Done with the Mailing! and other fun
So apologies for not blogging in a few days or more, but I was waiting to say this:
I'm done with the ReStore mailing!!!
I was literally working on this thousand-piece mailing for the majority of most of the days since my last post. Parts were grueling, parts were with company, and thus less grueling. A little more about the mailing and my minimal other exploits below the fold.
So this mailing was for the purpose of sending out the new Annual Report from the ReStore. First I had to put together the list of people to send it to, then I had to send off the included documents to get printed (across town). Then I had to format and print out all the labels. Then I had to put the labels on all the envelopes. Then stuff the envelopes, then seal the envelopes, then stamp them all with our non-profit bulk mail stamp. I had some help here and there from two volunteers who were very good company. But on Friday I finished stamping them all, and now on Monday John (the guy in charge of the ReStore and one of the Associate Directors of CET) will give them a look and then take them to Pittsfield to be mailed.
I am SO glad to be done with that.
Two other things of interest since my last entry. On Wednesday of last week I went up to a place in the hilltowns with a lot of CET staff for a day of presentations and meetings. Well, there was one presentation and two meetings. The presentation was by this guy from the Forest Stewardship Council. In the audience at that time were various CET people, but also a number of local builders and lumber suppliers. The talk was basically just his spiel about what the FSC is and how their evaluation system of wood products works. Interesting and informative.
After the talk, the builders left, and CET people talked about two of our four programs, LEED for Homes (for new homes), and Energy Audits (for existing homes). There are just some kinks that need to be fixed in the organization's workflow, and also these meetings addressed questions people had. Again, interesting and informative for me.
Then, a week after that, this past Wednesday, I went on a Green Audit with one of our auditors. We went to this house in Buckland (up in the Franklin county Berkshires). Basically we just looked around, did some tests, and took down information, with the purpose of analyzing what the homeowners could do to better green their home. They had already had an Energy Audit a year ago, and had implemented the recommendation from that, so their house was already very good, but there seemed to be some things that they could do still. Most of the recommendation process happens later on, because Beth (the auditor I went with) was mainly taking down specifications, in order to plug them into a computer program and figure out what the best courses of action would be. However, she did give many recommendations at the site to the homeowner as to what she thought would probably be the most helpful.
I've been doing a few other interesting things here and there, but I'll wait til later to write about them.