What's in a Name?

As the de-facto communications person, I seriously feel we have some unfinished business that we must take care of before everyone is distracted by the holidays.  We need a name!

name

[neym] noun, verb, named, nam·ing, adjective noun

1. a word or a combination of words by which a person, place, or thing, a body or class, or any object of thought is designated, called, or known.

2. mere designation, as distinguished from fact: He was a king in name only.

3.an appellation, title, or epithet, applied descriptively, in honor, abuse, etc.

4. a reputation of a particular kind given by common opinion: to protect one's good name.

5. a distinguished, famous, or great reputation; fame: to make a name for oneself.

There are a multitude of reasons why:

• We need to make ourselves united and official.
• We need to file paperwork for a LLC for legal reasons.
• We need a common theme to use on everything from signs and flyers to email and websites.
• We only get one name change with the Facebook page.  It by far is our biggest communications medium.
• We need something for letterhead and business cards.

A name should be instant recognition of who we are and what we represent.  It should be short, simple and to the point.  No one wants to remember or have to type www.batesburgleesvillecedargrovecommunityunitedagainstthestutmanquarry.com into their web browser.  More so how will we ever fit that on printed material?

I've put up a "poll" here on the blog to get some feedback on some names.   You can find it on the left column of the main page.  I can't promise the "winner" will "win" (how crazy does that sound?) but it will certainly give us an idea of what the folks like and the direction we should go.  And more than likely it may very well end up being what we use.

Feel free to comment any suggestions here at the bottom of this post. 

(Only a week until Santa, are you ready?)

Meeting Summary

There was great turnout tonight at Cedar Grove Lutheran Church for the first "formal" community meeting against the proposed quarrry.

(Sen. Shealy and Rep. Kennedy Addressing the Group)

Senator Katrina Shealy, Representative Ralph Kennedy, Councilman Todd Cullum and Councilman Frank Townsend were in attendance to show their support for us in preventing the destruction of our communities way of life.  All of them stressed the absolute importance of a continuous letter, phone call, email assault on ALL of the Lexington County delegation in Columbia to include Governor Haley to express our STRONG opposition to this project.  Senator Shealy even stated that the Director of DHEC Catherine Templeton should also receive our attention as well in our blitz.

I would estimate the total attendance was well over 100 people though we surely need a lot more bodies behind this effort.  A lot was accomplished towards the end goal of being a more formal and organized group.  

• Dean Craps was "elected" President of the group by overwhelming majority.  Dean has been actively involved in fighting this from the beginning and knows more about what has been done and what needs to be done than anyone.  Dean also if the face of our group in that he is one of the property owners who is right next to the site.
• Lauren Warmuth was "elected" Vice President again by a majority of the group present.  Lauren has been hard at work since the first community meeting behind the scenes in a lot of the planning and organizing.  She organized the agenda for tonight and magically provided the large maps that were present tonight for citizens to look over.
• Donna Fletcher was chosen to serve as Secretary after some discussion and a second candidate withdrew their name voluntarily.  This type of it's not about me cooperation will be VITAL in this long fight.  Donna has been instrumental as well behind the scenes and offers a very focused, task oriented mentality to this position.
• There was some discussion about a Treasurer and the most obvious answer is Theresa Craps who is a certified CPA.  However both Theresa and Dean are concerned about the appearance this gives and maintaining checks and balances with the financial side of the group.  It was decided to hold off on this vote to give people time to offer another nomination and contemplate qualifications.  This will also give the group time to plan ahead details so if it is Theresa we have those checks and balances in place.

We discussed a logo to use on printed materials and online.  The group overwhelmingly chose one that I hope I can get a digital copy soon to begin implementing into our web presence.

There was some discussion on coming up with a name for our group.  Our main problem is our formal names (Batesburg-Leesville, Hollow Creek, Cedar Grove) are all way too long when they have to match up with something like ----Citizen's Against the Stutman Quarry or ----Preservation Alliance or -----Community Preservation Group.  Ideally the name should be short and something easy  for the citizen's and POLITICIANS to remember.  This is still a work in progress and the executive committee group will be meeting this week to further discuss this.  Once this is finalized, it will also be incorporated into our web presence to include a real web address/URL.

Finally the meeting ended by folks being allowed to break up into 5 basic small groups based upon their interest or professional expertise.  The major categories include (with examples of sub-committees below):

• Executive/Administration
• Legal
• Financial
• Communications

• Environmental
• Air Quality
• Water Issues
• Plants/Animals
• Wetlands
• Geology

• Cultural
• Archaeological
• Historical

•   Quality of Life
• Traffic
• Infrastructure
• Noise
• Dust
• Safety (Vulcan)

• Activism
• Petition Drives
• Recruiting
• Researching and Maintaining Permitting and Other Notifications
• Identifying Locations to Protest/Petition, put up signs, etc.

These list are not all inclusive and are subject to change as needed with additions or deletions.

We really ran out of time for the sub-committees to do much planning or organizing.  We hope to plan a day in early January where all the sub-committee's can get back together and begin their work.  Look for announcements on that and full community meetings in the near future.

What's Your Specialty?

We are less than 24 hours away from our first "formal" (hopefully standing room only) community meeting.

• Community Meeting
• Thursday December 12, 2013 at 6:00 PM
• Cedar Grove Lutheran Church
• 1220 Cedar Grove Road  Leesville, SC

We are excited that Senator Katrina Shealy is as of now scheduled to be in attendance.  Some of our other local and state elected leaders have been  invited as well and may be in attendance.

One of the things we hope to accomplish at the meeting tomorrow is to organize everyone into manageable productive groups.  Dean suggested we have Special Interest Groups (Committees) that can focus on specific issues and problems.  This will alleviate everyone trying to do everything and give folks with special education, skill and knowledge a chance to offer their expertise.

Some of the groups we are looking at forming are:

1. Financial
2. Organizational
3. Legal
4. Communications
5. Water (Waste/Storm/Ground)
6. Air
7. Wildlife
8. Activists
9. Wetlands
10. Archeological
11. Historical
12. Geology
13. Traffic/Infrastructure
14. Quality of Life/Noise/Pollution
15. Property/Real Estate

This list is not all exhaustive and is open for suggestion.  We may add, combine and/or delete as necessary.
Look it over and get an idea before tomorrow night on where you'd like to serve.

A Giant Has Awoken

America was reeling, thrust into a World War on two fronts, multiple continents and two oceans.  Japan's march across the Pacific and the losses in the Philippines made the citizenry hungry for action, for revenge, for anything to lift their spirits.  On April 18, 1942 a group of 80 brave men known as the Doolittle Raiders  flew 16 B-25 bombers on a mission to attack Japan.  Our first "retaliation" for that horrible day 62 years ago. 

This mission did little to truly hurt the Japanese or its military.  It was probably more like an aggravating mosquito at the time.  Even the mission itself didn't go as planned with losses and planes crash landing in places they weren't supposed to be.  However what this mission did was restore the American resolve, morale and spirit. 

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."  Those words were supposedly written in the personal diary of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto sometime after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.  If they truly were penned, they could not have been any truer in foretelling what was to come.

Our Pearl Harbor has passed.  Today however we were the mosquitoes.  County Council voted unanimously to keep Stutman Road open until such time as a court decides otherwise. 

We won a small victory for our neighbors, community and Lexington County to boost our morale, our spirit and our resolve.  A sleeping giant in Western Lexington County has been awakened.  Councilman Todd Cullum described it best when he said that all of county council had "heard you loud and clear" from the hundreds of emails, calls and letters.  Over 400 alone from the online petition.

This was our first skirmish and it was all we had set out to do today.  But there is tomorrow and the day after and next month and next year.  The battle isn't over, the war has not been won, but a sleeping giant has been awoken.

Take the Time

As I sit and contemplate a topic for tonight, one thing from the meeting this past week comes to mind as I think it is one of the single most effective things we can do collectively and the only thing it requires is a little time on your part.

Taking the time to contact our elected officials and voice our concerns and displeasure over this proposed project.

  One of my very first blog entries talked about this so I'm going to plagarize myself and repost most of it right here:

"it is imperative that we start NOW in contacting them through email, letters (yes old fashioned type/write snail mail letter) and phone calls to express our displeasure and objections to this project.

This HAS to be done. If all you do is join a page and hope somebody else makes the call, writes the letter or sends the email then we may as well grab a shovel as start digging that hole ourselves.

There is strength in numbers! Why do you think Vulcan wants to meet one on one? The same reason predators in the wild target one lone prey away from the pack!

The more each one of those ELECTED officials realize how many of us there are, the more attention we get. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Start writing, calling (leave a message, call back) and sending emails!!! Everyone! Not just on a petition. They MUST hear our voices and they must start hearing them now."

I will add this, I think actually writing a letter or taking the time to call is the most important.  So much so that I've update the page with all of the contact information for our elected officials.

But why?  Electronic Mail or zipping off one of those contact forms is so much easier.

The answer itself lies in that statement.  Because it is so easy and so convenient in today's world anyone can fire off a "I don't like this or that" email left and right. I'm sure they are used to receiving those.  But when you take the time to write a letter, address an envelope, buy a stamp and mail it; it means something.  Same thing when you take the time out of your busy day to call or even meet one of the elected officials.  It means something.

I'm not taking away from the electronic means of communication but it is impersonal. I hope you, like myself, take this very personal.

Notes from the Meeting

There was a meeting held on Thursday December 5th that had 50 or so in attendance.  (I'm not good with estimating a large group of people, could of been more or less)  Anyway a few of us had wanted to get together to plan and organize a little better than we could if hundreds showed up.  This is why it wasn't "published" here or on Facebook.  Where we need and want hundreds is this coming Thursday (more on that meeting later).

Mr. Furman Cantrell spoke first and stated he had been in touch with environmental experts and attorneys who provided him a list of 10 important and strategic items we must consider.

1. Spokesperson - We need someone who can speak for the majority.
2. Organization Name - We need a name to represent who we are.
3. Letterhead - All correspondence needs to come from the organization and letterhead will achieve that.
4. Notify - Our first step should be to officially notify the land-owners and Vulcan opposing the project based on fact.
5. Involvement - ANY meetings (like the simple one on Tuesday) we must "pack the room".
6. Agenda - Respect any rules or agendas in meetings, prepare beforehand, know what is expected.
7. Support - Enlist support from any and all environmental groups that already have resources such as Sierra Club and the SC Nature Conservancy.
8. Recorder - Hire (or recruit for our cause) a professional recorder/reported who can accurately record all meetings, etc.
9. Specialist - Hire an Environmental Specialist to represent our interests.
10. Attorney - Hire an Environmental Attorney to represent our interests now and in court (this is going to court I hope we all realize).

So as you see, our work (and the dreaded word money) is cut out for us.  Some of this will be easy.  Some of it hard and costly.  Very costly.  One thing I'd point out is that if we are in, then we need to be all in and prepared to fight this when it gets expensive and when it gets long.  I have more to say about this later.

Mr. Cantrell also mentioned how Avery County NC was able to successfully fend off Vulcan from their community and save a scenic mountainside viewable from the Appalachian Trail.  A book was written about it called "Stand Up That Mountain: The Battle to Save One Small Community in the Wilderness Along the Appalachian Trail".  I've attached the link to Amazon where copies are still available really cheap.
Here is a link to another article about it.

After discussion from the floor addressing our major concerns, Dean sent a list around for people to sign up for Special Interest Focus Groups (just sounds better than committee).  This list includes things like Air Quality, Water, Quality of Life, Agriculture, etc.  His goal is for each group to focus and learn all they can about these specific issues in regards to aggregate mining.  These lists will be available this Thursday as well for those who want to serve in that capacity.

One final big topic that was discussed was our plan of attack.  I think (correct me if I am wrong) the general consensus was that we need to continue to pressure Lexington County, DHEC and our State and Federal Politicians.  You never know who or what could potentially stop this planned project; maybe a protected woodpecker, maybe Federal concern over the watershed, maybe an ordinance change by county council, maybe pressure on DHEC to deny permits by politicians.

Anything is possible so we must attack and fight on all fronts in one united voice!

Tuesday Council Meeting!

It is IMPERATIVE we show up in droves on Tuesday to let all of County Council know there are real people and real faces behind the petition signatures and we are serious!

The Public Works Sub-Committee of County Council meets at 2:55 on Tuesday December 10th at the Lexington County Administration Building 212 S. Lake Drive in Lexington.  This will NOT be a public hearing and unless addressed no one will be allowed to speak.  The only thing on the agenda as Lauren posted is the report to the committee on traffic counts for Stutman Road.

Again despite this, it is vitally important that we have a grand showing!  They were already advised we would probably pack the house and that the sub-committee meeting may ought to be moved.  I will remind them Monday.  Make plans to attend!

The entire council. agenda can be found here: December 10, 2013 Agenda