DIY Weatherization Trainings

DIY Weatherization Trainings

The SE Uplift Sustainability Program is hosting a series of free trainings to help homeowners learn about inexpensive do-it-yourself ways to increase the energy efficiency of their homes.  Professional trainers will cover topics such as behavior modification and light weatherization, bypass sealing, basic insulation, ventilation corrections and discussing when to call a contractor.  There will also be a field session in a home where participants will get guided hands-on experience applying weatherization methods.

This training opportunity is for residents of southeast Portland interested in weatherization techniques they can learn to do on their own without having to hire a contractor.  The result will be low cost energy efficiency that will lower the carbon impact of your home!

First Training:

The first training is on Monday, May 23rd, from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.  It will be held at SE Uplift, 3534 SE Main.  Dates for the following two sessions will be scheduled soon.

The trainings will be given by Fluid Market Strategies, a mission-driven consulting firm based in Portland, Oregon that provides management, marketing and training services.  Their specialties include energy services with an emphasis on efficiency and renewable technology programs, as well as sustainability consulting and carbon management services.  They focus on projects that provide environmentally or socially responsible benefits.

To sign up for this training email [email protected].

Information about the trainer:

As the Sr Building Science Specialist for Fluid Market Strategies, Dan Wildenhaus has completely immersed in the discussion of what is required to create High Performance Homes. Dan has over 17 years of experience working directly for a contractor; doing energy audits, weatherization repairs, consulting and analysis for private clients in both New Construction and the existing home market. Dan is currently the Contractor Coordinator for Seattle’s Community Power Works for Home program as well as an instructor at South Seattle Community College where he trains tomorrows Home Performance Workforce. Dan also provides Building Science consultation and training services with Northwest Energy Star Homes.

March 2011 Board Meeting Minutes

SNA Board Meeting Minutes – Approved

March 10th 2011 8pm

Board members in Attendance: Gina Binole, Bill Stites, Paul Loney, Heather Wilson, Jane Pullman, Tim Brooks

Excused Absence: Reuben Deumling, Michele Gila

Unexcused Absence: Chuck Lawrence

Gina Binole as Secretary for Michele

Approve Agenda

1—Neighborhood Cleanup details – Karen Hery –  Karen really sees the Useful Goods Exchange and Spring Clean Up  as neighborhood events.  She is at tonight’s meeting  to run by the board how she is combining them. There are only two key decisions for the board:

1)Conduct one or two events, and

2)How the revenue will be divided.

Karen says Sunnyside is the only neighborhood in Tim’s (from SEUL) jurisdiction doing two neighborhood clean ups.

Tim B: How would no decision affect planning? Karen says it would limit her ability to inform neighbors at this event that there would not be a fall clean up. If we don’t say that, people will think there’s a fall one.

Paul: do we have more dumpsters in the spring? Karen says that in the fall, there were 30 families that participated.

Karen: It always rains too much in the fall.

Jane: Spring is like spring clean up.

Karen: I will only do one in the spring. I will not do one in the fall.

Jane motioned to hold only one clean up in the spring and Bill seconded. Tim said his reservation would be what if someone decided to step up and organize the fall? Motion carries.

Karen: My biggest priority this year is just to run a great event. Leave the clean up structure as it always has been.

Karen says she will be charging a fee for the useful goods exchange for the first time. $2 is being discussed. Eventually we will be out of grant funding for this fee. The event went from $1500 from the neighborhood  the first year to $200 this year.

Money from the clean up will go to the neighborhood as it always has.

Traditionally Karen has done 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 to the school, Swap Shop and SNA. She is proposing the same this year, although the school (SES) is no longer a player other than staffing parent and student volunteers. 1/3 would be held by the Swapshop as a starter fund for the next year, 1/3 goes to the Swapshop and 1/3 goes to the SNA.

Tim moves we support the funding allocation, Heather seconds. Motion approved.

2 — SNA Budget – Tim Brooks – A couple of things jumped out — $250 for the hotline. Seemed like a lot to the board.

Tim said the rest of the numbers are projecting off numbers from last year.

Jane questioned the $2,000 for the street fair. Tim said BABA traditionally never shared funds with us. $2000 in revenue from street fair is because of the new arrangement, and it’s actually conservative. Initial estimation was $3,000.

Board pondered whether  we will carry on the commercial fund raising effort John perpetuated for the Street Fair or if we would scale it back somewhat, such that it is not about raising money.

Board discussed donations, and moving the $1000 nest egg we have into other donations to make for a balanced budget and increases our ability to donate to causes the board deems worthy throughout the year.

Clean up appears in both revenue and expense categories, so it’s difficult to track. That could change, especially if they start going the direction of Richmond NA.

Could move that $1000 nest egg (not reflected in Tim’s budget) into the other donation column. Jane motions to approve the budget as amended, Heather seconds. Motion carries.

3—Do we continue to support Mt. Tabor concerts for  $250  — we could contribute whatever we want. Board agrees it’s a good thing to support. (Issue was discussed in greater detail at general meeting) They’re really well-attended. – Gina makes a motion to support, Jane seconds. Motion carries.

Due to the late hour, the board agrees to table discussion of SES rainwater cistern since no action is necessary, as well discussion of what can be voted upon /discussed via email was pushed back to next month.

4-Board agrees to sponsor or host the Multnomah County Soil & Water Conservation District workshop at SEUL on March 28. Jane has been responsible for putting together this event.

The issue was brought before the board via email. The board agreed it was a good thing to do and Tim motioned to use funds from the newly approved budget and allocate up to $40 for snacks and materials.

4-Street Fair update Tim – Street Fair update – Jane and Gina suggest more local participation at booths, Tim mentioned they’ve discussed an artist alley, where booths would sell for $20 rather than $30.

Jane volunteers to teach spinning and dying yarn with vegetables to kids.

Booths are $60, which is fine for a real commercial venture.

Tim also said he and the BABA president have discussed offering free booths for certain non-profits, scholarships, work to put up posters, etc.

There has been some discussion about extending the fair hours into the evening. Heather suggested we let neighbors know we are considering this and ask for feedback via the newsletter.

Tim is hoping to secure March 4 Marching Band.

The board also discussed not changing things up too much as we transition from John to Tim & Bill.

The board agreed to scale back the booths a bit and make room for things like the artists alley without necessarily expanding the reach for some of these things.

February Board minutes approved.

Adjourn

March 2011 General Meeting Minutes

SNA General Meeting Minutes -Approved

March 10th 2011 7pm

Board members in Attendance: Gina Binole, Bill Stites, Paul Loney, Heather Wilson, Jane Pullman, Tim Brooks

Excused Absence: Reuben Deumling, Michele Gila

Unexcused Absence: Chuck Lawrence

Guests & Neighbors:  Heidi McNamee, Mary Ann Schwab, Karen Hery, Meg Hartley,  Chad Kula, Valerie Strickland, Kevin Scaldeferi, Lee Hartley, Jeff Cole, Rachel Voorhies, Maryann Hollman

Gina Binole filling in as secretary.

Approve agenda, circulate Feb. minutes, Agenda &  Feb. minutes approved as submitted. Mary Ann and Tim abstain.

1— (went ahead due to scheduling) Officer Gilbert reports on crime stats for the last month: Sunnyside neighborhood had 18 car prowls. 18 is a lot for 30 days. Just a reminder that cars don’t get broken into if nothing is seen. Keep them clean, visible. The break ins are telling him people are leaving stuff in the car, i.e. gym bag, crooks are hoping for a laptop. You can’t leave anything in there.  Lots of burglaries in the Laurelhurst area but not Sunnyside.

2 — SES Rainwater Catchment project – Heidi McNamee—Umpqua Bank has moved into the neighborhood recently and are offering up a Build Your Block grant possibility. Umpqua selects their favorite top 3 and then community members get to go into the bank and vote for your favorite. You can check out the Umpqua Hawthorne FB page and see their other projects. Heidi says this is an opportunity to raise $10,000 for a really cool thing, a rainwater harvesting project at our school, so it consists of a cistern, 2500 gallons,, located on the school garden property on the West side of the school, near Taylor and 34th to use the water to irrigate our gardens in the dry season. This is in process. Parent at the school who does rainwater catchment projects, most recently at a Gresham school. Lead on someone who does drip irrigation as a profession who will look over our project. Another parent who is a PSU student who will be point person for the neighborhood piece. In addition to catching water for the school, there would be a big community party, teaching neighborhoods how to build a rain barrel party, cost of the barrels would be subsidized by this grant. Heidi wants the SNA to know about this project because the neighborhood does great sustainability work. If it’s something the board could be excited about, we could work together on the community catchment project, or we would take individual support as well, depending on the level of support.

Mary Ann Schwab asked about the deadline for the grant applications.

Jane was curious about the timeline for implementation, when we find out about the money. Heidi says the school would love to build it in spring. The benefit to the school is that it would use less water to irrigate the gardens. Would love to work with the neighborhood on signage, educational outreach. School is trying to find ways to reach out.

Jane thinks the sustainability community would be interested in promoting water conservation and collection. Heidi invites the SNA to join SES. Says it’s not a very big, hairy commitment. Voting in April on which project gets the final funding. Paul suggested we let folks know about the project, when voting begins at the bank via our Web site, social media.

3—Friends of Trees & Planter strip width limitations – Jeff Cole provides his opinion, not an official Friends of Trees presentation – His main point is that there are areas throughout the Sunnyside neighborhood that have strips that are less than 2.5 feet or no planting strips at all.

As a result, most of the 2011 plantings took place on the Western side of Sunnyside.  Homeowners sometimes choose to plant their own trees. The problem is that they may choose inappropriate varieties to the strip, causing sidewalk damage, or the tree might fail to grow.

You can get a sidewalk up to 5 feet by cutting a well, you can increase your planting dimension.  Code allows for this, but applies only to existing trees. In terms of ADA requirements, the minimum width is 5 feet.

Bill motions that the SNA draft a letter in support of the ideas Jeff brought before us to allow new trees where there are narrow easements. Jane seconds. Motion approved.

Board agreed to try and plug this support/action via social media. Jane says there was an article about this issue in the most recent of the SE examiner. Jeff also will write for the April newsletter.

4—Should the SNA continue its support the Mt. Tabor Concert sponsorship? Will report that the board and general meeting consensus that we still support this family-friendly event that appeals to a variety of musical tastes.

5—Committee Reports:

Sustainability  — Emergency Preparedness kit updates. Jane says that the committee received an invitation from the Red Cross to do some Emergency Preparedness education, and we’ve just begun to communicate amongst ourselves about that. At this point, we are making every effort to prepare ourselves and prepare for an earthquake.

Land Use and Transportation – Last month, didn’t have a meeting bc it was on Valentine’s Day. Not a whole lot of land use applications. Not a whole lot of activity, no progress to report on the Good Neighbor Agreement.  Mary Ann discusses  her hope for passage of state bills that pertain to saturation of liquor establishments, how many are too many. Karen Hery inquired about news of PGE substation.

Crime Prevention – No report

SE Uplift – No report

6—Announcements—Karen Hery spoke about the Sunnyside Exchange and Spring Clean Up, wondering about the newsletter deadline. Neighborhood clean up going per usual, but also will be materials we haven’t picked up in the past, like Styrofoam.

Rachel Voorhees on Dosha Hawthorne – the employees are trying to unionize. We have a FB page called Dosha Workers Unite. Just want to let you know we are trying to do this, trying to make the company strive and make it better. Dosha currently employs 250 people and have been locally owned and sustained for 5 years.

Blair Community Garden Opening Day is Saturday march 26. It has taken 5 years since we won the decision to get a formal garden and dedicated space for it. Actual celebration will be from 11 to noon. Work party between 9-11. Just south of Stark on 33rd.

7. Meeting adjourned.