Polar Bear Shirt!!!

We're in a t-shirt competition. Let's win.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GKFBH68

Vote for ours! I've sent out some e-mails already, so here are some reasons why you should vote for GCI's!

"The polar bear represents the fight against and victims of climate change. He or she has been a symbol of the environmental movement. And the environment is something that we all have a stake in. When you wear that shirt around, people aren't going to ask you "oh, what's Eckhart Consulting?" (sorry Eckhart Consulting) They'll get it. GCI, as it should be, is just an afterthought."

"The bear is pretty cute"

"the polar bear, a symbol for climate change, the environment, and cute cuddlyness, needs your vote. :)"

Here's the link again http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GKFBH68

Thanks for all that y'all do,

Willy

Program on Global Environment Student Run Conference

11 days ago, the Program on the Global Environment (our Environmental Studies program) announced its decision on the theme for this year's student-run conference. I'm assuming it's all right to talk about the upcoming Spring conference. Do you see anything wrong? I'll just go into our proposal and a little about the final one. No harm, right?

Our team was Kelvin (GCI, Roosevelt Institute), Julie (GCI), Lauren (GCI), Tara (Student Government), and me (GCI). We worked hard inside and outside Hutchinson Commons.

So our proposal title was "It's not easy being Green". We wanted to explore how it seems like everybody wants to protect the environment and understands the benefits in doing so. But often, there lay in the way numerous obstacles. Such icey patches include short term economic costs, culture, and values. Furthermore, transforming environmental ideals and values into concrete results involves its own complications. Our panel on the government's role, as facilitators and obstructionist, explored this issue. Finally, we had a panel exploring local activism and what we can do to participate in the environmental movement.

Our panels:

1. Short Term vs. Long Term Costs of Environmental Negligence
2. The Government’s Role in Environmental Policy in a Capitalist Global Economy
3. Green as a Social Movement: Culture, psychology, and attitudes toward
   Environmentalism
4. Local Activism, its forms and roles

We designed our panels to appeal to the common student who is interested in the environment, but does not know much about it. We reckoned that those hardcore Environmental Studies majors and GCIers would already be interested in attending. This way, the conference would not inundate attendees with a rush of technical information or abstract philosophical concepts. It would be straightforward and down to earth. yet still insightful and thought-provoking.

While attracting a large crowd was not our overall goal, the inclusion of different disciplines definitely would have aided in that pursuit. Economy, government, international relations, social justice, psychology, anthropology, and politics all made an appearance.

Well, what is going to happen exactly in the Spring? The final conference is entitled "Green Governance". It has 3 panels, "Government's Role in a Capitalist World", "Policy, Industry, and Sustainability", and "Implementation and Social Movements' Impacts". It combined elements of our proposal and another one submitted by Ted from the Roosevelt Institution.

If you're interested in helping make this an awesome conference, please contact Kelvin at kelvinho@uchicago.edu . There still remains lots of work to do, like finding speakers, organizing the logistics, publicity, and finding a moderator.

If you want to read our full proposal, click here.

And if you're wondering, I still haven't gotten back to my room yet to get my GCI notebook. So I still can't write my NTB Debriefing Part 2. I'm in the Mac lab right now. I just had to watch Vince Young's 99 yard game winning drive. Gonna go start catch up reading for Primates now.

Monday's tomorrow,
Willy

Winter Quarter

So my next post was going to be Battle of the Bulbs part 2, but things did not work out. I am going to incorporate many ideas we discussed in the meetings into my post, but I do not have my notebook with me right now. That is because I went to South Campus to eat and then went to the Law Library, where I am now. I brought my other homework, just not my trusty notebook. So I'll take this time to write about another major thing that's going on: our Winter quarter activities.

Traditionally, or the past 3 years, we've done Battle of the Bulbs (BotB, yay acronyms) as our major event for Winter quarter. For those of y'all who don't know, Battle of the Bulbs is a month-long inter-dormitory energy reduction competition. Energy reduction is measured by percentage reduced from a baseline week, usually set during the time before the beginning of the competition. I believe Breckinridge won last year and the year before. Are they going to threepeat? Well, to find out...

Y'all are going to have to wait until Spring quarter. Yep. We decided to move Battle of the Bulbs to Spring quarter, for several reasons.

1. BotB has so much potential for a major, campus-wide event to promote sustainable living habits, highlight the crucial issue of clean energy, and to affect a very diverse and broad audience. Thus, it's going to be a big, big thing. Why try to rush this event with exams, winter break, and then a month of school? Let's take an entire quarter to hype this thing up, make it a big deal, and really plan ahead.
   
2. We kind of realized that the sun sets pretty damn early in the Winter. Like around 4:30. And it's hard to do homework and other stuff in total darkness at such an inconvenient hour. Even more, it's cold outside, so you're either confined to your room or a dangerous trek to the library. The weather and season just makes a competition to turn off lights a major annoyance. Not the best feeling we want to invoke in people.
3. Having BotB in the spring lets us pair it with Earth Week happenings into this one humongous explosion of green/environmentalism/sustainability/cool stuff. Think about this. We have an opening ceremony during Earth Week (I'm pushing for it to involve turning off lights), when everybody is woohoo Earth. The competition begins, the weather is warming up, and people are becoming more cheerful. We spend more time outside, don't use the lights at night. We can really piggyback on the already strong Earth Week events we have annually.

If we move BotB to the Spring, there is no doubt we must cover this ground with a flurry of smaller projects. BotB, however flawed it may be, was still a major event that got significant coverage. Participation may not have been perfect, but people knew about it. It is crucial that we keep up GCI's presence and name up during Winter quarter. At the moment, we do not have any major event planned on the scale of BotB. What we do have is a focus on projects that will accomplish things, a renewal of environmental activism and community service (ECO and GAIA), and the lead-up to BotB.

"Projects that will accomplish things". What does that mean? Basically, we are looking to direct our time and energy into seeing through ideas and initiatives that actually concretely change something. Ideas include trays in dining halls, recycling in the dorms, an inter-dormitory re-use service, and others. I'll come up with an updated list asap. And every step of the way, we will of course tout that this is GCI enacting and pushing for these changes.

"Renewal of environmental activism and community service". Oh boy. There's sooooo much out there. We've all heard that saying "I just want to make a difference". Then come out and do something! Books, studying, policy-writing, and all that is fantastic and all. But going out into a garden and working to build a community? Participating in an after-school program teaching students about sustainable food choices and environmental stewardship? Going downtown on a schoolday to protest dirty coal and other detrimental practices? That's all action. And those are all real projects with real people. That's doing something right then and there to make a difference. And next quarter, we will be renewing these areas of the environmental scene at our school.

And the lead-up to BotB, which I've already talked about. It's going to be awesome.

Soooooo! It's not too late to join!. We meet every Wednesday and Thursday 6 pm in 002A. Meeting this Wednesday, actually. Come join us. We want your opinion, thoughts, discussion, and energy. And blood. Just kidding. Oh, that's something else we'll look into- a membership push at the beginning of Winter quarter.

Hope everybody had a fantastic weekend with lots of food!

Liking this Law library,
Willy

No Trash Bash Debriefing: Part 2, food, entertainment, and atmosphere

Food. Entertainment. Atmosphere.

This year, we got food from Pockets. We had 200 portions of calzones with various flavors including vegetarian options! No issues from them. They were delivered promptly and without a hitch. Calling and ordering was also really easy, and they had a customer service guy over the weekend! Bless his heart. I actually didn't get to try any so I can't say anything about that. But I think lots of people said it was good. So yay!

There were issues I believe with some people taking more than one piece. That will just require more stringent monitoring from the food servers. There was quite the line, and I feel bad that not everybody got food. But then again, we only had a limited amount of money to spend on food, and I guess it just wasn't enough. Let's hope Annual Allocations gives us more for next year so y'all can have more food! Not much we could've done this year, as being in debt really sucks.

And once again, we think many people came primarily for the free food. We brainstormed some ways to ensure that those who came to NTB wanted food and to learn about environmental initiatives. Perhaps we can stagger the giving away of food. If stage 1 of food runs out at 8:30, people are going to have to wait till 9 to get more food. If that's the case, we'll have to mark people's hands or something so those without marks can get food. All of this does is to keep people around at our event where they will eventually go and talk to the oragnizations present. What do y'all think? Should we complicate things like that?

Another idea we had to make sure attendees did talk to our booths was for the booths to give out raffle tickets to people who engaged in conversation. We would then have a raffle prize drawing. This would work, but then it feels like an elementary carnival where you have to go find this and that and bring back a completed card to win a prize. We'll talk about this next year.

We also discussed having more diversity of food. Maybe some calzones, maybe some sandwiches, maybe some brownie or dessert things. And if we can just get more food, that would be nice, too. But once again, it's up to Annual Allocations.

The music, in my opinion, was excellent. Getting acapella groups to come brought their fans to come out, which increased attendance. They also performed beautifully. And I think it was Ransom Notes that dressed in green? Yaaaay! Although you could only hear if you were sitting in the couch/chair area, I don't think that was a big issue. Just get closer! And I believe for the later groups, we figured out they could use the microphone for solos. Lakesigns was amazing. Perhaps we can open with them next time? They're pretty friendly, and maybe we can see if they want to play for Battle of the Bulbs opening ceremony. After Lakesigns, Rahul and Gene had some technical difficulties, but everything turned out fine in the end. They actually went after the 10 pm deadline we had on the room. Ah well.

I believe the tie-dyeing station also was successful. Props to Hannah for figuring and managing all of that. Several people brought in their own t-shirts to be colorified. And we even sold one BotB shirt, too! Woohoo. It was interactive and substantive and provided something different from most study breaks.

The handmade notebooks were going well until the staplar was acting up. And because the staplar had an $80 deposit on it, we didn't want to risk anything. Maybe we can invest in our own big staplar? We'll consider it. Although I dunno if we have that much cash to spend on staplars. =/

I thought the overall environment was really festive. The line for food was satisfying for some reason, although it has two sides. People knew about the event and the free food waiting for them, and they were willing to stand in line for it. Free food is really attractive. That's the negative. The positive is that so many people actually heard about our event and wanted to stand in line for the free food. They heard about our event before the actual event and thus weren't passerbys. The line actually reminded me of a club or something. You know how bouncers are told to make a line so the club looks like the hottest attraction of the night. Something like that. I really don't have much of an idea.

Inside, it was loud and exciting. There were people chatting, people talking, people learning about the different booths. Also thanks to Jefferson and some others for getting people to sign postcards to Illinois's senators urging them to vote yes on climate change legislation. Just a lot of activity in the room. I'm pretty sure at every moment somebody was doing something. Agree?

If there's anything I missed, please leave a comment or something! Check out our pictures at our facebook fan page. And be a fan of us in the process :)

Oh, and it turns out my notebook was in my backpack the whole time. -_-

Gonna take a nap soon,
Willy

Community Service Opportunity

Like Science? Well, we've got just the thing for you, then. (I assume you answered yes. If not, still read on, though.)

Come and judge the Till School's Science Fair on Tuesday, December 8. It takes place from 9:30 until 12:30. The Till School is located on 6543 S Champlain Ave (Go on 65th, two blocks west of Cottage Grove.) This is an immediate way to reach out to the local youth without any preparation.

Interested? Call Tom Ziencina, a Till School science teacher, at (773) 535-0701. (Or informant, Dorothy Pytel, reminds us that there will of course be incentives, like pizza...)

No Trash Bash Debriefing: Part 1, Goals, Booths, and Results

Hey y'all, Sorry it's taken this long to put up final thoughts about No Trash Bash. Even more apologies for not putting up other stuff, too. November's been a rather slow month. Don't worry though! Stuff will pick up as Winter break approacheth. And to start off this marathon blogging spree (there's going to be a lot of stuff, hopefully), we will recap and debrief No Trash Bash. I use the word "stuff" a lot; I'll stop. I think that there is enough material out there to divide up our debriefing into 3 sections. First up is a talk about goals, booths, and results. The second post will discuss food, entertainment, and general atmosphere. Thirdly, we will examine improvements we could've made and future ideas that were brought up post-NTB. This post is about the first topic. Our major goal for No Trash Bash was to increase awareness of environmental projects, initiatives, and organizations both on and off campus.

To achieve this, we decided to portray this event as a serious cause (education about environmental initiatives) in a not so serious environment (food, music and informalness). This would attract more people but still preserve the integrity of the event. Compared to last year, I'd say more people attended this year. Attendance-wise, we met our goals (it was pretty crowded) and improved from last year.

I honestly do not know how much students learned from NTB. There was no way we could force students to talk to our booths, and no way to record those who did. This also brings up a question. Should we force students to talk and engage with the booths? We definitely would like students to come on their own and become interested in the environment on their own initiative. But then, sometimes all it takes is a little push. That's something we'll explore for next year.

We also only relied on booths for providing information. Last year, we provided some handouts about how to lead a green lifestyle and stuff like that. This year, I don't believe we gave enough passive information to the attendees, passive information being things people could learn about without going and talking to others (handouts, constantly running ppt presentation, etc.). Actually, here are the links to GCI and ECO talking points I typed up. They aren't inclusive, but they give a pretty good overview.

Another goal was reminding people about the mentalities required to adopt an environmentally-friendly lifestyle. We had composting, recycling, and compostable utensils. By making all these options the students' only options, we hoped to direct attention to these relatively simple methods to make a difference. While there wasn't a representative spouting recycling facts and composting tips, I believe having these opportunities opened peoples' eyes. The tie-dyeing of t-shirts and notebook making also added to the "re-use" mentality, and I'm pretty sure those managing these stations emphasized this value.

This year we got rid of the "green" tips. Personally, I think stressing such things like "turn off your lights!" or "don't use trays!" have their uses, but they can make us appear insignificant and not a legitimate environmental force. Don't get me wrong, such reminders are crucial to implementing a lifestyle change. But there are bigger fish to fry. I still think that we could've added them as another component to our environmentally friendly lifestyle part of NTB.

We also intended for attendees to leave with a better appreciation of the community's efforts in sustainability and the environment. Only the Washington Park Conservancy and organizers working on the Community Garden came out. We wanted more, such as the HPKCC Environmental Sustainability Task Force, to come out. Unfortunately, we started the process late and they never replied. I believe we did not do an adequate job of incorporating the community into NTB. Thus, those who attended did not have a good idea of what our community is doing. We'll have to work on that for next year.

How did we do on outreach to other RSOs? We definitely had a good group, with Outdoor Adventure Club, Veg Society, and the Southside Solidarity Network. Thanks for coming out! Still, I think we could have attracted more groups. We did start a little bit late, and for next year, we'll start contacting folks earlier. We definitely have something to build on, though.

How did GCI do overall? I believe all those who attended knew it was us who put on the event. That may sound obvious, but it is something that must be accounted for. I still think we could've hammered the point home with lots of GCI signs, GCI mentionings, and GCI swag.

Did we come off as a legitimate, active RSO? I believe so. It's only the first quarter, so nobody is expecting great changes to emerge. But the event overall was well run, and we at least came off as competent. But due to GCI's nature, an organization defined by effects and results, we must build off of this event to accomplish those concrete changes/projects.

We also showed ourselves that we can pull off a major event that required quite a diverse task list. I'm proud proud proud of us, and we all deserve a pat on the back. Let's take this and do awesomer things next quarter.

T-shirt design contest

Real quick, we've entered into a t-shirt design contest sponsored by Mac Property Management. The design must have the Mac logo. Everything else is up to us.

If we get the most votes, we win lots and lots of goodies. Lots and lots of goodies. So please e-mail me wwgu44@gmail.com for more information.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Willy

P.S. More posts are coming during this break. Be ready.