The BRILLO Website: Any Ideas???

[Willis]

Well, you know you guys have a website at www.shannondale.org/brillo/ What suggestion do you have for developing it. Adding links to adopt-a-highway? linking the safety video? Tips on recycling, Photos of padders at work? A mission statement? photos of Four Lovely Honchos? Plans for neighborhood litter parties? It's there for the asking.

Let's not keep this effort to a twice a year, death defying, sweat producing projects. skennison, your idea of the neighborhood treks was most intriguing. Let's have some more of that idea kind of thingie. Who wants to contact http://www.brillo.com/? And hey, these ideas can come from all of the board users!! Let's hear those ideas!!!

[Cissey]

As a first step I would suggest a link to www.wvbottlebill.org
West Virginia currently has a bottle bill in committee SB 136. The bill was heard by a full committee in January and was referred to a subcommittee. Now is the time for citizens to contact committee members and support the bill. Call them toll free at 1-877-565-3447. As you might expect they've already been approached by many retailers opposing it!

[Cissey]

The Brillo site should include stats on the amount of litter generated -- example: 25 billion one-time-use plastic bottles were manufactured in 2005. Plastic bottles make up 30% of total debris and are non bio-degradeable!!

[Willis]

Yes, you should have links "link" to a page of links and the ones mentioned would certainly be apropos. I'd suggest keeping the homepage as spartan as possible- A Mission Statement and links to appropriate destinations(as on the S&B home page). What would the destinations be?- "Litter, the ugly facts", "Talkin' Trash-our latest efforts", "What can you do?" yadda, yadda, yadda. Wouldn't it be great to get other communities involved in BRILLO such as the effort today at Blue Ridge Acres and the Chestnut hill gang-whoever did the cleanup along that death defying road a while back..

[Tony]

Ya where's the pics from the BRA trash pickup today?

I'm a minimalist. Let's keep the homepage clean. But link a 'links' page off of it that can be loaded!

[Willis]

With the patience of Job, TonyB has been trying to introduce me to Dreamweaver. With the density of lead, I am trying to grasp the concept. I need some short and long term strategies to carryout the Mission Statement(which I need also). In addition we need to load up the links page with apropos addresses relevant to the mission.

Now this request is directed to all our board users and, in particular, Cissey, KatherineA, skennison and HollyV. Don't e shy. Feel free to offer suggestions about projects, goals, methodologies, etc. And if any of you know of resources available-well....

<center>http://www.shannondale.org/BRILLO/</center>

[Willis]

<center>Anyone still interested in developing the
BRILLO WEBSITE (http://www.shannondale.org/BRILLO/)?
I've already thrown out for discussion several ideas. How about some pages of our young ladies and their dinosaur bones, asking Keep Jefferson Beautiful to publish their monthly newsletter on the site, following thru with skennison's(where in the world IS skennison?) superb idea of small groups doing neighborhood pickups. and on and on.

Trash and litter isn't a glamour sport, but it sure adds to bettering our Quality of Life 'round here. Anyone want to help with the website?</center>

[Cissey]

I'll put together a Mission Statement and some short term goals for our group's review. I'll try to have something completed by the end of next week.

[Cissey]

[cheer3][cheer3]Suggestion to kickoff our BRILLO organization and attract some interest -- how about a photo contest of litter pics on the mountain?? We can break the contest into two categories -- adults and children. The winners will receive a Shannondale.Org T-shirt and the photos will be posted our our website. Maybe Willis can work his magic again and have the winning photos published in the Spirit.

[Jenniffer]

The boys and I take walks around our back roads several times a week and always take a grocery bag with us to pick up litter. It can be that simple. Something like a Take A Bag Along campaign?

[Willis]

I think that was the crux of skennison's idea of community pickups, jjb. The purpose of Shannondale and beyond is, above all, instilling a sense of empowerment and community on the Blue Ridge.

sk's plan was for small groups to map out areas in the communities on the Mountain and walk through picking up trash while encouraging residents along the way to participate on the website. Not just thru BRILLO but in any fashion in which they feel comfortable. We'd have fliers about S&B's activities and goals.

If there is a neighborhood organization(eg Blue Ridge Acres or River View Park) the endeavor would ideally be organized thru them. Local people would be a must in most small communities(who ARE these people walking around in our neighborhood?) to avoid "panic"!