Greetings and Happy New Year wonderful members of Sustainable Cobourg!
SOOO much has been going on since our awesome AGM! So first of all, thank you to all of you who were able to attend and help us celebrate our 10th, yes….10th Anniversary. Ketch’s Korner really impressed us with their fabulous array of tasty treats and it was so beautifully presented.
We’ll have the minutes of the AGM available in a few weeks. That brings me to rolling out the exciting news for 2019. First and foremost is the Town’s and our Mayor and CAO’s commitment to creating and sharing the cost for a Sustainability Officer! This person will be shared between Northumberland County and the Town of Cobourg. Of course we are all over this and have already interviewed the Mayor about his concept of how this position will work. So if any of you are interested in how this develops please join our Town Hall Committee of which I am presently the chair.
Secondly we were thrilled to be invited to co-host the “Fireside Chat on Sustainability” at Venture 13 last Thursday January 24th. The moderator, our own, Jayne Finn, (Vice President), moved the conversation along expertly and really engaged the public. Outstanding panelists were Nicole Beatty a new councillor and well known for her work with community organizations and events like ‘Cultivate’, Tony Armstrong of Headwaters Farm, and Juliette Deal our newest member and waste management expert. She, by the way, will be chairing our Food Action Committee…food=compost, right. Her knowledge and background are very impressive and we hope to support Northumberland’s implementation of ‘composting’ in September through Dan Orr who worked miracles with regards to WASTE at the Rib Fest with the collaboration of Rotary. If any of you are interested in joining her committee please let me know.
If you got last Thursday’s paper (how lucky are we to still get one!) the very first page is ‘Town of Cobourg NEWS’ . There you will find the ‘open to the public’ events that you can participate in and this is a great opportunity to watch your new councillors and the TEAM in action and contribute your point of view as a citizen.
Of course Sustainable Cobourg will be making several Delegations and if you are interested please contact me and I’ll fill you in.
Speaking of Delegations, our hats are off to our friends and colleagues at Blue Dot. Faye McFarlane lead the troops to confront so many municipalities about the environmentally destructive ‘Schedule 10’ of Bill 66 which had already gone through First Reading on December 6th! I sat in support when she presented to Hamilton Township and was so encouraged to hear the positive responses from their Council. Well when the Premier rescinded that part of the Bill we knew the real meaning of ‘government for the people’.
Lastly, if you are interested in working with Jayne on our ‘Student Sustainability Champions’ award please let her know. This is the award for student projects to demonstrate innovative ways to redefine ‘WASTE’ so it isn’t! Our amazing presenter, Liz Benneian, Executive Director and Manager, Environmental Education at Ontariogreen, helped with our kick-off last September with a number of High Schools and elementary schools. You can check out the report in our last Newsletter ‘Now@SC” from our website.
And speaking of students….we have our first ever Student Director ! She is Emma Zolty and is a true environmental champion.
Always interested in your thoughts and issues…so don’t be a stranger and PLEEESE don’t forget to renew your membership.
Thanks, and Blessings to you and yours,