Speech Celebrates 18th Anniversary

by Janine Gates

March marks the 18th anniversary of SPEECH's non-profit incorporation. What a thrill it was to mark the occasion late last month at our annual meeting! A good time was had by all - SPEECH founders, former presidents, board members, volunteers, members and those who have just recently heard about SPEECH!

We elected and re-elected board members Joanne McCaughan, Jeanine McGann, Jeff Mocniak, Mark Bergeson and myself, and thanked former board members Keith Cotton, Erica Guttman, Paul Allen, Abby Brown and Kara Tebeau for their service. Thank you Walt Jorgenson for taping the evening for posterity!

The bulk of the evening was devoted to giving those who came an opportunity to share their interests, local concerns, announce upcoming events and make connections. Green paper "leaves" were handed out to folks, upon which was written, "What do you think South Sound's environmental priorities should be?" The responses were great and are posted on our web site at http://www.oly-wa.us/greenpages Personal connections were made, and many people stayed, talking in small groups, until 9:00 pm. Thank you all for coming!

And what was the mysterious, free, "green" gift that SPEECH dangled as a teaser to get people to come to our party? Mid-way through the program, I asked Peter and Gita Moulton to come up on stage and surprised them with green SPEECH T-shirts, in their exact sizes, no less! Peter, a well-known T-shirt hunter/gatherer, was, well, speechless!

SPEECH thanked Peter and Gita for having the energy and vision to establish SPEECH and ensure the organization would have deep roots. Everyone who came also received a shirt, in their size, ranging from small to extra, extra large! We hope to see many of them being worn as the weather warms up this spring.

And yes, the shirts are green in more ways than one. The t-shirts were locally silk-screened by Jason Donnette and his company, Casual Tee, and made in exchange for ad space in the South Sound Green Pages. A win-win situation for both of us! They are climate-neutral, and produced by a company, Earth Positive, that is a member of the Netherlands-based Fair Wear Foundation. While we can't offer free ad space often, we do appreciate Jason's willingness to make this arrangement with SPEECH.

Especially for our anniversary, SPEECH also made a huge poster of our tree logo and glued green leaves with SPEECH photos found in the files of folks who have helped SPEECH grow over the years. What fun! Look for this display at future community events. As we continue to grow and thrive, we hope you will get involved with SPEECH's projects and activities. Chances are that if you do, you too will be a "leaf" on a future SPEECH tree that we'll look back on, another 18 years from now!

"What do you think South Sound's environmental priorities should be?"

Lobby for necessary changes in land development problems (65 - zero) to save our streams and Puget Sound;

Lobby for the Olympia City Council to seriously address the sea level rise issue;

Organize SPEECH members and friends to testify before local city council and county commissioners weekly to urge them to act on priority environmental issues;

Continue Green Pages with a push for word of mouth advertising to increase support. Continue wonderful work!;

Keep up Green Pages - it's great!;

Ending sprawl;

Support/facilities/education for walking and bicycling in all of Thurston County/South Sound;

Quality urban development/density;

End sprawl and resource wasteful development;

Engage analysis of causes of climate change, specifically, things regular folks can do to help - home retrofit for energy efficiency and vegetarianism;

Water clean-up, green transportation, keep green building and keep up with technical progress;

Create an alternative and holistically sustainable economic model. Be radical, be out front, pay it forward. Think in terms of future generations. Promote fundamental economic change and true ecological sustainability;

Climate change and local transportation policy - peak oil; preparing the community for the coming oil shortages, including local food security; building a fire under city council so they start talking climate change;

Pure water;

Sustainable agriculture;

Outreach to local and regional environmental organizations to acquire information about their activities and media materials which could be on display at your new office;

Electing a green Olympia city council by a review of votes and interviews; revise Hearing Examiner provisions at Olympia and county;

Deschutes River;

Organic food, clean air, clean cars;

Publicly financed campaigns are needed to ensure that big money can't buy political influence excessively;

Massive reforestation, water, urban ecological agriculture using people from jails (rehabilitation), Thurston County Food Bank;