Show Me Sustainability Conference 2010

DEBRIEF NOTES FROM THE CONFERENCE

ajpaige66 — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:06:29 +0000

DEBRIEF SUMMARY OF THE CONFERENCE
AWESOMENESS
1.SKILLS TRAINING.
a. FACILITAION TAUGHT A LOT, VERY USEFUL AND PRACTICAL TO TAKE BACK TO CAMPUSES
b. BRINGING THE SPROGGERS IN FOR WORKSHOPS AND SHARING THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THEY LEARNED
c. HEARING FROM AWESOME YOUNG SPEAKERS GAVE MOTIVATION TO THE CONFERECE GOERS
d. KATY MIKE’S PRESENTATION- EXPERIENCE DRIVEN, NOT FOCUSED ON SUBSTINENCE. RELATES TO REAL LIFE
e. HAVING FLOW CHARTS THAT PEOPLE CAN TAKE WITH THEM AND USE.
f. BRINGING ENERGY INTO THE WORKSHOPS GIVES THE PARTICIPANTS ENERGY
2. KEYNOTE HAVING A VARIED BACKGROUND SO THAT THEY CAN RELATE TO MANY
3. HAVING NON-MAJOR UNIVERSITIES ATTENDING
4. MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC
5. HAVING AN INTERNATIONAL PRESENTER GIVES A GREAT PERSPECTIVE ON WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND THE GLOBE
6. STREAM CLEAN ACTIVITY. IT LETS PEOPLE GET OUT OF THE ROOM AND KEEP THEM ACTIVE. CHANGE OF ATMOSPHERE.
7. LOGISTICS FOR NEEDS WERE COVERED (FOOD ETC.)
8. HAVING A RELAXED TIMELINE, HAVING THE DOWNTIME TO TALK, NETWORK, AND DEBRIEF
9. KEEPING THE LAYOUT SIMPLE. LIKED THE A, B, C STRUCTURE OF THE WORKSHOPS
10. POSSIBLY MORE OF A ENGINEER FOR WORKSHOPS.
a. EXPAND THAT IDEA TO MORE MAJOR SPECIFIC WORKSHOPS IN GENERAL
11. MSEC WAS MORE INTEGRALLY INVOLVED IN THE CONFERNECE.
12. THE EXPO WAS GREAT
a. HAD VARIED VENDORS
b. HAVING THOSE COMPANIES WHO YOU MIGHT NOT OTHERWISE KNOW ABOUT THEIR SUSTAINABLE EFFORTS

SLIGHTLY LESS THAN AWESOMENESS
1. NEEDED EXPO TABLE FOR CLEAN ENERGY
2. GIVING MORE INFO ABOUT THE WORKSHOPS SO THE PARTICIPNTS CAN CHOOSE BETTER. THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN BOTH ON THE WEBSITE AND THE PROGRAM AT THE CONFERENCE.
3. MORE FLOOR SLEEPING, STAYING WITH CONFERENCE GOERS. ADVERTISE SPECIFICALLY WHERE IT WILL HAPPEN AS FAR PRIOR TO THE EVENT AS POSSIBLE. MAYBE HAVE AN OPTION FOR PEOPLE FROM THE AREA WHO ARE PARTICIPATING IN THE CONFERENCE TO CHECK IF THEY ARE INTERESTED IN HELPING WITH THIS WHEN THEY REGISTER
4. HAVING MORE OF A SOCIAL EVENTS TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM LEAVING AT NIGHT
5. STARTING A LITTLE LATER
a. PUSH WORKSHOPS BACK INTO THE NIGHT POSSIBLY
b. PUT SOCIAL/NIGHT ACTIVITIES AND MEALS TOGETHER
6. CONDENSING WORKSHOPS. POSSIBLY SHORTER WORKSHOPS BUT MORE OF THEM
7. GIVING THE SAME WORKSHOPS MULTIPLE TIMES
8. FOOD SITUATION NEEDS TO BE THOUROUGHLY THOUGHT THROUGH. MAKING THE PROCESS A CLOSED CIRCUIT
a. POSSIBLE SPOTLIGHT MEAL, POSSIBLY GOING OFF CAMPUS
b. ADVERTISING FARMERS OF THE FOOD
9. ADVERTISING THE BRING YOUR OWN UTINSILS
10. REMINDERS TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE REGISTERED ABOUT THE EVENT SO THAT THEY ACTUALLY ATTEND.
a. LOOK INTO CARPOOLING
11. AGENDA ON THE WEBSITE MORE OBVIOUS
12. HAVING AN OVER-ARCHING THEME AND ADVERTISING IT CLEARLY
13. HAVING MORE SMALL ACTIVITIES AND ICEBREAKERS I.E. THE BAKING EXPERIENCE
a. GROUP ACTIVITIES ARE GREAT ICEBREAKERS
b. ICEBREAKERS IN THE WORKSHOPS
14. WEBSITE UPDATES, EMAIL UPDATES, HAVE GREAT COMMUNICATION
15. KEEP THE KEYNOTE LOCAL POSSIBLY. KEEPS IT RELATABLE

OTHER ITEMS
1. WHERE TO HAVE THE NEXT CONFERENCE
a. KC WOULD BE GREAT. TRY TO KEEP THE CONFERENCE TO INVOLVE AS MANY CAMPUSES AS POSSIBLE
2. HAVING A SMS REGIONAL RETREAT ON MORE LOCAL SCALES ONCE A YEAR. THEN HAVE THE LARGER CONFERENCE LATER IN THE YEAR.
3. CONTACT CAMPUS NEWSPAPERS ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
4. CONTACT LISTS OUT BY NEXT WEEK

Registration ends this Friday!

ajpaige66 — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 18:18:24 +0000

Time is running out to sign up for the conference. Registration offically closes on October 8th. We have had great success at getting represenatives from all over the state. There is still time to get in on all that action and represent your campus. Grab and friend or a group of friends and meet us in Saint Louis on October 15th. We look forward to meeting you all at the conference.

Agenda for the conference

ajpaige66 — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:40:06 +0000

Click on the link below to check out the agenda for the conferece.

Agenda

This conference is going to ROCK!

ajpaige66 — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 17:28:19 +0000

StillLine has agreed to play October 15th at the conference. StillLine’s first gig dates back to the summer of 2005, in Champaign IL. The band has gone through many incarnations since then, but now has become a legit force in the Saint Louis music scene where they now reside.

Known for an energetic and charismatic live show, StillLine is a band that thrives on it’s crowd interaction. Whether that crowd is twenty people strong or two thousand people strong you are guaranteed to get a passionate and exciting show from this press labeled “Old School” rock band. You can learn more about the band at on their facebook and myspace pages.

ALSO…..

Saturday night we will have the opportunity to listen to the awesome music of “Last to Show, First to Go”. Check out their website lasttoshowfirsttogo.com to hear some tracks.

The conference goes global

ajpaige66 — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 01:30:15 +0000

We are very excited to announce that Chevy Hiceta from Phillipines will be joining us at the conference. She is currently teaching English at the University of St. La Salle – Integrated School.

She is also finishing her MA in Education Major in English at the University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos; her thesis is about the preferred learning styles of Grade Six pupils in the University of St. La Salle – Integrated School.

Chevy is one of the pioneering spirits of the Greenheart Hermitage, instrumental in crafting the Educational Programs of the organization; from the classroom to the barangay levels. Notably, her study on the student participation for environmental action, is an ecological course guide for the schools in the Province of Negros Occidental.

Outside of her teaching profession, she serves as the Director of the Educational Programs of the Greenheart Hermitage. The scope of her work in the organization is creating and enhancing developmental programs in the sphere of eco-educational initiatives.

Kicking off the conference

ajpaige66 — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:46:34 +0000

This year, we are kicking off the conference with a Sustainability Expo on the Maryville campus. It will include Green businesses from the St. Louis area as well as other organizations. This will give conference participants a chance to interact with these businesses and organizations, and possibly provide resources and ideas for people to take back to their campuses. This event will take place from 3:30 to 7pm on October 15th. Following the expo, we will have a Green BBQ for everyone. This will give people a chance to relax and get to know people from other campuses. If you would like to suggest any business or organizations to attend the expo, or if you have a request for the menu at the BBQ, just email us at showmesustainability@gmail.com.

Fall Keynote Speaker!!!

ajpaige66 — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:44:54 +0000

We are very excited to announce that Kate Gasner will be the keynote speaker at the conference. At the age of 23, Kate has done a lot and she is excited to share her passion about the promising and pressing opportunities in better managing our water resources. Kate recently graduated from Yale University where she studied Environmental Engineering and led environmental advocacy groups on campus. As director of the Student Taskforce for Environmental Partnership, she implemented campus-wide campaigns for energy conservation and waste reduction while raising awareness of environmental issues as a priority for the University.

As co-chair of the Yale Student Environmental Coalition, she worked to inspire student environmental advocacy and create community around environmental interests.Water resource issues have captivated Kate’s interest since high school. At Yale, her studies focused on water quality, culminating in a study to demonstrate how a treatment plant policy loophole affected river water quality in Connecticut. In 2008, Kate was a Sustainability Exchange Fellow at the University of Copenhagen and then a research assistant at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, studying the effects of river restoration on ground water dynamics.

Since graduating, Kate worked with The Artemis Project to rate the best water technology businesses. She is currently planning the upcoming Water Energy Nexus prize for ImagineH2O, an organization that works to stimulate and support innovation in water.

The fall conference is aproaching fast

Sustain Mizzou — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 00:58:05 +0000

The conference may seem like it is far away, but summer time ticks away much faster than normal. Mizzou has done an amazing job in the past. It is now up to Maryville University to pick up where they left off. We are still in the planning stages, but already the excitement is growing in anticipation. Stay tuned for more details!

2010 Powerpoints

Sustain Mizzou — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 00:26:28 +0000

These are some of the powerpoints presented at the 2010 Conference.

http://showmesustainability.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

Climate Change Education and Action at Truman State

Getting High School Students Involved

Sustaining a Student Sustainability Movement 2010 Show-Me Sustainability presentation by EarthWays & STL-HESC

Conference Debrief

Sustain Mizzou — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 18:46:18 +0000

2010 Conference Debrief

Show Me Sustainability Conference

Connect Learn Lead

What worked—what didn’t work—what you liked—what you didn’t like—suggestions

Spring semester vs fall semester- benefit earlier in spring semester or even in the fall semester so that students can be empowered and have time to start up projects/get people involved in their campuses
- Fall- later in the fall so you can encourage freshmen to come
  - Inform and encourage freshmen during orientation week
Spring- awakening time with better weather and high hopes J
Contact res life and community colleges when advertising
- Contact student success centers and career centers
- Tell everyone you know- have a page on the website for people to put orgs at their schools to contact
- Truman- res life
- Promote at other student conferences
- Have MSEC contact people from each school to promote the conference on their campus
- Nice to have high school students to get their perspective and let them see what’s up in college
  - Parent’s may not want them to go
  - Under 18- travel across the state to stay with college students…hmmm
  - Start out encouraging Columbia high school kids
  - Look at other youth conferences and see what they do
    - Have an advisor take them to the conference to introduce them to this
Scholarship to bring top environmental students to the conference
Keynote- good that he was out of school for a while and had a different perspective
Presentations- all students that can relate to each other and have common goals
Send out a list of things to bring via website and e-mail and facebook, etc.

Theme of the conference for next year
1. Keep the conference presentations and panels under one broad sustainability aspect so it stays open to as many people as possible who’d like to share their ideas/experiences
2. Presentations
  1. Have an hour for people to come up and talk for 5/10 minutes instead of them having to talk for 45 minutes
  2. Have several themes and have panels talk about these throughout the weekend
    1. i. Failures
Have a balance of panels and presentations
1. i. Presentations would focus on more specific “how-to’s” and details
  1. Recruiting new members
  2. Getting access to financial resources
  3. Leadership development
  4. Managing crisis
  5. Poster sessions for people to present their research
2. ii. Panels would focus on general sustainability ideas
  1. Crisis panel!- fight, someone tries to take over the org, everyone in the org are seniors, when’s it time to let the org die?
3. iii. Trainings
4. Food
  1. Good variety, local, thumbs up
  2. Compostable vs reused plates and silverware and cups
    1. i. Next year- everyone bring your own things to eat off of and eat with
    2. ii. Increase cost of conference by $5 or so and we’ll provide their plates and forks and at end of conference we’ll give them their $5 back if they return their plates.
    3. Schedule
      1. Good with bulk of presentations on Saturday and still have some Sunday to keep people around
      2. Social activities
        
        Baking activity- nice to meet people in small groups and make your own food
        
        Learn to bake
        
        Would be nice to have a chill hang out time for people to relax and talk w/o structure
        
        Networking opportunities
        
        Provide a resource booklet for all of the attendees with
        
        i.     Contact info for all attendees
        
        ii.     Graduation dates, interests, “I’m interested in learning more about___”
        
        iii.     Need and give list for each attendee
        
        iv.     What environmental orgs are at the different universities that they can contact
OR send people to MSEC website for info
Activity- time for people to split up and talk about one of six topics to discuss.
Quality of shared ideas overall
Diversity of attendees- number of schools represented
1. Focus on universities, community colleges, etc.
2. Tabling
  1. Good to inform students to bring a table
  2. Lower the price so it’s much more affordable for students to share
    1. i. Give a presentation and their fee will be reduced
    2. ii. Students could give a campus showcase and have shifts for people to be at the table- shares ideas with other students
Different prices for businesses, non-profits, youth orgs and student orgs
It’d be nice to have an opportunity to share success and failure stories
1. i. Panel w/ a rep from each campus (or rep from each project) to discuss these issues and ideas
2. ii. Rather than having workshops focus on these
Nice to have a chance to talk to people who have recently entered the “real” world
1. i. Talk about non-profits, environmental businesses and non-profits

10. Post Conference

Provide overviews of ALL of the presentations
1. i. Have presenters write a 100 word abstract about their talk

11. Accommodation

Provide info for students to couch surf, stay at hotels, friends, etc.
Encourage relationships and community growth

12. Space

Seating at tables for eating
Nice to have big tables for people to sit around

What’d you learn?!

You’re not alone!

Get charged up again to act

Enjoyed different perspectives of situations

Do you have any more suggestions, comments, ideas, concerns? Let us know by commenting on this post!