Happy start of the semester! I’d like to say a word from Bowdoin College, and explain our system that we’ve begun this year. We reformatted the clubs from last year and are still working out the kinks, but I think it’s on the right track.
The club is called Green Bowdoin Alliance and underneath that umbrella there are sub-groups with various focuses. We also have partner groups on campus with slightly different aims or a different domain – like the Bowdoin Organic Garden, Green Global Initiatives (a club that brings green career related speakers to campus), and the EcoReps (which are actually paid students organized by the Bowdoin Sustainability Coordinator). Under GBA thus far, we have sub-groups focused on student behavior, facilities, dining, and politics. Each of these groups has their own leader, and then the whole Green Bowdoin Alliance has a leader and a team of specialists to answer questions about funding, run meetings, and send out enthusiastic emails. We started out having a few general meetings and letting the sub-groups decide when to meet on their own, but that seemed to be too hard to organize, and we’ve decided to hold bi-monthly general meetings and split up into groups within the meeting. This will hopefully encourage participation and give the sub-groups time to talk to each other, as many of their proposed issues and campaigns are related.
Much of last semester was taken up by organization, but there are a few specifics we worked on: posting a fact campaign to encourage recycling; tabling to reduce tray use, with an added emphasis to reduce meat consumption; and learning more about Maine’s political environment. A group of us went to the Tar Sands Action Campaign in D.C. in November (a bit of an organization mess, but we ended up going at the last minute; and it was successful in convincing Obama to say no to the XL pipeline, according to the latest news!).
Now that this explanatory post is over, I hope to continue to post about events and future plans. Good luck with the semester!
Green Bowdoin Alliance, Bowdoin College
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