05/17/2009 19:38
At today’s meeting the focus was on fundraising and summer events.
I reiterated myself again telling everyone what Punta Mona was and I wanted the club to go there, and that the trip fundraising was going on. I urged them to start really making an effort so we can make the money for everyone who wants to go. It was suggested that we ask each member to pay for an amount of the trip on their own. This would help the club be not have a terribly big amount to raise.
Laura talked to the group about scheduling a day that Green Keene Teens would be at the Farmer’s Market here in Keene. She suggested that we plan a Saturday in June to do it. Scheduling the specific day will happen in the next week or so.
Brea told us a little bit about Harrisville’s Old Home Days that is scheduled around the second week of July. The event sounds like it would be a great place for GKT to sell products and promote being green! We talked about making things for raffles and maybe doing a kids game or craft.
We also brainstormed fundraising ideas. Many good ideas were thrown up in the air, such as making recycled cards and flowers, the plant-able paper, pine needle bags, potpourri, and the hanging oranges that smell good.
Tags: fundraising, Punta Mona
04/03/2009 14:29
In meeting number 4 we were able to get a lot of things done and talked about. An update about the Recycling Center was announced: we will be making further plans to volunteer there over the weekends about twice a month and we will still be helping with taking book covers off old books and recycling them. We also talked about Green Up Keene Day, which is going to be happening on April 18th. The person in charge of the event will be giving us a route that we will be taking and we will be picking up trash along that route. Lucy also mentioned that we will be having our first bake/products sale in front of Hannah Grimes this Saturday starting at 11:30, so please come! One of the last things we talked about was the movie contests. We have already missed one but we have one that we would love to enter in. The deadline is April 22 and Olivia is planning on getting that organized, so please talk to her more about that if you are interested in participting!Tags: Hannah Grimes, Green Up
03/10/2009 17:13
At second GKT meeting everyone was a lot more comfortable with getting her voice heard. It was a little hectic, but we got some good ideas throughout the hour. Here is a brief summary of what we did.
Volunteering: We are currently getting ready to volunteer at Stonewall Farm. I handed out the volunteer packets to the members. We also talked about trying to volunteer and the Recycling Center. One of the men there offered to get us involved with a Green Up Keene Day. We will have more info about that soon.
Punta Mona: Briefly we went over the trip to Costa Rica that is planned for next February.
Fundraising: We planned when some of the members could make it over to my house to make laundry detergent. Mina, and Olivia helped me make 29 jugs of detergent yesterday. And today Emily and Laura went out and sold ten jugs and got donations. At the meeting we also talked about other potential fundraising ideas.
Logo/T-shirts: Everyone was pretty excited to make Brea’s logo our club’s official sign. Mom recreated the idea in Photoshop, in time to send it to the t-shirt people. It was great to get that planned out. Recently I have been in the process of getting Gemini Screen Printing to make our shirts. Because you know, buying locally is the best!
Earth Day: There were some ideas for doing some kind of event for Earth Day, but we decided against it because we have too many things to do right now. With getting the club started and yourselves well know. Big events will have to come in time.
Green Magazine: Laura had the idea of making a Green Magazine after the club got more settled. We decided if we pursue this idea, that we will have four issues a year corresponding with the seasons.
Bank Account: After we get our Non-profit Certificate we will be getting a bank account at one of the banks in town, so we can keep our money in perfect order. Laura and Katelyn are going to collaborating together to get an account.
Blog Ideas: I encourage everyone to try to write a blog entry or two. I provided them with ideas and prompts of what they could write about. Soon we will have more content on the site!
Tags: logo, fundraising, volunteering, Punta Mona, Earth Day
02/21/2009 14:25
Meeting #1
I was curious to see who would show up at my first meeting of Green Keene Teens on Thursday Feb. 19th. I was overjoyed at how many people came and were enthusiastic about the club. We had an amazing meeting! When it was over and everyone was leaving Olivia said, “No offense, but I didn’t think it was going to be this fun!” It made me smile to see she was excited about what we’d been talking about. I was also very pleased at the energized response I got from everyone at the meeting. When I got home I already had emails with more ideas for fundraising and a blog waiting for me to read! I was impressed at the swiftness of my friends who really wanted to get things rolling.
If you happen to miss any meetings or are just wondering what we are talking about and planning check back here to see what we’ve done. I will be putting up a blog each time we have a meeting with the major things we have gone over and talked about.
First I explained why I had made Green Keene Teens. I wasn’t very happy with the Sierra Club at school because not everyone in the club would show up to every meeting because of other commitments or they just weren’t excited about what we were doing. We weren’t really doing anything interesting. And I wasn’t satisfied with it. I wanted something more. I created GKT so I could actually make a difference in the community. I wanted to bring bright, intelligent teens together who all were committed to saving the earth.
To become a member of Green Keene Teens, you have to do some volunteering. Anyone can come to meetings, but to be truly involved you need to become a member. Volunteering will make us seem more like an established club that will become well known and liked in the community. Plus it’s just a nice thing to do. We have already been in contact with Stone Wall Farm to try and arrange volunteering. I explained that you don’t only have to be caring for the animals, you can help with gardens, work on projects and much more. I also emailed the Humane Society because my mom had mentioned that they needed someone to sort their recyclables. They haven’t gotten back to me yet about it. I told the members I would let them know when I heard something. We are also going to be making T-shirts for the club so we are easily identifiable when we are out and about. This will help promote the club and let people know who we are.
Most every club at our high school has some kind of club trip. We will have a club trip to Punta Mona, a sustainable living community on an island off of Costa Rica. We are going to fundraise all of the money to cover the expenses, so stay tuned to see what cool ideas we come up with. Check out Punta Mona’s website to see more information. Or see their Youtube video here.
In order to make all the money to go on the trip, GKT will be fundraising like crazy. We have come up with a few ideas already like: selling home-made, earth-friendly laundry detergent, felted soap bars, beeswax candles, drawings and paintings of nature scenes, recycled and earth-friendly school supplies, having car washes, healthy/organic bake sales, and much more!
I explained that I had created this blog and wanted everyone to try to contribute to it. This helps make it clear that Green Keene Teens are excited and ready to talk about the environment to anyone. We aren’t the typical ‘teenagers’ who don’t care about anything. We are ready to show people what we do and lead by example. Giving ourselves and the community tips on how to become a little ‘greener’ everyday.
Like any other organization we will need to have a logo to represent us. I challenged the creative energy in the club to think up ideas for our logo. Once we have come up with our logo it will be on this website, our T-shirts, and the things we make.
Tags: logo, fundraising, volunteering, Punta Mona
