Re: Revised timeline

["Don McGorman" <mcgormd@hotmail.com>]

Kathie:

Is this correct?  If Chipping Day is the first Sunday after Jan 6, in 2003 
that will be Jan. 12

Here are my comments on the 'Tree chipping timeline 2001-2002'

1.  Many of the items in the 'December' block should also be 'Pre-December' 
as far as making contacts and tentative arrangements.  In 'December' 
arrangements are confirmed and/or acted upon.

2.  In the 'Pre-December' block:
-  consider working with Sears as a partner (catalogues)
-  consider working with Canadian Waste as a partner (magazines and other 
'blue box' items
-  consider preparing a SSM Recycling Directory handout that could be handed 
out at the depot, possibly focusing on things we are not accepting.
-  contact commercial fast food places in the Cambrian Mall area about 
participating in a depot volunteers food and drink support program.  I'm 
thinking about time-sensitive coupons, which would be good for free or 
discounted food and/or drink between Dec 26 and the day before Chipping Day.
-  contact a bottled water supplier about drinking water for volunteers at 
the trailer.  Either small recyclable bottles or a water jug dispenser with 
disposable paper cups which could be composted.
- ask the city not to collect trees curbside at all or at least to wait 
until the week of January 13, 2003


3.  Here is a list of things that I brought from home; they should be added 
to the generic list and then confirmed in the 'Pre-December' period:
-  wooden stool for donation box to sit on along with an orange garbage bag 
(to cover stool) and rubber band (to hold bag in place)
-  ceramic space heater (1500w) for the trailer
-  snow shovel (and additional snow scraper on Chipping Day)
-  portable radio for the trailer
-  tarp to cover phone book dumpster and eight bungie cords to hold tarp in 
place
-  12-volt power supply to plug cell-phone charger into
-  two sinter blocks and four pieces of lumber to level trailer
-  two white plastic chairs that I borrowed from Debbie Clark's mother.
-  two tarps and several ropes to put up walls around Peter C's tent
-  small step-ladder to put up tarps and tents
-  piece of rope to create a clothes-line in trailer to hang wet gloves on 
along with a dozen wooden clothes pins.
-  60cup coffee urn for early on Chipping Day
-  trailer to move catalogues to Sears, magazines to McNabb St and tent 
poles to/from Sault College; we also did a few runs of curbside collection 
of Xmas trees the first week after New Years and a few bicycles were picked 
up by special request.

4.  Suggested Other Items for next year :
-  small garbage container for trailer
-  blue box for trailer (pop cans and water bottles)
-  a bigger container for phone books; perhaps one that is covered.
-  a shovel and/or pitch-fork to load chips on chipping day
-  access to more snow shovels; we only had one this year and that was 
enough due to lack of snow.
-  save some corrugate boxes to pack books, blankets, catalogues and blue 
box ready magazines.

5. December 28 - January 1.  Even though it was slow for trees, we did have 
some volunteers on all shifts from Dec 29 onwards; the weekend before New 
Year's was just as or more busy than some of the evening shifts closer to 
Chipping Day.  There are usually things to do like snow removal, sorting and 
stacking phone books, processing cardboard etc.

6.  The Site Manager (SM) concept worked very well.  We should rework the 
job description to include:
-  SM should be prepared to fill in if depot shift is short of volunteers or 
to shut depot down when not enough volunteers; the depot should not be left 
staffed by a single inexperienced volunteer for any significant length of 
time
-  SM should be reachable by cell phone if they are not on site;  this would 
require either personal cell phones or a second cell phone for the project 
so that the site manager can carry one and one is in the trailer.
-  SM schedules should encourage two-day (or more) blocks for efficiency and 
to reduce then number of handoffs required between SMs
-  SM should attend the depot at 9:00 p.m. the day before their scheduled 
day to debrief the SM from the day before and receive cell-phone for 
overnight safekeeping.
-  SM might call volunteers scheduled for the following day just to confirm 
arrangements. This year there were a few mistakes, which saw people not 
showing up according to what the schedule said; a phone call the day before 
would have corrected most of those.

7.  In support of the depot organization I would suggest:
-  a list of site managers and phone numbers be posted in the trailer
-  for each type of item we are collecting at the depot there should be 
details in the binder regarding who to contact regarding issues with each 
product; for example we needed to clear out books (Friends of the Library) 
and blankets (Humane Society) several times and there was no information on 
what to do or who to call.  As a site manager I found this to be very 
frustrating.

8. Day Before Chipping Day.
-  Mark Crofts did not want to leave the warming tent set-up unattended 
overnight before Chipping Day.  He did need help moving the long poles 
(someone with sturdy roof racks or a trailer); we did this on the Saturday 
before chipping day and stored them in the trailer with the bicycles.
- clear out any accumulated Books, Blankets, Catalogues, and blue-box items; 
this reduces the workload on Chipping Day.

9. Chipping Day.
-  Need to document setup details including food service.
-  barricades moved into position to block parking lot and create a limited 
drive-in / drop-off area
- tarp walls attached to food tent
-  60-cup coffee urn charged and turned on at 6:00 a.m. (250g package of 
regular grind coffee) UNPLUG HEATER before plugging in coffee urn.
- once Scouts have generator going, move coffee urn to food tent; DO NOT 
PLUG-IN HEATER until coffee urn is unplugged.

Don


>From: Kathie Brosemer <kathie@cleannorth.org>
>To: treechip@lists.cleannorth.org
>Subject: Revised timeline
>Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 09:46:28 -0500
>
>Hi everyone.  It's countdown time!
>Here's a revised timeline for the details of Jan 12/13/14.  Please go over
>it with a fine-toothed comb, and make special note of places you see your
>name or a question mark.  If I have any times wrong, or if I have your name
>down beside something you can't do, or if you see a question mark you have
>an answer for, let me know.  Thanks very much.
>
>kathie
>
>Tree chipping timeline 2001-2002
>
.
.
.

_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com