Tent City/Logistics/Winterization/Minutes/25 Oct 2011

Minutes from winterization meeting on Oct 25th 2011:

Agenda:

• Meeting schedule
• Reports from last meeting
• Ideas for Winter
• Things that will cost $$$
• Resolutions
• Course of Action

Meeting Schedule:

• Thursday, Oct 27, 2011 at 9pm
• Saturday, Oct 29, 2011 at 2pm

Reports from last meeting:

• Military Surplus Tents

16’ x 32’ tent for $800. Price can be reduced if bought on online auction.

• Concrete Clearing Blanket:

$20 per Blanket. Provides insulation. Can provide fire resistance; need to research more. Questions about permanency.

Meeting w/ Fire Marshall:

• No Hay!
• Clear up things like excess signs near sign tent. Clothing tent looked good with clothes in plastic bins.
• No combustion. Fire Marshall indicated that if we go through process of Chemical Test, done by fire department, on certain tents, we can have combustion inside of tents. He also indicated that this might not be a great idea.
• No Smoking in tents and around things like hay and piles of clothing and trash.

Ideas from meeting:

• Green house enclosure around tents
• Allume Liquid non-toxic Spray: Provides fire resistance. Safe for people and plants.
• Black greenhouse mesh floor
• Fire Safety Practices and Signage
• Extruded Polystyrene (EPS) Foam
• Sustaining Foods: Starchy things like potatoes, carrots, and beets that use macrobiotics
• Outside support for hot water and rocks to heat living spaces
• Outside support

Churches, Unitarian Church Soup Truck for Hot Water and food Hospitality/ Adopt-a-camper Shifts

• Homeless community presence may increase: reach out to shelter and social workers for ideas
• Array of batteries that are enclosed and removed by distance from living spaces to be safe and provide electricity
• 6 mil clear polypropylene
• Cots
• Temporary French drain system to remove water from tent spaces and walk ways
• Rolling small houses

Things that will/may cost money:

• 0 degree sleeping bags
• Military style/surplus tents
• Food
• Outside Heat
• Socks and Footware
• Public Assembly space outside Dewey Square
• Cots
• Greenhouse Materials: PVC, EMT, PPL
• EPS, extruded polystyrene
• Shovels

Resolutions:

• Meeting Schedule
• New Name: Winterization and Fire Safety
• Develop Course of Action

Courses of Action:

These actions are mostly outreach to see what sort of support we can muster.

(Note: these items are being taken on by various people; names are removed for now)

• Outreach to Boston Society of Architects
• Outreach to Food Trucks for off hours hot water at the least and food at the most,
• Pricing on 6 mil Clear PPL for temporary greenhouse enclosure.
• Outreach to MIT and Harvard school of design
• Outreach to IBEW for advice, consulting, meeting space, and to inquire about providing licensed generator and generator maintenance service.
• Outreach to other cold weather occupation sites and see what their plans are.
• GA Announcements: New Name, Meeting Schedule, Productivity of 10-25 meeting
• Outreach to shelters for social work and health standards advising. Have logistics help with this. (we can also get the Medical team to help with this.)
• Outreach to Geodesic dome designers and builders
• Help organize adopt-a-camper program for winter

These items need to be taken on; specifc people have been asked to do them:

• Develop fire safety standards that we as Winterization and Fire Safety group can promote to GA.
• Extentsively look up best prices of list of physical items that will cost money.