May 18, 1997

In Attendance:
William Gale (Gale)
Nick Gauthier
Sam Liebowitz
Edward Nash
Dmitri Donskoy
Jonathan Lupo
Jorge Codina

The chapter meeting was scheduled to begin at 1 PM but a few of us agreed to meet at Noon to hold a premeeting meeting. The purpose of this premeeting gathering was to discuss SEE. Gale wanted to get a group consensus as to whether or not we thought we were ready to purchase a plot of land. Sam, Nick, Jorge, Gale and I all agreed that we were ready and that we should proceed onto the next stage which was sight selection and purchase. We all expressed our intentions of pursuing this project in all seriousness and we each took turns explaining when and how we would be participating.

Having gotten that out of the way, Gale moved on to explain that he got his hands on some legal paperwork outlining the requirements of the code in the Bastrop county (This is the county which we have narrowed our search to. It is within 1 hours commuting distance to Austin, TX). It turns out that there is a minimum of building code for this county and that was one of the deciding factors in our choosing it in the first place. There are some definite benefits to this along with some negative points. Gale found that no more than 5000 gallons of water could pass through a septic system per plot of land. This means that our entire community is limited to this usage of water unless we subdivide the land. Doing so is extremely undesirable, however, since it would introduce many other additional expenses, such as the need to build roads, sewers, etc. The Realtor which Gale has been working with has assured him that there are ways for us to make this work. In addition, the Realtor has sent Gale information on several pieces of land which are for sale in Bastrop county. The plot that looks the best so far and which we plan to check out is an 11 acre plot which has no land use restrictions on it. Sale price for this land is advertised as $39,000. We hope to be able to bring this number down a bit.

Gale proceeded to explain the three different types of home design which he has come up with for us to use on the site.

• "Comfortable House" - This is the manufactured home option. We can attach several of these mobile homes together to increase internal spaces.
• "Healthy Home" - This building design uses materials which outgas very little and takes advantage of positive pressure to keep the accumulation of dusts and pollen to a minimum.
• "Organic Growth House" - This design would allow for a very inexpensive start which can be expanded on as the community grew larger. It would allow for expansion both out horizontally and up vertically.

At 1 PM we began the actual meeting. Jonathan and Ed also arrived around this time. We had two new people join us for this our tenth meeting. Jorge Codina was in town on business and decided to pay our chapter a visit. He made a long journey to be here. His home is in Singapore. Our second guest was Jonathan, who works with Sam. Both turned out to be excellent guests. I look forward to speaking with both of them again soon. For this months meeting Sam and Gale decided to try to implement some group process ideas. These are ways of keeping the meeting participants active in the discussions and improves the general flow of things. Part of group process involves taking periodic breaks for fun group activity. So that we could all familiarize ourselves with these ideas, Gale handed out some papers for us to take home and read on the topic.

Sam continued by giving a brief update from Rifle. He informed us all that the FMF's business plan for a hotel/resort was being reworked in the hopes of attracting investors. Brad Woodard, who does this sort of thing for a living has been taking a part in this project. They are hoping to be able to purchase another piece of land on St. Croix which has gone up for sale. Richard Crews and Sam himself have also been hard at work on this project. The Polypond project, another FMF endeavor which is being designed to study the effects OTEC effluent will have on the surrounding ecosystem, is also being planned. Sam informed us that in total we have been able to raise about $20,000 for this project which is not nearly enough to even get things started.

We decided to plan out our next few meetings. Normally we only plan for the next month's meeting but since we want to move them around to other parts of the Tri-State area, we decided to plan early. On Sunday, July 27 we will be having a meeting in Connecticut, at Dmitri's house. Then the meeting on Sunday, August 24th will be in Upstate New York, at Nick's place. Sunday September 14's meeting will be held at Ed's home on Long Island.

A trip has been planned to Bastrop county do attempt to find and purchase a plot of land for the land based colony we are calling SEE. The trip is currently scheduled for Tuesday, June 24 through Saturday, June 28. Gale and Dmitri are planning to fly down together, and meet Richard Crews in Texas, and they will check out the available property on behalf of the rest of the group. This trip is currently pending the Realtors availability to show us around the available land.

The rest of the meeting was spent discussing SEE and we attempted to think up any obstacles which we may encounter. We also critiqued our meeting to see how it went utilizing the group process techniques. It was agreed that it was very effective.

contact the author of this home page: Dmitri Donskoy
Last modified: Wednesday, May 28, 1997

Home