HomeMy WebLinkAboutMeeting Minutes_5-2-12 (2)Bozeman Climate Partners
Communications & Outreach Working Group
Meeting Minutes
May 2nd, 2012, 9:00am
Bozeman City Hall, City Commission Room
Members Attending:
Jeff Moore, Jay Sinnott, Nick Bentley, Kathy Powell,
Cyndy Andrus (Commission Liaison), Emily Baker (Energy Corps Member)
Staff Present:
Natalie Meyer (Staff Liaison)
1) Call to Order
2) Changes to the Agenda
a. None
3) Approval of Minutes
a. Motion to approve minutes from the 18th and 25th from Moore; seconded by
Bentley.
4) Public Comment
a. None
5) Logo Update
a. Bunkers is working on the logo designs now; a contact is being worked out between
Meyer, legal, and Bunkers.
b. Price adjustments might be possible if rounds of revisions go smoothly, and don’t
take up much time. However, with the many requirements of working with the city,
this might not be the case. Meyer is working with Bunkers on this.
6) Action Items
a. Website Development
i. Reviewed outline revisions from 4/18
1. Consolidation of water, waste, and food to one tab, based on smaller GHG
impact.
a. Bentley reaffirmed this move; group agreement.
ii. Website contract options
1. Went over the contract for the North 7th Urban Renewal Board, and looked at
their website to see the product delivered, for a price near $2k.
2. Website structure
a. Discussion of wordpress vs. html-built websites. Html is more expensive,
much more difficult to modify.
b. Bentley said wordpress is easily modifiable, and has a plethora of add-
ons, for everything from a wiki-functionality to carbon calculators. Since
it’s an open-source software, there are many, many options for add-ons.
c. Moore forwarded the idea of using the wordpress site as a base, and
adding interior pages (perhaps with html if needed) later on to build
database, or other more complex functionalities.
d. Domain Names
i. Meyer asked the group whether we want to use
bozemanclimatepartners.net, or something else.
ii. Group suggested we get all related names as well (.org, .gov. ,com…), to
prevent vampire-sites.
iii. Bentley reminded the group that the domain name is very important for
search engine optimization.
iv. Andrus mentioned that bozemanclimatepartners.com is long ; would we
think about changing the name to bozemanclimate.com?
1. Group discussion was mixed; good and bad to both options.
3. Content Structure
a. Meyer asked the group whether we thought we could agree on the
subheadings of content today.
b. Group discussed the length of the Climate Action Plan, and thought about
perhaps creating an executive summary that would be more digestible
(suggested by Moore and Andrus).
1. Meyer pointed out summary table of recommendations, but said
that a summary would be a useful thing to have for events, etc.
2. Baker suggested that the website could act as our summary –
making the CAP digestible, and in small enough chunks to
understand easily.
3. Bentley agreed that this is the explicit intention in creating the
website.
c. Authority
i. Meyer asked the group to consider whether we wish to style ourselves the
authorities on the various topics to be addressed, or focus more on
connecting people to local resources.
ii. Baker suggested soliciting content for the website from these local
“authority” groups, but didn’t know how we would select them.
d. Moore asked where we want to collect emails to push out info later.
e. Sinnott mentioned that Park City points people to its facebook pages.
f. Going back to the outline of website structure, Andrus asked for
clarification between 1d and 7 (both ‘be a partner’ sections).
i. Andrus though we should separate the ‘be a partner’ into 2 clear groups:
general citizens, vs. groups that can be resources for others (e.g.
SWIMBIA, MSU Extension).
ii. Sinnott voiced that he thought it was very important to recruit and enroll
partners.
g. Meyer clarified her vision in writing the outline: the 1d option would click
to the same page as 7; just a way for more people (general citizens) to
more easily see the ‘be a partner’ section.
h. Andrus asked the group to consider whether we should have a page
devoted to available grants (for solar, weatherization, etc; not funded by
city, simply linking citizens to available resources).
i. Baker thought we could embed in the relevant subsections (e,g. solar
grant in the solar subsection).
4. Updating Website
a. Group discussed the fact that updating and maintaining the site could be
a time-consuming project; Meyer agreed that this is true, and is what we
knew we were getting into in undertaking this project.
b. Discussed sustainability of project: who will maintain, how to reduce
efforts needed to maintain?
i. If news/ events/ updates are grouped, will make easier to update.
ii. Wordpress makes updates relatively painless.
5. Summary of Discussions
a. Meyer asked the group whether she was correct in thinking we had
decided that we wanted a site similar to the Portland CAN – with lots of
news, and lots of outside links to available resources.
b. Baker thought that this was true, and the “bucket” analogy we’ve been
talking about didn’t need to be a problem; if people link to the right info
on another website, we’ve been successful.
c. Andrus suggested we have links to external sites open in a new tab, thus
letting people easily get back to our page. Group agreement. Bentley
agreed that this was very easy to do in Wordpress.
6. Other Adjustments
a. Andrus suggested we put ‘waste’ last in the name of the food, waste,
water tab. Agreement.
b. Powell asked the group to change the ‘waste’ to be ‘waste=resources’,
thus sidestepping the negative connotations of waste. This is a common
practice in composting, and seems to be workable for other fields of
recycling as well.
c. Sinnott mentioned that he thought sometimes recycling uses more
energy than simply throwing things away.
d. Short discussion of glass recycling situation, and energy use of glass vs
aluminum.
iii. Identify volunteers to help develop content
1. Timeline: no specific deadlines, but we want to have website up and running
by the end of the summer.
a. Having content ready-to-go will speed the process immensely.
2. Content Volunteers:
a. About Us: what is BCP? None
b. About Us: Climate 101: Bentley
c. Clean Energy: Moore, Bentley, Sinnott
d. Healthy Buildings: Moore
e. Low Carbon Transportation: Bentley, Sinnott
f. Waste= Resources, Water: Powell
i. Food: Andrus
ii. Baker is willing to help with any sections, as things fall through the cracks
while the sections are divided up.
iii. Missing members: Bennett, Pudner, Walser, Beswick; group thought we
should ask them if/ what sections they would like to tackle.
3. We will plan to present sections on June 6th meeting.
iv. Discuss content guidelines for contributers
1. Group agreement that we should have a brief summary of the specific issue,
and an outline of the content we will place there, including the outside
resources to which we plan to link. Focus should be on Bozeman-specifics; not
a detailed discussion of the physics behind PV panels, for example. Should also
contain ideas for special features/ examples of local efforts we wish to
spotlight.
7) FYI/ Discussion
a. Stories of Trust at Emerson, May 5th 6:30 pm
b. Bozeman Climate Alliance event at City Hall, May 22nd.
8) Adjournment – 10:50am