Chatter from the Chair

 By Connie Schmidt

Connie at Morton Arboretum with grandson.
Photo by Mike Schmidt

Whew! The Fall was a blurrrrrrr with phone banking, postcard writing, and campaigning every weekend thanks to the extensive schedule set up by Political Chair, Linda Sullivan, and our effort to help elect environmental champions to represent us from DuPage County. Read on to see our successes in the articles in this newsletter. 

We also had three valuable programs for our membership: CEJA, The Climate and Equitable Jobs Act of IL in September; Local Sustainability from DuPage County and the Forest Preserve District of DuPage in October; and Growing Healthy Foods with three local groups presenting in November. Notes from the efforts in our local government program of October are presented in this newsletter for those of you who missed it. Many thanks to Sheila Rutledge of the DuPage County Board and Daniel Hebreard, president of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage, for presenting this fascinating view of sustainability in our local governments.

We have an article from an amazing multi-day outing to Michigan’s Beaver Island organized by Ed Max and other leaders of the RPG Outings team. FYI – Our outings team is one of the most active in the state! We have well over a dozen certified leaders leading a variety of outings, including day hikes, kayak trips, bike rides, and overnight stays. Check out our calendar for upcoming events that are added each month.

We hope you enjoy the other articles in this newsletter, as well. Now, I really want to talk to you about our group, actually YOUR group, The River Prairie Group of the Sierra Club. We are one of 14 regional groups of Sierra Club in IL. We have an active board of seven elected executive committee members; however, we thrive with our extended volunteer efforts. Our Political Chair, Outings Chair, Conservation Chair, treasurer, and DuPage Monarch Project Chair are not on the elected executive committee, yet they provide very important leadership for our local organization. Each of these areas welcomes new participation and support. If you are feeling (like me) that we must be involved and DO something to help make our local environment a safe and healthy one for our future generations (see my photo above), I hope you will contact me for ideas on how to step into RPG more actively. A simple skill such as helping to do layout for a flyer or sharing information on restoration workdays, can help make our group stronger. I hope you will consider reaching out with your thoughts to grow and share the leadership of our group.  Cschmidt527@gmail.com