First and foremost, Happy Summer!!!
It has been a ridiculously long time since our latest update. We apologize. A lot of us got busy with end of term academics, helping our friends at UBCC350, going to Block Party…. However, this doesn’t mean that we didn’t have a fabulous list of Common Energy activity to end the year with! I want to take this chance to say a sincere thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone and anyone who supported any Common Energy initiative this year—from giving us a thumbs-up on Facebook to attending our events to helping organize these awesome events (Steering Committee I’m looking at you! 🙂 ).
This past year has been a HUGE capacity-building year for Common Energy. To put it in perspective, the number of applicants for 2012/13 executive positions exceeded the number of members we had in September. Sitting on the hiring committee for coordinators, I had a moment of gratitude; In the coordinator interviews, there was a reoccurring theme of applicants viewing CE as a career-building opportunity. It was so nice to hear this because it was a sign that our efforts of making CE a student development organization has been successful. So thank you for recognizing that CE is a bi-directional organization—it’s a space where you can give your time and in return we help you develop professional skills so you can better execute your passionate plans for creating a sustainable community.
Personally, I can honestly say that Common Energy has helped me develop professional skills; To answer most job interview questions, I draw on my CE experience for the appropriate answer. Weather it’d be a question testing my teamwork skills, conflict resolution skills, event planning skills…. whatever it may be I’ve experienced it while working on a CE initiative. For that, I am extremely grateful. So thank you to everyone who responded to my emails, cleaned up the Global Lounge with me, treated me to a lunch at CIRS, attended a Big-Team meeting, and for listening to me rave on about CE through out this past year. While I’m sad that after I hit “publish” on this blog post I will no longer have any official role with CE, I am confident that the Steering Committee 2012/2013 is going to raise the bar to a whole new level!!
So welcome your new SC for next year:
Shiori Ito and Jenny Liu – Tangible Solutions Team Coordinators
Samantha Davis and Connie Chen – Challenges Team Coordinators
Abi Bradford – Education Team Coordinator
Maegan McCowan – Dialogue Team Coordinator
Corina Santema – Food Team Coordinator
Amy Jiang – Assistant Director
Quinn Runkle – Director
Thank you from your outgoing Assistant Director,
Kyuwon Kim (kyuwon@interchange.ubc.ca)
Now let’s make us feel all warm and fuzzy by doing a “YEAR BY THE NUMBERS”
- 9 Steering Committee members, over 50 core team members
- 1 picture of President Toope in a cozy sweater for WWF’s Sweater Day
- 10 UBC’s Got Skillz Workshops that collaborated with 10 different campus partners, and re-skilled over 300 students so that they can now reduce their personal consumption (For this project AMS Sustainability is flying out Rosalind to LA for the AASHE Conference!)
- 1 eARTh Festival- a unique event that engaged the fine arts community in sustainability
- 1 winner of the 2nd annual “Do it in the Dark” competition: Totem Park
- 5 UBC Campus Sustainability Office Staff members to mentor our coordinators
- 1dancing grape in our Fair Trade Mob
- 400 attendees at “Chew On This: a week of perspectives on sustainable food” and at Oxfam’s “Hungry for Change” banquet
- 5 webcasts sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (George Hoberg, Michaiah Prull, Juanita Sundberg, Chew On This 1, Chew On This 2)
- 1 Highlighted Project Presentation at the Student Leadership Conference
- Over 12 Professors at the Lunch & Learn, gathered to learn about integrating sustainability into their curriculum
- 1620 bottles of Happy Planet juice donated by UBC Food Services that we handed out at the CE Booth
- 15 CE member delegation at the SFU Sustainable Campuses Conference
- Countless delicious potlucks, 25 beautifully silk screened shirts at our Big-Team meetings
- ONE awesome year (c’mon nothing like a predictable cheesy ending)
Common Energy UBC 