GROUP MISSION STATEMENT: To explore, enjoy and protect the planet. To practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources; to educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out those objectives.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES/VISION:
Anyone can join, everyone can contribute. The only requirements for membership are a desire to build a world which is equitable and sustainable and to abide by our Guiding Principles. Continued membership means practicing our shared principles and holding a role in our community. It is the responsibility of everyone involved to help maintain the integrity of our work by communicating directly with anyone who is acting against our shared principles.
We each commit to holding our roles, and training others when we step aside. We recognize that others depend on us and the roles that we hold within the network. We commit to sharing the wisdom and experience by offering our successors the chance to observe, shadow, and apprentice before stepping into a role. We understand that life happens; if any of us need to step out of a role unexpectedly, we make a priority of communicating clearly with our Teammates and fellow Community members, and doing everything we can to help identify someone to step into our role.
We are building a new world, not just tearing down an existing one. The transition to clean energy is deeper than a solar panel on a rooftop or an electric car on the road. We prioritize and advocate for solutions that give communities political, economic, and electrical ownership over their energy so that our communities may thrive through a changing climate. The vision we seek will grow through the cracks in the sidewalks of the crumbling systems that surround us.
We are constantly learning, and support each other’s freedom to be creative and break down barriers. We see learning as a key tool for personal and collective liberation. Our community engages in popular education and mass training to foster our personal and interpersonal transformation - ensuring that each of us has the tools and knowledge needed to do the work at hand. We are also committed to trying new things - even if they might not work, or the exact impacts are unknown. We are equally committed to learning from what we try, and amplifying what is serving us and releasing joyfully what is not.
Diversity leads to resiliency. We actively honor, welcome, and celebrate people from all backgrounds.We know that surviving and thriving through a changing climate will not happen when voices are silenced or excluded. We strive to foster a diverse, inclusive movement that supports those who join, lifts up the voices of those who have historically been silenced, and prioritizes strategies that help to right historical wrongs.
Our struggles are all connected. We know that we cannot survive and thrive through a changing climate while there continues to be discrimination and oppression. That is why we act in solidarity with our allies in other movements - creating a just and sustainable world together regardless of class, race, gender, creed, sexuality, ability, or nationality.
We prioritize leadership from the young people who will be living in the future we are creating, and honor the wisdom of those who have come before us. Creating transformational change will be a multigenerational struggle. We believe that those who are seen as the future should also be key leaders in shaping it.
We speak with many voices, communicate with many languages, and think with many minds. No one may speak on behalf of the network, but we encourage everyone to speak out in support of issues and actions that fit our Guiding Principles, and call on others to follow their example. In our work, leadership is a practice not a position--we lead by example. We continually create, edit, and share materials across the network to meet the distinct needs of our communities.
We prioritize deep relationships over task. We build strong, rooted relationships with each other before entering into the difficult work to be done. We commit to investing in those relationships as a priority through thick and thin.
We believe in the power of reciprocity and the resourcefulness of our movement. Reciprocity is the fabric that holds our network together. We share what we have, equitably and generously, not expecting something in return. We distribute authority, ownership, resources, and responsibility across the network in an effort to model the just and equitable world we seek to build. When a need arises, we turn to each other for support and guidance. To do this, we practice the Advice Process to guide our decisions with the collective wisdom of our Community. Among us, we know we have the tools and resources we need to win. They are in our minds, our hearts, our hands, and our networks of friends and family
We value truth and recognize that seeing truth can be scary. We commit to uncovering truth together, and holding each other with love as we look at it with courage and challenge ourselves to close the gap between where we are and where we want to go. We know truth comes in different packages. We hold truth learned through lived experience alongside that obtained through academic expertise.
We organize in a community that is life-giving --deeply valuing art, song, culture, and creation in telling our story. We take time to celebrate success, and appreciate one another as we do the work that’s needed to win. We recognize the spiritual and strategic role creative storytelling plays by uniting us to form community across county, state, and country lines.
Through strategic, nonviolent action, we believe we will win. We follow the historic tradition of nonviolent, collective action. We recognize and water the seeds of compassion in ourselves and each other along the path to liberation. We commit to practicing nonviolence, and to call-in any members of our network who advocate or use violence.
SPECIAL AREAS OF FOCUS/CONCERN:
A few of the conservation issues of concern to our Group's members include Ice Age Trail work around the Chippewa Moraine, Lower Chippewa River habitat preservation, power plant siting, ORV damage, municipal incinerators, smart growth, light pollution, Eau Claire River habitat protection, landfill over-usage, conservation farming, Hoffman Hills protection, ethanol plants, and wetland preservation. Right now, we are really trying to eliminate the Canadian Pipeline in Wisconsin; more specifically, we are encouraging constituents to contact their Wisconsin representative about policy changes.
GROUP MEMBERS/CONTACT:
Chair: Caryn Treiber | (715) 684-9374 | [email protected]
Vice Chair/Treasurer: Margo Miller | (715) 835-4549 | [email protected]
Secretary/Conservation: Jeremy Gragert | (612) 220-1970 | [email protected]
Political/JMC Delegate: Caryn Treiber
Events/Earthgreen/Population: Paul Ebel | (651) 335-8759 | [email protected]
ExComm Member: Jane Schley | (715) 834-2864 | [email protected]
Programs: Emily Lind | (715) 828-6565 | [email protected]
CV Sierra Clubs has around 500-600 total members, and about 30 are very active.
MEETING TIMES:
They meet 7-8PM on the first Wednesday of every month (Sept. to Nov. with a break for summer). Our meeting place is the meeting room in the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Eau Claire (421 S Farwell St, Eau Claire, WI 54701).
The last hiking event for Spring 2018 is Sunday, May 6th. Contact Caryn Treiber above for more information.
