Workshop Session I: 9:30-10:45

Replace the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Reactor Part One: Why and How to Get Involved
Green 116
Vermont citizens have a once in a lifetime opportunity to prevent Vermont Yankee from operating after its 40 year license expires in 2012 and to replace it with efficiency and renewable energy. This spring the Vermont legislature will vote on that future. In this workshop you will learn why a state-wide coalition of environmental and public interest groups want to close the reactor, how to replace it, what work has already done, and, especially, how you and your neighbors can play an essential role in the final months of the campaign.

WORKSHOP LEADERS

Emily Maxwell has over 10 years of experience coordinating outreach, education, and mobilization. She is the Field Director for VPIRG where she leads grassroots efforts to strategically leveraging the voice of the general public to advance policy initiatives statewide.

Jeff Unsicker is a professor at the SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, where he teaches courses in Policy Analysis and Advocacy for sustainable development. He is also a core group member of Nuclear Free Vermont, an activist association of citizens living in the shadow of the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor.

Deb Katz is the executive director of CAN. She is a mother, social worker and community organizer. She has been cited for her outstanding leadership and service in the public health field, and in 2000 she won the Giraffe Award for sticking her neck out to protect reactor communities. She organized three Action Camps to train organizers to advocate in their communities with over 1,000 people participating; and she traveled the country participating in nuclear waste tours to Utah, Nevada, and South Carolina with grassroots organizers.

James Moore is the Clean Energy Advocate for VPIRG. He leads energy-related advocacy efforts in the State House and represents VPIRG on a number of state and regional leadership committees. He has an extensive background of field organizing and environmental advocacy, including two years as a campaigner with Greenpeace USA focusing on global warming and clean energy issues.

Alyssa Schuren is the Executive Director of Toxics Action Center. Over the past seven years, she has worked with 50+ communities to clean up and prevent toxic threats, as well as developed and strengthened the organization’s programs and community organizing models. She is a graduate of Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, and has a B.A. in environmental studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Healthy Kids—Healthy Schools: Ensuring Safe Learning Environments for Our Children
Green 124
Do you know what products are used in our children’s schools? Do you know what kind of environmental health concerns our children face? Do you want to ensure a toxics-free learning environment for Vermont children? Come learn about what has been done so far to address this urgent issue, and how we can keep our children safer and healthier. You’ll learn how to help make sure our schools are clean and safe environments!

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Charity Carbine is VPIRG's Environmental Health Advocate where she leads efforts to reduce toxins in the environment and promote the precautionary approach to chemical exposure. She also coordinates field organizing efforts to close down the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Charity has much organizing experience including four years as an organizer for the New York PIRG.

Carol Westinghouse works with INFORM to manage the Cleaning for Health program. In this role, she has been instrumental in bringing together a wide range of stakeholders concerned with green cleaning issues across the Northeast, while helping public and private schools, colleges, businesses and health care facilities transition to environmentally preferable cleaning practices and products.

Beverly Shadley is the Vice President for Development for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. Prior to joining PPNNE in 2006, Bev spent 17 years working in the field of environmental conservation, first as an environmental educator, then later as a development professional. Bev holds a B.S. in Environmental Conservation from the University of New Hampshire and enjoys birding and marine ecology.

Keeping Vermont’s Water Pure, Public and Plentiful
Green 128
Many of Vermont’s valuable water resources, including prized Lake Champlain, are polluted by runoff, threatened by overdevelopment or interest in privatizing the state’s water supplies. Vermont communities and concerned citizens can play a critical role in keeping the state’s water clean and ensuring that large-scale withdrawals, such as bottled water operations, are carefully managed and don’t undermine community needs or interests. In this workshop, get a rundown on basic strategies you can help incorporate to prevent water pollution, as well as 10 steps you can take to safeguard your community from unwanted or potentially damaging large water withdrawals.

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Jon Groveman is Water Program Director and General Counsel for the Vermont Natural Resources Council and serves on the new governor-appointed Groundwater Task Force. Before joining VNRC in 2004, Jon served as legal counsel to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, as Land Use Attorney for the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and as Director of the Law Center for the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. Most recently Jon was the Executive Officer of the Vermont Water Resources Board.

Carolyn Shapiro is a long-time resident of East Montpelier, where more than two years ago a large-scale water bottling operation was proposed. Since then, Carolyn has been active in helping inform her community about the threats to the state and world’s water supplies and advance a reasoned response to the proposal. That work has included successfully leading a three-year local water withdrawal moratorium, overwhelmingly passed on Town Meeting Day, strengthening the local plan, and working to help pass the state’s new groundwater protection law.

Amy Dowley works for Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization defending water as a public resource.  Amy is the Northeast regional organizer for Take Back the Tap, Food and Water Watch's campaign  advocating for increased federal funding for our aging water infrastructure and educating consumers about making the best choice for their health and the environment.  Before taking the organizing position, Amy acted as the Vassar College campaign coordinator, raising student awareness and drafting a plan to phase-out bottled water on campus as part of a comprehensive college strategy to reduce climate emissions.

Surviving the Storm: Rebuilding Vermont’s Composting System
Green 216
Vermont’s composters have been in the news quite a bit lately. What’s all the controversy about? What’s going well with composting in Vermont and what’s holding our state back? What can we do in our communities to recognize the value of our yard waste and food scraps, reduce energy use, protect our communities from pollution, replenish our soils, and move toward Zero Waste – all at the same time?

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Paul Tomassi has served as the Executive Director of the Northeast Kingdom Waste Management District since 1999. Prior to that, he spent four years as the Supervisor for Solid Waste for the United States Antarctic Program. Paul has also worked as an Environmental Consultant in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He currently serves on the Board of the Association of Vermont Recyclers.

Tom Gilbert is currently the Programs Director for the Highfields Institute, where he oversees programming and program development, as well as providing technical services to farmers and municipalities in composting systems in Vermont and elsewhere.  Tom is the Vice President of the Composting Association of Vermont, a board member of the Center for an Agricultural Economy, and works in an advisory capacity for a variety of organizations around Vermont. 

Donna Barlow-Casey is the Executive Director of the Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District (CVSWMD) which represents and provides solid waste services for 22 cities and towns, including Vermont’s state capital. She has over 18 years of professional experience in the solid waste management field. Most recently, CVSWMD become one of the few organizations in the U.S. to develop a zero-waste plan, which guides solid waste policy, practice and programming for the next decade.

The Best Team You’ve Ever Been a Part Of
Green 224
It starts with you. But you can’t do it alone. Attend this workshop to learn how to create a team that is vibrant, continues to grow, and is full of committed individuals. Topics covered are: recruiting and retaining members, building an engaged leadership team, and tips for solving common team problems. Useful assessment tools are available to take home to share. Whether you’re new to building a team or an “old hat,” there’s something here for you!   

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Sylvia Broude is Toxics Action Center’s Lead Organizer. For the past three years, she has assisted communities in tackling everything from preventing drinking water contamination, to cleaning up hazardous waste sites, to halting the construction of poorly-sited power plants, to reducing pesticide use in lakes and ponds and along roadways. Before joining Toxics Action Center, Sylvia worked on the 2004 election with MoveOn.org, and with the Sierra Club, running a grassroots campaign office in Massachusetts focused on clean energy. Through her work, she has built and strengthened many teams.  

Running for Local Office
Green 228
Have you ever thought that your voice is not being heard in your community?  The saying goes “all politics are local”.  Make your voice heard during your select board meetings or during Town Meeting Day.  Run for local office and become the voice of your community. This workshop will provide you with all the basics on how to run an effective local campaign.

Local Food: A Growing Movement
Morrill 128
Vermont is a leading state in the growing local food movement.  Farmers markets, CSAs, and other direct farmer-to-consumer sales abound; there's a high awareness of the benefits of buying local; and it's hard to beat farm fresh foods! But, there's a lot more to do to keep supporting and increasing access to local food in Vermont.  Please join us to hear from three important perspectives about what we can do at the personal, community, and state level to increase our reliance on local food here in Vermont.  A farmer, a policy advocate, and a localvore will share their perspectives, and lead a rich discussion about how Vermont can keep leading the way with our innovative local food network.

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Lisa McCrory and her family own and operate Earthwise Farm & Forest in Bethel, a 150 acre

diversified food/farm enterprise. They are also co-founders of the annual Northeast Animal-Power Field Days in Tunbridge, and on the Rural Vermont Board of Directors. Lisa believes strongly that the relationships we make with people through food, and then through food to the Earth are those most fundamental to our human experience.

Amy Shollenberger is the Director of Rural Vermont where she is responsible for strategic planning and campaign development, as well as developing a policy agenda. She has ten years of organizing and policy experience, including work as a press secretary and legislative assistant for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and as a senior policy analyst for Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program.

Nancy Turner is a member of the Mad River Valley Localvores who practices eating reagionally and seasonally. Nancy will speak to what individuals can do to support the local food movement in Vermont. 

Amplifying Your Message in the Internet Era: Leveraging New Media for Creative Messaging
Morrill 130
Crafting a powerful message and generating buzz is a challenge, but online "new media" such as social networking sites, blogs and video sharing sites such as You Tube present opportunities to propagate your message beyond just maintaining a static webpage. This workshop will look at the different messaging media presented by the web in 2008 that can be incorporated into campaign work., This dynamic workshop will focus on examples of strategic expressions of online creativity and will help participants learn how to think strategically and tactically about the use of new media, what it can and cannot accomplish, and how to build a message that people are attracted to.  You will walk out of this workshop with tools that can help you amplify your message and generate higher impact in the hearts and minds of your audience.

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

John Odum was a longtime community and electoral organizer for campaigns such as Bernie Sanders for Congress in Vermont and "No On 9 – Save Our Communities PAC" in Oregon before becoming active on the internet. A former Technology Director for the Vermont Democratic Party, John has since founded the Vermont "netroots" hub greenmountaindaily.com, and his work on that site has     been cited in national media outlets such as The Nation and The New York Times. He has also written for the online edition of The Guardian (UK) and has been named by the British-based PoliticsHome.com as part of their "Online100" list of the most influential voices in the blogosphere.
    
Will Bates graduated from Middlebury College in 2006 where he was a founding member of the Sunday Night Group, a leading student climate activist group.  After graduating he was part of the organizing team for the 5 day walk across Vermont in 2006.  That walk inspired Will and several of his Middlebury friends to coordinate 2 national days of action on climate change called Step It Up 2007, and during that time he also co-authored Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community along with the rest of the Step It Up coordinating team.  That same group is now the coordinating team for 350.org  -- a global grassroots initiative to set 350 ppm CO₂, the safe upper limit of CO₂ in the atmosphere, as the benchmark for international action on climate change.

Bringing Sustainable, Local Biomass to Your Community
Morrill 132
More communities are looking to Vermont’s forests for energy supply. In 2006, Bristol, Vermont successfully launched a biomass wood heating system for the high school. One important component of this diverse coalition-led effort was its focus on long-term, self reliant and sustainable use of the resource. Community members sought to take advantage of the cost savings and renewability of wood energy while assuring that the wood is sourced and utilized in a “Sustainable, Efficient, Local, and Fair (SELF)” manner. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear from those who made Bristol’s ‘SELF’ heating model possible. Find out the keys to their success, including building a diverse coalition fueled in large part by igniting the energy of local students. Learn about what these experts are doing – and what your community might do – to sustainably harvest Vermont’s wood resources for home, school and municipal heating.

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Adam Sherman is the Biomass Energy Resource Center’s fuel supply expert. In this capacity, Sherman conducts studies that quantify and characterize the biomass resources and markets within various geographic areas. He is responsible for regional assessments of biomass resources, developing new strategies to increase the sustainability of biomass fuels, and identifying new ways to accumulate and process low-grade wood and other biomass residues for community and institutional energy users. Before joining BERC, Adam was general manager at Intervale Compost Products in Burlington, Vermont for 10 years. He transformed the small recycling project into a thriving composting business. Sherman holds a BA in Environmental Studies from the University of Vermont.

Robert Turner has served as a natural resource consultant in Vermont for 20 years. With a background in finance and forestry, Mr. Turner offers technical support to land managers, policy makers and interested citizens to help them understand and make informed forest management decisions.  Balancing economic and environmental goals has been especially important in his work with communities. A member of the Starksboro Conservation Commission for nearly 20 years—with responsibilities for the 300-acre town forest— he is keenly interested in conservation and stewardship at the local level.

Jessie-Ruth Corkins is a recent graduate of Mount Abraham Union High School in Bristol, Vermont where she helped initiate the successful transition of Mount Abe's heating system from fossil fuels to woodchips. Jessie is one of the core leaders of the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative (VSHI), a group of students representing 200-plus youth from 26 high schools in Vermont. VSHI is working towards transitioning Vermont to more affordable, sustainable and locally produced biomass energy crops for heating. Recently, Jessie-Ruth was one of six youth leaders nationally to receive the prestigious 'Brower Youth Award.' She currently is attending the University of Vermont for environmental science.