Save the date! The Pierce County SEES leadership committee invite you to their next open forum Time and Date: 1-5 pm, April 15, 2011. Location: Rainier Room in the City-County building; 930 Tacoma Ave S. The public is welcome. The SEES Leadership committee and subcommittees, sponsored by WorkForce Central, have been hard at work since forming in June 2010. Now, they'd like your input on their vision and ideas for fostering a more sustainable economy, environment, and society in Pierce County. Highlights of the spring 2011 forum will include: The WSU Energy Extension research team will present their findings. Dr. Alan Hardcastle and Sally Zeiger-Hansen have completed the research project commission by the SEES forum in June 2010. Dr. Hardcastle and his team were asked by SEES to test a model for exploring sustainability practice in Pierce County. The commercial retrofit sector was selected, and interviews conducted with Pierce County businesses on topics ranging from internal and external sustainability practice to data collection and the ability to determine ROI on retrofit projects. Their results will answer some questions and surely inspire the SEES forum to ask many more! SEES Leadership subcommittee reports. The Leadership committee has formed subcommittees on Communication, Sustainable Workforce Development, Localization, and Pierce County Vision. Each subcommittee will present a summary of its purpose and efforts-to-date. This will be an opportunity for participants to provide constructive criticism, volunteer their expertise, and point the subcommittees to sources of data and other organizations they need to connect with to further their aims. Sustain Games. We'll put the trans-discipline know-how gathered by the SEES forum to the test, competing (and cooperating!) to create strategies to maintain critical Pierce County systems that affect the economy and workforce in different future energy scenarios. The games will be a fun way to test our ability to come together to find big-picture solutions across disciplines, and provide an intuitive way to come to grips with the resource constraints that affect workforce, business, and economic development without a lot of equation based jargon. Guest speaker on the connections between Growth, energy trends, and business and workforce sustainability. Goodies and coffee provided! BACKGROUND of Pierce County SEES forum: Sustainability is the capacity of its social, ecological, and economic networks to endure. By definition it involves a sprawling collection of people, ideas, and knowledge. Pierce County SEES (Social, Ecological, Economic Sustainability) was inaugurated in spring 2010 as a one-stop hub for connection and collaboration between the many different people, groups, areas of expertise, and spheres of practice involved in sustainability.The intent of SEES is to create a trans-discipline node where specialists from government, business, education, NGOs, organized labor, and residents at large can make one another aware of their efforts (or existence!), prevent duplication of effort, find creative ways to support one another, and separate the truly sustainable from the superficial. Central to the success of this effort is the open sharing of data and ideas wherever possible. SEES is dedicated to going beyond buzzwords to create a democratic, transparent, and trustworthy forum. We are inherently open-ended, dedicated to supporting and forwarding the efforts of the many organizations working toward Pierce County sustainability. The SEES leadership committee volunteered a one-year term of service in June of 2010 to establish a working plan and initial goals for the group. The SEES leadership committee is: Andrew Williamson (Committee chair) -McKinstry Linda Nguyen- WorkForce Central Gary Nomensen- Puget Sound Energy Lisa Rennie- Tacoma Public Utilities Carrie Sikorski- Agricultural Consultant, past Pierce County Farmbudsman Marianne Seifert- Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department Martha Cerna- Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Steve Lynn- Gig Harbor Business Owner, Water-to-Wine Shop Brad Sayre- Absher Construction Trevor Green -Azure Green Consultants Eric Hahn-General Plastics Mark Martinez-Trade Unions George Mobus-UWT Institute of Technology Ryan Dicks-PC Sustainability Manager Nancy Neyenhouse- The Mountaineers Foundation and Totem Ocean Laura Kinney- MultiCare Health System A full agenda will be sent out closer to the event. Meanwhile, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please contact Arabie Jaloway-Hill via the contact details below. Regards, Arabie Jaloway-Hill Senior Environment & Sustainability Consultant MSc Environment, Politics & Globalisation (Kings College, London) & BS Environmental Science Full World Consulting LLC Email: arabie.jaloway-hill@fullworldconsulting.com Web: www.fullworldconsulting.com USA Direct: +1 360.529.1458 Europe: +44 (0)20 8144 5245