Thursday, 17 Oct 2002

ROXBURY, Mass.

Today I have several tasks I have to finish or I will suddenly be behind in my work plan for the week. My schedule already includes meetings of our legal and technical assistance team, a check-in on progress for the Second National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, which is being held next week, and a monthly meeting with our executive director — aka a sanity check for me.

Today is also the day I had planned to finish the Northeast Environmental Justice Network Newsletter. I didn’t get a chance to work on it yesterday as I had hoped, but I think I just might finish it today. I’m still waiting on one article but mostly I just have to deal with layout, copy editing, pagination, and picture placement. If I don’t get it done today, I may miss the copying run. We still haven’t decided how many copies we need. If there are going to be 1,000 people at the summit, do we need newsletters for all of them? Probably not, but what would be a good number? I guess this is a decision that can wait until the summit check-in this afternoon.

I also need to call various members of NEJN to get their input on several issues. We need nominees for the portion of the summit that will honor the women of the environmental justice movement. Many of the strongest, most persistent, most vocal, and most consistent environmental justice activists have been women — and many of those have been grandmothers. We also need to discuss how we will check-in with each other as a network during the summit. That’s going to be something. We are bringing about 60 people from the New England subregion of NEJN. Add the people from the other two subregions and this could be quite a task.

One of the odd roles that I play at ACE is that of computer geek. I have no training in systems work, but I do have lots of hands-on experience. Too much for my taste, actually: When I left my previous position, I promised myself that I would never do this stuff again. Of course, these things have a way of getting out and now I do most of the computer work around here. Mostly it’s little things: Somebody can’t print to the printer in her office; someone else’s email is being detoured to our executive director; still another person needs her entire machine replaced. Most of these issues will have to wait until after lunch, but I better schedule some time for them or they will get lost in the shuffle.

A few minutes ago, I received a call from a community that’s concerned about odors from the paper recycling process and other potential environmental and health impacts of a nearby paper mill. Unfortunately, the community members want us to attend a meeting they’re holding with representatives from the paper mill — at 7:00 tonight. This is something that we will have to discuss at the legal and technical assistance meeting. We want someone to attend, but is it possible to get anyone there with this late notice? If our other attorney can’t attend, can I get a babysitter? Maybe I can take my son, Padraig, with me. He’s pretty good when we go to meetings. He will get his homework done and then play with his Gameboy, which actually belongs to me. If there is one thing I have learned about going to nighttime meetings with your child in tow, it’s that you better have something to keep the child entertained. Still, it would be better if someone else could go instead of me.

The good news is that one of the groups that had planned to go with us to the summit on the bus will be taking a different bus. Our bus total is now 33. That will be much more comfortable than the squish.