I'd like to report on our Board of Directors meeting last weekend, but I want to start by inviting you join me for an Open House Conference Call Monday, October 3 at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern. Call (866) 501-6714 — 1892-005#. RSVP.



We took a break midday Saturday during our board meeting to join the Moving Planet march in San Francisco, one of more than 2,000 events in 175 countries — all to call attention to the need to move beyond fossil fuels to clean energy. (Above are directors Allison Chin, Donna Buell, and Aaron Mair carrying our banner down Market Street.)

Our Club contingent included the Council of Club Leaders, so we were representing nearly all 50 states plus Puerto Rico. Executive Director Michael Brune and Bill McKibben, winner of the Club’s 2011 John Muir Award — more on the awards below — spoke at the rally at the Civic Center that followed the march. (You can read about other Club Moving Planet events in Scrapbook.)



McKibben said we needed to send a message to President Obama about the urgency of addressing climate change:

"We took him seriously when he said let’s be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil. We took him seriously on the night of his nomination when he said when I’m president the rise of the oceans will begin to slow and the planet will begin to heal. You should not say stuff like this if you don’t mean it."

You can see more in the video below.

McKibben was one of the 23 annual award recipients honored over the weekend. This year, we held two awards celebrations, paying tribute to the amazing work of both relatively new and longtime Club leaders and others in the movement. You can read about all the recipients here.

But we did more than march and pay tribute to environmental heroes. At the annual meeting, we discussed a new initiative to strengthen chapter national relationships, we accepted the Council of Club Leaders' recommendations of issues for Board attention, and chapter delegates and directors met in small groups to discuss chapter-specific issues.

The board also received briefings on several topics: the second annual Chapter Assessment, the overall Communications program, the initial planning for the 2012 political year, and the draft strategy of the new Beyond Oil Campaign. We agreed to move forward with developing an organizational strategic plan.  We also made some appointments to key positions, including the new volunteer leader of the Activist Network, Clayton Daughenbaugh, the Business Partnerships Committee, and the Ballot Statement Review and Audit Committees.  I’ll be talking more about the board's discussions and taking questions on the call. (Monday at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern. (866) 501-6174 — 1892-005#. RSVP.)

—Robin

P.S. One thing several delegates said would be useful is a chart showing staff members and what they do. Well, we have that, but we found out some of our leaders don’t know about it, so we'll be telling you over and over again in the coming months until everyone knows. You can find it on Clubhouse at http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/people/staff/hierarchy.aspx. (There's a link in the left column of the home page — the second item under "other helpful links.")

-- Robin Mann