Kitchen Cabinet Meeting Minutes April 2017

Kitchen Cabinet

April 10, 2017

Steve Kjellgren, Paul Matzke, Jessica Braun, Brady Kelley, Chuck Niederriter, Alan Meier, Erin Baumann, Gwen Saliares, Lisa Heldke, Jen Donkin, Jeri Miller, Molly Yunkers, Patrick Neri, Jim Dontje

New faces

• CICE & Facilities – not present
• Can students to represent?

Around the table – show & tell

Steve – BBQ celebrating international students – recommended by Paul Estenson

• Possibly next fall activity
• Will get a committee of students together to work with Steve to find funding and determine menu that would represent the international students
• This would be a good time to celebrate our international students

Brady – May 6 final Hill Crew event – faculty & employee appreciation event

• Volleyball team is going to Nicaragua – help support their trip

Chuck – April 29 climate March

• April 20 sustainability Fair

 

Erin & Gwen – The Greens in campaign earth days every day

• Tips to be sustainable on campus
• Trivia event

• Sponsoring bus to go to March for Science (April 22) – $5 per person
  • If interested let Erin or Gwen know
• All Campus Trash Pick Up April 23rd
  • Will be 1 hour (10-11am)
• Bus is going to the Climate March April 29
  • Looking for donations to sponsor a student
  • Have 50 spots on the bus
• April 19 – Kitchen Cabinet Conversation
  • Meatless meal taste test – including a meatless meal on the menu that day & vote for favorite

Jim – Composter is down

• Plan to get a spare gear box to be prepared for future problems
• At this point it is going to the garbage or being stockpiled
• Greens starting up in the greenhouse, students learning more about where food comes from

Molly – Fair Trade – new items in the store

• New chocolates coming in
• Fair Trade group has not met this semester – looking for more students
  • Hoping to do a clothing swap this spring

Alan – Supports the International students BBQ

• Will see soon impact on admissions of international students

Waste stream container project – Cargill – Steve

• Recycle Away– Broker lines of trash cans, recycling bins
  • Manager is mother of a current student
• Suggested line hopefully in our price range
• They will be sending some mock-ups of systems
  • Trash
  • Gustie Ware
  • Single Sort
  • Compost – need more manpower to be successful
• When we get the mock-ups will pull group together to discuss what will work well here
• Jim D. Has been starting a change with faculty to make composting a norm at their meetings
• Some staffing issues on whose work is to do the composting
• $140-160,000 for whole campus
• Start in first year student dorms
• $30,000 grant was awarded from Cargill to get this started

Planning April 20^th Sustainability Fair

• Greens table
• Kitchen cabinet table
• Possible student posters
• Use composting poster
• Molly – Renew – display products made from Coke bottles
• Chuck – Energy bike
  • Will also request TV’s to display digital data
• Have someone from Interfaith Power and Light (affordable solar) have display?
• Erin – Big Hill Farm – there is a poster in the shed that can be used
  • There may be some food from the Greenhouse to display
• Lisa – Nobel 2018 – Dirt/soil – Can make a poster announcing “Living Soil a Universe Under Foot”
  • Discussion groups going on campus
  • Reading in Common will be connected to the Nobel topic
    • Looking for book that will be a good connection
  • Still looking for a speaker who can talk to PhD’s as well as farmers
  • Will be able to invite places that have Ag programs
  • Question was posed how to keep the information from Nobel in the forefront after the Conference is done
• Climate coalition board – Working on getting bus to D.C for April 29^th
  • Has a small poster that would be used
  • Contact Laura Triplett & Lydia Hayes

Nobel 2018 – Dirt / Soil – Update & supporting activities?

• This summer – Sneak peek preview
  • Friday night – Sunday noon
  • Start learning more about the Nobel conference topics
  • Adults
  • Student hosts will be invited to attend
  • Open for registration
• Preview event will happen beginning of August – at Minneapolis Women’s club
  • Theater of public policy – Improvisational theater
  • T2B2 will be doing an event that evening at the conference

Survey summary discussion – Steve

• Picked 6 peer institutions to compare their data to ours
• We did well, and the survey suggests some perception deficits that we can direct resources toward.

 

Next Meeting – May 8^th – Compost Shed – Big Hill Farm