Litter Committee Minutes
August 13, 2003

Present: Ed Murtagh, Bill Erwin, Liz Brady, Marty Ittner, and Sally Gagné

TEE-SHIRTS

Marty has orders for 50 shirts. The Park’s Volunteer Office may order 20 more. The Friends treasury may then buy enough more shirts to bring the price down to a lower bracket. The closing date for orders is Sunday, August 17. They should arrive by Aug. 29 or after Labor Day.

PLANS FOR THE SWEEP

HELP STILL NEEDED FOR:

  • A second organizer for Sections 4,5
  • People to post flyers in libraries and grocery stores.

PLEASE VOLUNTEER!

At the August 27 MEETING with Sligo Stewards, Ed will pass out materials. These include:

  • Information sheets describing meetings, activities
  • One or two-gallon jugs of bottled water; paper cups. Ed will buy.
  • Cell phone information
  • Gloves and bags. Sally will get as many as possible from the Volunteer Office.
  • First Aid kits
  • Flyers, about 12 per section, with localized information about where to meet. Marty will look into buying colored paper.
    Stewards and some committee members will place flyers in local grocery stores and libraries.
  • 1-3 frogs per section, in seal-lock bags, as prizes for kids
  • 4 additional poles for long reaches – Ed will buy.
  • Red flags to warn of stinging insects, etc. – Ed will buy.
  • Photos of poison ivy – Sally will look into this.
  • Clipboards, two per steward. Sally will buy these.
  • Pens – Sally will buy some.
  • Anti-bacterial hand wipes. Ed will purchase one box per section.

Ed will also work out the table situation, and we’ll use picnic tables as needed.

Prizes: Bill suggests more this year. We’ll probably go with:

  • Most trash collected in a section (bags) – 1st, 2nd, 3rd prize
  • Most unusual trash collected by
    • someone over age 18 – 1st, 2nd, 3rd prize
    • age 18 or less – 1st, 2nd, 3rd prize
  • Heaviest single piece of trash
  • Most volunteers in a section – 1st, 2nd, 3rd prize
  • Youngest volunteer
  • Volunteer from farthest away from Sligo Creek

Frogs are to be placed by stewards where youngsters will find them.

We’ll take photos of winners to place on the website.

Celebration Event at 11:30
We will ask Jim to coordinate this effort. We’ll hold the event at Kennebec again this year.

SUMMIT FOUNDATION GRANT POSSIBILITY

We should contact the Park Department and probably DEP about expertise in what technology would be worth investing in for pilot projects to trap trash at outflows. Sally will contact Summit Foundation to obtain closing date for application.

LETTER ON TRASH BARREL POLICY

  • Ed has drafted a letter detailing sources of trash, but not solutions.
  • Barrels, or a site designation, are needed for trash picked up by volunteers.
  • Barrels are needed for dog waste – rather few people are willing to bring it home, we surmise.
  • We may ask stewards to list the major places barrels are needed, and to assess how close these are to the street for easy pick-up by the Park.