February 23, 1997

Minutes of the seventh meeting of the Tri-State chapter held on February 23, 1997 at Sam Liebowitz's apartment

In Attendance:
William Gale
Nick Gauthier
Fred Herman
Sam Liebowitz
Ed Nash
Carol Senall
Dan Hall
Dmitri Donskoy

  • Introductions
    • The meeting was started off with Sam reading an inspirational essay from the "Distant Star" written by Marshall Savage. The essay pointed out how important it is for us core members to take an active role in shaping our future.
      • new members: Dan Hall
    • We all took turns introducing ourselves to Dan Hall, and telling him a little bit about ourselves and why we joined the FMF.

  • Discussion of the Land Based Colony
    • A large portion of this month's meeting was spent going over some of the finer details of Space Environments Ecovillage (SEE).

      • Gale visited a manufactured housing factory in order to get first hand knowledge about how they look and about pricing. He was very pleased with the available variety, but mentioned pricing to be still an unknown variable.
        • Exact pricing for such prefabricated housing will only be known once a site has been selected and a solid intent of commitment is made to the dealers.
        • It was pointed out by Ed Nash that such prefabricated homes of are very high quality and strength.

      • Dan Hall mentioned a plot of land by the ocean which he may be able to acquire in the future. The land has a large house and 2 acres of land.
        • Dan mentioned his dream of starting an intentional community on this land, and that falls in line with what we are doing.
        • Dan mentioned that he would continue to pursue the land even though the main SEE structure would require more land than 2 acres if we plan to one day expand to 100 colonists.

      • On the fmf-lbc discussion lists, Jorge Codina suggested acquiring land cheaply by buying old decommissioned Atlas missile sites. Some benefits include:
        1. Lots of cheap land
        2. Pre-built underground facilities for temporary habitation or storage
        3. Concrete slabs already in place which can be used for future building foundations.
          Gale has offered to look into this idea, since a large plot of land can be gotten very cheaply (around $50,000.00)

      • Timeline for the near term future is as follows:
        1. Through March of 1997 will be our recruitment period in which we locate the twenty plus FMF core member who will want to move into the community and investors who will finance it.
        2. Site preferences will be discussed through the month of April.
        3. Early summer will be the time when we do our site shopping. Gale has suggested the need to go out and physically look over several potential sights before making the final purchase. Anyone who would like to join in on the search is welcome.
        4. The fall will be spent working on a conditional sales contract.
        5. If all goes well, we should have a purchase made by the end of 1997.

      • Dmitri mentioned the topic recently mentioned on the fmf-lbc discussion list regarding starting a local business at the same time the settlement is started. It has been suggested that this may be difficult to do simply because both task alone are difficult and done in conjunction may prove to be too much to handle.

      • Universal Node System (UNS) style housing was discussed as a new alternative building design and as a potential business venture to get into once we are settled and have some capital to work with. UNS housing will be a little bit more expensive that the other forms of housing but will have a very futuristic look to it which be far superior to conventional housing and which may prove to attract others both to SEE and to the FMF.

    • Dan raised the question about how the idea for SEE came about and we explained that originally we wanted to start a venture capital firm to invest our money and put it towards funding businesses to further the goals of the FMF. This left us wondering how we could possibly have enough money to invest. This led Gale to do some heavy number crunching, and it was deduced that a substantial reduction in expense of living could be made by living in a community environment, and sharing a bit more. Sam has promised to write up a more detailed explanation and it will be posted on the SEE working website (http://www.millennial.org/see).

  • Conclave Update
    1. This years conclave will be held from July 31 through August 3.
    2. We as a chapter have agreed to try and make our pilgrimage to the West coast together.
    3. The Tri-State chapter will be presenting the SEE at the conclave to all the other core members

  • Satellite members to the Tri-State chapter
    • We officially voted in Daniel Vainsencher, Robert Barron, and Elaine Solowey, as satellite members of the Tri-State chapter. Welcome aboard!

    Next meeting scheduled for Sunday March 16. Be there!!!

contact the author of this home page: Dmitri Donskoy
Last modified: Saturday, February 25, 1997

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