President's Message

By Janine Gates

Happy New Year! Like in one of my favorite movies, "It's A Wonderful Life," you don't realize how many friends you have until it's almost too late. Such was the case recently for SPEECH.

Without an active ad manager, we ran into cash flow issues and could not produce the October/November issue of the Green Pages. It costs us over $800 to produce each issue. As an organization, we also have basic organizational support needs, bills such us bulk mailing permits, office supplies and the telephone bill to cover each month. Board members and close volunteers financially contributed to squeak us through our basic needs.

Judging by the voice mails we received, we were missed. Then, local activist Jim Lazar showed up at our December board meeting and stunned us by pledging enough funding, $2,000, to produce not only this issue, but also another issue of the Green Pages. With his donation deposited into our account within the week, we were emotionally renewed. The finances bought us time to regroup, get started on this issue, train new volunteers, and mail a donation request letter. Thank you so much, Jim! And thank you Abby Brown, our new ad manager, for pulling in significant ad revenue for this issue. Please join us in thanking Jim, and those businesses that support SPEECH.

In response to our recent donation letter, sent out to current and prospective members, we have raised over $2,500 so far. Thank you! Many of you are picking up this issue in the community, so please, if you would like to contribute towards meaningful, local environmental conversation, donate to SPEECH now by going to our website and using our new PayPal button at www.speech-greenpages.org or use the slip provided in this issue. While we are also pursuing major funding support by local businesses and organizations, we need help from you — our readers — the most.

We know SPEECH and the Green Pages must operate sustainably. The ad revenue will help. We also decided to think outside the box, or, in our case, our box-of-an-office. To use our current and future donations wisely, we decided to close our downtown office, which will save us $290 a month office rent.

Our current board communicates frequently through lively group emails and meets regularly in each other's homes and at local businesses for meetings and production work, so the office will not be missed too much. Think of this as a way for us to reduce our carbon footprint!  In fact, our public service to you has already improved greatly as we quickly access our emails, phone messages, and mail service from our homes and our new downtown post office box.

Last year, we created a brand new website full of local environmental content, produced six issues of the Green Pages, created and showed off our public information display at several community events, and co-sponsored a port commissioner candidates' forum with the Black Hills Audubon Society. In 2008, we will continue to produce the Green Pages, give presentations to other local organizations about our group, network at events such as Green Drinks and actively moderate the locally popular Internet discussion group, EnviroTalk.

Technology has changed greatly since Gita, Peter, and Sue started SPEECH 18 years ago, and we must continually rethink the way we do business. Our website is a step in that direction. Please join us with your energy and ideas, and keep us in the loop with what you and your organization are doing.

On behalf of the SPEECH board and volunteers, and local community activists, thank you so much and we look forward to working with you in 2008!

Janine Gates is president of SPEECH and can be reached through her website at www.janinegatesphotography.com.