Who's in Charge?

The first step in implementing more environmentally-friendly arrangements for your gathering is to decide who will take responsibility for this. Is the event small or simple so just one person can oversee the "green" details? Or, will it be large or more complex, with a group of people involved in planning and conducting it? If more than one person is involved in overseeing the event, at a minimum, you will need to orient everyone about the rationale for becoming more "environmentally-friendly" and the general principles involved. While the entire planning team may make some decisions, you may find it more effective to designate one person or a sub-committee to play the environmental advocate’s role, responsible for ensuring implementation of certain details.

If the event will be located in an out-of-town site, identify at least one local United Methodist Woman, preferably interested in environmental issues, to help find answers to your questions and help with some logistics before, during and after the event, if necessary.

Whether it is one person or a few who will be responsible for implementing some of the "green" guidelines as you plan and conduct your gathering, make sure they have sufficient information and commitment to do the task well.

This guide is designed to be as user-friendly as possible and applicable to a wide range of situations. You can use it in a number of different ways to get the job done. At least one person should read it in its entirety to understand "the big picture". If you are working with others to plan a gathering, ideally every member of the planning team will have a copy of this guide. That way, if someone is absent, or someone has the opportunity to take an unforeseen "green" initiative, the team will have the information necessary to move forward. However, if you have a big planning committee with varying degrees of commitment to this environmental justice goal, you might only distribute copies of the relevant section(s) according to each team member’s responsibility. Another possibility is to distribute the guide or relevant sections only to sub-committee chairs.