this is a big deal for us. We hope you enjoy the space!
Our first meeting will include some great information about what campaigns we will be working on this year, an updated story of where our group has come from and what we hope to accomplish, and the chance to meet with returning SEAC members to decide in what area you would most like to dive in and help out! We’re really excited to meet you all, or see you if we already know you, and as usual we would love to answer any questions or hear any comments you may have. You can always email Caroline Cress (cecres@wm.edu) or Samantha Lockhart (sklock@wm.edu), our facilitators, or hit me back at cddavi@wm.edu.
See you soon! Happy beginning of the school year!
Love, your very excited webmaster,
Charlotte
August 28, 2009
I just discovered a list that Phil and I put together of all the things SEAC rocked this past school year. It’s kinda rough, but also super impressive, so I thought I’d share it with y’all. Here we go:
- About 10 folks traveled across the entire state to attend the Weekend in Wise in the fall to learn about mountain top removal coal mining and discover how to take action.
- About 30 SEACers attended Virginia Power Shift 2008 at Virginia Tech and went to a slew of amazing workshops and panels.
- About 40 students attended Power Shift 2009, including participating in the Lobby Day and the Coal Action.
- About 5 Food Campaign members attended the Southern SAWG (Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group) Conference to learn more about the practice of sustainable agriculture.
- At least 10 SEACers are now official members of the Committee on Sustainability
- We threw an organized, well attended, and AWESOME earth day event at the college, including a wicked tie-dye station and music by some amazing local and student bands.
- The Committee on Sustainability funded a good handful of SEAC students to carry out summer sustainability projects at the College, including a project to bring local and organic food into the dining halls, a project to test water quality around the Williamsburg area watershed, and a project to complete a comprehensive carbon audit of the entire college.
- The Energy Campaign conducted a Reduce-Your-Use-athon in the Randolph complex to encourage students to reduce their energy use and to spread the word about the need to conserve energy.
- Larry Smith at the Caf (aka CafMan) took our idea of the Trayless Program to the next level and implemented the program at two out of the three dining halls on campus.
- We established an Eco House as a special housing unit for ‘09-’10 and are expecting to use the space as a wonderful gathering/socializing/energy reducing locale.
- There was at least one article about SEAC in the Flat Hat almost every week the entire school year.
- We formed a partnership with Swem Library. They now feature a sustainability idea on every issue of the Throne and have various sustainability events throughout the year.
- We secured outdoor recycling bins all over campus and are partnering with AMP to maintain the program.
- We threw an attention-drawing Trash Bash in the Crim Dell Meadow and showed people the reality of how much trash we produce every day and how much of it could be recycled.
- We had a Power Vote rally, hosting a set of remarkably large wind turbines and gathering huge numbers of signers of the Power Vote pledge.
- Roots and Shoots, a companion organization of SEAC, is doing well and now visiting Matthew Whaley Elementary School monthly to help students take care of their alphabet garden and learn about sustainability.
- Terry McAuliffe, a contender for the governor of Virginia, visited our campus garden and wrote an entry on his blog about meeting and speaking with one of our members.
- We established Green Fundraising at the College – people will now be able to donate to the Green Endowment!
- The first round of Green Fees, collected from students every year to go to sustainability efforts on campus, was spent on various excellent projects as well as funding the afformentioned student sustainability projects over the summer.
- We launched the Surry Justice campaign and are working tirelessly on supporting the grassroots movement in Surry County to stop the proposed coal plant from being built just 15 miles from the College.
- We conducted a large number of House Greenings. This involved visiting community members’ houses and helping them find ways to green their homes. We even conducted a greening at the Brafferton – our college president’s own office!
- Our listserv reached 2000 people – the equivalent of about 1/3 of the undergrad student body.
Can you believe we accomplished all these amazing feats? I can’t wait to see what we do this year…
Rock on kids,
Charlotte
PS If you think of any other accomplishments of ours from last year, comment and let us know what we forgot!
August 15, 2009
Well, it’s been a while now since we’ve updated this site. Let me give you the skinny on some news in the SEAC world:
- First, to introduce myself. I am Charlotte Davis, your trusty new webmaster. I will be updating this site with information about new exciting things happening pertaining to William and Mary and the environmental climate in our area. If you have any ideas of things to post about or would like to post yourself, let me know! (cddavi@wm.edu)
- Congratulations to our new SEAC position-holders: Sam Lockhart and Caroline Cress as facilitators, Luke Pickett and Lauren Edmonds as SEACretaries, Charles Dylan Reilly and Ian Smith-Christmas as Treasurers, Emily Sample as Fundraising Chair, Aaron Branch and Becky Koenig as Historians, and Hannah Debelius and Michael as Outreach Chairs! We have an awesome team this year. I can’t wait to see what we get done with these awesome leaders.
- An exciting update: the College has officially created a Sustainability Fellow position and has hired our very own Phil Zapfel to fill the position! We’re all very excited that there will be this position – we’ve been hoping for this to happen for a lonnnng time. We’re also excited that Phil will be hanging around for another year to help us out with it.
Hurray!
- We have a new campaign to announce: the Water Campaign! It has been started up by Charles Dylan Reilly with help from Dana Taylor, and they are looking forward to getting it off the ground this semester! They’ve have had a couple planning meetings so far to discuss the scope of our campaign, but are waiting for everyone to be back before setting anything in stone. It should be an awesome campaign!
- Preparations for Orientation stuff are underway. We have a design all set for this year’s SEAC mugs and are ready to get ready to give them out once we get ‘em! We’re also all ready to give out CFLs and will be working on writing some informational blurbs to give out with both those and the mugs in a short while. We will be using the same Lorax video for this year’s orientation, so no work to be done there. We’re thinking about making a new one for next year, though, so if you want to help out with that, let us know!
Our first meeting will be on Monday, August 31st at 8:30pm in Chesapeake B. This is a new time, a new day, and a new meeting space for us! It might be a little jarring for returning members, but we think the changes will bring huge improvement in group dynamics and productivity. Let us know what you think!
I think that’s it for today, folks. We can’t wait to (re)convene with you all in just a few short weeks! Make sure to take it easy until then so we can hit the ground running when we get back.
SEAC love,
Charlotte
August 7, 2009
Hello everyone, and welcome to the new W&M Student Environmental Action Coalition website! This is the home for SEAC information and contacts, as well as a blog to see what we’re all up to!
SEAC members: if you’d like to contribute to the blog (I highly recommend it, especially if you’re in one of our campaigns), register for a wordpress.org account and then email me (pmzapf@wm.edu), and I’ll get you set up! It’s really easy!
Tagged: General SEAC November 12, 2008
Hey everyone! Make sure to come out to general SEAC meetings on Tuesdays at 6 o’clock in McGlothlin Street 20!
Tagged: General SEAC, SEAC October 31, 2008