When

The How Green Could Wilton Be Symposium will be held at the Wilton Library, Tuesday, November 29th from 8:30am - 4:30pm. Wilton’s municipal, environmental, business, faith, education, and community leaders will discuss energy, food, recycling, land/water. Keynote speaker, Gary Cuneen, Founder and Executive Director, Seven Generations Ahead.

About the Symposium:

The How Green Could Wilton Be Symposium, is the first of its kind in Wilton, and will be held Tuesday, November 29th from 8:30am - 4:30pm, at Wilton Library.

Wilton’s municipal, environmental, business, faith, education, non-profit and community leaders are invited to gather and discover sustainability priorities, brainstorm solutions, and share best practices. In doing so, we can reveal what is possible for Wilton.

The symposium will feature insights from key note speaker Gary Cuneen, founder and executive director of Seven Generations Ahead, four facilitated breakout sessions, comments from special guests, and a visioning round table. It will conclude with closing remarks about how each one of us adds value, plays a special role, and is very important to the sustainability conversation.

The Goals of the Symposium are Threefold:

Provide an opportunity for open conversation and sharing from all sectors of the community to learn, appreciate and understand what matters most to each group.
Identify and share strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the areas of land/water, food, recycling and energy.
Serve as a catalyst and spark community interest for impactful, town-wide engagement around sustainability initiatives that are action oriented.

Your opinions and contributions to this important conversation and discovery are important, and tremendously valuable. We hope that you will join us for all or part of the symposium. Lunch is provided. Admission is free. But space is limited and pre-registration is required to attend any portion of the symposium.

We are hoping that the symposium will trigger more ideas and help launch community passion around specific energy, land/water, food and materials management initiatives and projects.

Schedule

8:30am - 9:00am

Symposium Check-In

9:00am – 9:05am

Welcome and Overview

Daphne Dixon, Executive Director, Wilton Go Green

9:05am – 9:15am

Opening Remarks

Peg Koellmer, President, Wilton Go Green

9:15am – 9:45am

Keynote Speaker

Gary Cuneen

Founder, Seven Generations Ahead &

Co-founder, Green Town, The Future of Community

9:45am – 10:00am

Break

10:00am – 10:15am

Session I Overview and Goals

Identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT)

Track A - Recycling (Materials Management)

Track B – Land/Water

10:15am – 11:45am

Morning Break Out Sessions

Track A: Recycling (Materials Management)

Facilitator: Sherill Baldwin

Environmental Analyst

CT Department of Energy & Environmental Protection

Facilitator: Joe Cea

Bay State Textiles

Track B: Land & Water

Facilitator: Donna Merrill

Executive Director

Wilton Land Conservation Trust

Patrice Gillespie

Wilton Go Green

11:45am – 12:45pm

Lunch

12:45pm – 1:00pm

Session 2 Overview and Goals

Identify Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT)

Track A: Energy

Track B: Food

1:00pm - 2:30pm

Afternoon Breakout Sessions

Track A: Energy

Facilitator: Richard Creeth

Co-Chair

Wilton Energy Commission

Facilitator: Jana Bertkau

Symposium Committee

Wilton Go Green

Track B: Food

Facilitator: Annie Farrell

Master Farmer

Millstone Farm

Facilitator: Sherill Baldwin

Environmental Analyst

CT Department of Energy & Environmental Protection

2:30pm -2:45pm

Break

2:45pm

Comments from Special Guests

Update from Marrakech Climate Change Conference

2:50pm – 4:00pm

Gary Cuneen - Facilitating Sharing of Session SWOTs, Draft Initiatives, and Creating a Sense of Shared Vision

4:00pm

Next Steps and Closing Remarks

Tina Duncan

Symposium Chair

Wilton Go Green

5:00pm

Continuing the Conversation

Bianco Rosso

Keynote Speaker: Gary Cuneen

Gary Cuneen is the Founder and Executive Director of Seven Generations Ahead (SGA), a nonprofit organization with the mission of promoting ecologically sustainable and healthy communities. Gary designs and manages SGA’s programming, and consults directly with municipal, business, and community decisionmakers to promote and facilitate comprehensive multistakeholder sustainability planning and implementation. Gary is the cofounder of Green Town: The Future of Community, a conference targeting municipal and private sector leaders to learn about sustainable best practices, planning processes, and measurement tools. Prior to founding SGA, Gary was the principal of his organizational development and leadership firm, which worked with toplevel government, judicial, human rights, and university leaders from Guatemala and El Salvador and with Chicago area corporations and public sector institutions. A former high school teacher and basketball coach, Gary spent part of his career within education, founding and directing the OnLine Expeditions environmental education curriculum project, designing and facilitating teacher training for Chicago public school teachers, and consulting with area principals on strategic planning related to increasing academic achievement. Gary worked for five years as a community organizer within lowincome Philadelphia, PA and Wilmington, DE neighborhoods, and directed a sweat equity housing development corporation with Wilmington United Neighborhoods. Gary is a 1983 graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in Political Science, received graduate secondary teaching certification from Trenton State College, studied in Mexico City at La Universidad de Anahuac, and received training at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Gary is the recipient of the 1983 Kellogg Latin American Area Studies Award; the 2007 Natural Home Magazine Earth Mover Award; the 2008 William Fitzsimmons Award for Public Health, Village of Oak Park; and the 2008 Chicago Tribune Good Eating Award. Gary’s interests include organic gardening and cooking, photography, coaching, woodworking, canoeing, mountain climbing, fishing, and wilderness exploration. Gary is married with three children, and resides in Oak Park, IL.

Next Steps

In early 2017, Wilton Go Green will host a community - wide event and present a symposium recap where we share information and priority initiatives, request feedback from the audience, and announce dates for four follow-up workshops in the area of Energy, Land/Water, Food and Materials Management. The purpose of the workshops are to engage the community at large, develop action plans, and define milestones that will drive successful initiatives.

About Wilton Go Green:

Wilton Go Green's mission is to promote sustainable living in energy, food, waste and recycling, transportation, land and water. We seek to work with all sectors of the town, municipal, residential, business and non-profits, in accomplishing this goal. For example, we have found, as it is in many towns, that there are many town groups and non-profits, who work on conservation/sustainable living topics, but who have not had an opportunity to work together or to even to know what each other is doing.

It is our hope that the symposium will trigger fresh ideas and perspectives to help spark a community passion around specific energy, land/water, food and materials management initiatives and projects, that will stregthen the sustainability infrastructure in Wilton.