DB Green

FLEA MARKET TODAY
If you are free for an hour or 2 today between 11 and 5 come down to the plaza and give us a hand at the DB Green Flea Market stall (numbers 9 and 10). More helpers required to help sell and we also need 3 people to stand in line to reregister for the next flea market. Registration starts about 2pm- bring a drink and a book or a friend to chat to as it can take a while. There are also plenty of bargains to be had and we have ALOT of stuff which we won’t possibly be able to put out in one go, so keep coming back to see what’s new. Remember buying second hand saves our precious natural resources (not to mention your pocket)! Call me on 98109070 if you can’t find the stall. Today is also the day that the Salvation Army does a pick up from the plaza so if you have any items that they want bring it down.

TREE WATERING WEDNESDAY 9:30am
The usual spot.

Hope to see you down at the plaza today! It looks like another beautiful day!
Cheers,
Kate

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Solving our environmental challenges can sometimes feel overwhelming. So many areas need help that it is hard to know where to start.  But imagine if we all took one or two small actions in our daily lives.  Imagine that once you took those in 2009, you added a few more in 2010, and a few more in 2011. Then imagine if your family and neighbors added their own actions to the total.  Imagine the difference we could make!

So, here we are, the beginning of a new year: a time for resolutions, a time for action.  Check out the list attached 2009-green-new-year-resolutions1. Are there things you would be willing to start doing?  Things you’ll encourage your family and friends to do?   Print it out, tick the items you’ll continue doing and tick a few new items you’ll commit to doing in 2009.  Then print out a version (double-sided, of course) for your spouse, your kids, even your friends.  Let’s see the change we can make happen in 2009!

Happy New Year from DB Green!

-Michele

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Lovely day for it! Any one free for an hour to help would be great? And two people to stand in line to register for the next one? (I’m still short of helpers at the moment.)
I think we are near the bank/post office area with a double stall. I’m wearing a grey top/black trousers if you don’t know me.
Any items you want to donate you can bring down. Suggested price would help me out.
The flea market is a really great green activity because it encourages the second most important R of the 3 R’s- REUSE. IF you can buy second hand rather than new you are decreasing the requirement for more stuff to be made from our precious and declining resources. Likewise things you don’t use anymore can find their purpose again in someone else’s home. Your shopping at the flea market can be guilt free! Don’t forget to bring down you own bags for taking home that surprise item that tickles your fancy!
My number is 98109070 if you can’t find me.
See you there,
Kate

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Hi everyone,

OPEN AIR MARKET
I am a little slow on getting information out about the Open Air Market we had on Sunday 7th Sep. What a great day for sales with 10 new joiners and a very healthy $6565 made!! That, I think, is our biggest sale and we were busy all day thanks to the new samples given to us by BCC Pacific. The way those clothes were flying off the rack is a testament to the lovely quality and I hope means The Earth Collection folk are going to do a bumper season! A big thankyou. Also big thanks to Tracey, Dana, Denise and Jennifer (and I think I’ve missed someone..) for helping me out. It was a very hot day and your help was a Godsend. I need someone to run the stall on the 5th October as I will be away that day until late afternoon. Any volunteers to help sometime between 9:30 and 5pm please reply- thankyou??

Last Meeting
Well…. not the best turn out- did the words from my previous email ’scream’ and ‘help’ in big font scare you all off?? 6 people over the 2 meetings but we had some good chats about the upcoming events with emphasis on the October 12th recycling event in the plaza. I understand how busy we all are so any help is great and if there are any of you who can help on the displays beforehand or on the day please let me know. I have a number of ideas for displays that wouldn’t take too much time if your family would like to participate…. One I thought of today as I reached for another real estate brochure from the mailbox is if one family collected all their junk mail between now and October 12th and put it on a poster board to spell the words ‘junk mail’ – with maybe underneath a sign saying ‘Don’t want it- then sign here….Name and village’ and we can approach the villages to stop junk mail- one of our villages already has a no junk mail policy I just found out. We could also have a no junk mail sticker made. Anyone interested in that one? Also maybe someone could find me a kiddies colouring picture that we can put on a table with some crayons. Printed on recycled paper on both sides of course and with a recycle theme- we can cover costs of printing and paper. Anyone? (Also by the by we notice Pen and Paper is stocking recycled paper now at $65 a ream.)

Mid Autumn Beach Sweep
on Monday was a great little event with a great turn out. The beach was of course quite messy and the bins labelled recycle bins were clearly not used for that so we need to fix that for next year and lots more of them. The kids had fun finding all the glow sticks and boy there were ALOT- and that’s just the ones people didn’t put in the rubbish bin or take home. Other offenders were wax from candles and lots and lots of glass and plastic bottles. By the time 10am came round it was getting pretty hot and the beach was looking 100% better. Thanks to Salina and Tracey for organising and the numerous little helpers and big helpers who came along. Some photos are on Flickr with more to be added from Tracey and Salina I believe. In fact hubby has created our own Flickr site for all our events so we have put a few events in there if you want to take a look. I brought home all the glow sticks that weren’t set on fire to hopefully make some kind of display for the Recycling Day. Any ideas anyone? The aim of the morning was to raise awareness to the waste and to come up with ideas to make the Lantern Festival less wasteful in following years but without being the fun police- what ideas do you have? Lets see if we can’t have some impact on the huge amount of rubbish for next years festival. Here’s some info about glow sticks…. Did you know they have glass inside and that’s what makes the crunch.. my husband just looked at me like I was an idiot for not knowing that…
http://imav8n.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/when-good-glow-sticks-go-bad/
http://www.thestar.com/SpecialSections/EarthHour/article/404659
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glow_sticks

International Beach Cleanup Saturday 9-12 with Hemingway’s BBQ to follow.
Tracey has written an email I will send out shortly. Hope to see you there. I arrive in from a flight just in time so please refrain from making comments about the dark circles under my eyes!!

Thanks everyone!
Cheers,
Kate

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The Open Air Market is organised by OPEN AIR (see www.openairhk.com ) with an aim to preserve the market shopping experience in Hong Kong. The cost of the stall for a non-profit organisation such as ours is $100 and is a wonderful opportunity for us to get our name out there. We will try and be represented at each of these markets in the upcoming year. This is not the same as the flea market which is once every 3 months for residents to sell used goods.
The wonderful people at BCC Pacific have donated us a large amount of their samples from the ‘Earth Collection’ label with clothes and accessories and we can sell these goods at this market. The funds raised will help us pursue green projects in DB. This is also an opportunity to pass information to the passers by about any upcoming projects, events or items of interest. The stalls run from 10am to 5pm and are always in need of volunteers to help man them. Please come down and give an hour or 2 of your time- it’s actually FUN!
The upcoming stalls are:
7 Sept,
5 Oct,
2 Nov &
7 Dec.
Contact Kate on 98109070 if you would like to know more or if you’d like to help. THANKYOU!
(And of course come down on the day and purchase some new natural fibre clothes at a fraction of their value! Prices are around $60 for one item of clothing, $100 for 2.)

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FLEA MARKET
Yes – I know – 2 weeks ago already- but must thank the wonderful people who made such a big effort to get down to the plaza and help. Big thanks to Dana for taking it on and organising everyone and for the volunteers. From Dana: “The flea market went well.. We made $2,130….. Luckily we were in the shade, and we have the same two stalls for next year. The following people helped on the stall – Josephine, Srena, Yunani, Tracey, Niamh, Masako, Gaelle and Meredith. I hope I haven’t missed anyone else but it was a bit hectic and I am pathetic with names and faces! When you do your thank you, please apologise in case I forgot anyone….”Thanks to Masako and Josephine for registering for next time- I hate that job! Dana says a couple of nice items left- a foot massager valued at $1720 never used- and an IPOD leather cover valued at $240 still in box with tag on it. Please feel free to make an offer on either item. Next flea market is 21st September.

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poster_beachcleanup-jun-08
Hello

Just wanted to let you know about the next beach clean up. Once again we will be at Nim Shue Wan beach (near the Mui Wo/Peng Chau ferry) and Cheung Sha Lan beach (along the path towards the monastery) on Sunday Junes 29th from 9am – 12pm. Don’t forget to bring your sunscreen (an umbrella too!), sturdy shoes, tongs if you want, and a refillable water bottle (Hoi Yu is once again supplying us with water). Refreshing softdrinks & beer will be available after the clean up for a small charge, water and the BBQ are free once again for all hardworking participants! Gloves, rubbish bags and handwashing facilities will be provided.

Our beach clean up this time will focus on the huge build up of styrofoam that has accumulated recently. Not only do we want to remove this unsightly and highly polluting waste from the seas and shore but we will also have a fun environmental awareness campaign featuring an information display and an eye catching array of ’seafood’ courtesy of The WayToGo (checkout this new environmental movement at www.way-to-go.org) . We want to really try and tackle this problem at the source and believe that the only way we can do this is to greatly reduce the use of this product.

Please come along and see how each person can easily make a difference!

Once again, we have had fantastic support from Hemingway’s by the Bay who are kindly putting on an after clean up BBQ down on the beach. There have been some great prizes donated too for some hard working beach cleaners. Among the prizes is an organic and eco friendly gift basket from www.Kinoa-shop.com which will include soapnuts for clothes washing, rechargeable batteries, battery converters, cosmetics and edible treats!

Looking forward to seeing you all down there before you head off for summer holidays.

DB Green Beach Clean Up Team

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FLEA MARKET 22nd JUNE
HELP!! I am in NZ that weekend and I can not run any of our 3 stalls. We need several volunteers to help run it from 12 noon to 5pm. And a few others to stand in line to get stalls for the next flea market in September. It is always a lot of fun and great to meet people and there are plenty of bargains to be had for both shoppers and vendors. It is also a wonderful opportunity to break the chain of buying only new ’stuff’ and giving those unwanted items another life. If you want to donate some goods bring them down to one of the stalls and if you can donate an hour or 2 of your time to help on the stall I’m sure that would be much appreciated. Please email kate.wade@dbgreen.org if you have any spare time to help on the day. At the moment I know of only one person who can be there and she will need a lot more support.
Also there is a stall for use by any of you if you like to sell your own things and keep the money or donate to a cause of your choice. Any takers?

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Fund raising started off from throwing a few things on a friends flea market stall to cover costs for the website and any other incidentals (posters, beach cleaning costs etc). On that first one I made about $500 and was so impressed that my trash made so much!

Since then we have had 2 more flea markets making around $1000 and then a whopping $4000 from everyones generous donation of goods.

This was basically all we envisaged doing until a phone call one day from BCC Pacific (a company operating in DB) offered about 10 candy bags full with their samples of clothes and accessories from their clothes brand “The Earth Collection”.

This generous offer has raised over $12,000 so far and we still have much stock. We have so far sold the items at the DBIS School Fair, a wine and cheese evening at my place and a coffee morning at Gaelles place. If you have any opportunities you are aware of at your home or school events, garage sales or organisation get togethers and you would like to sell some of the clothes that would help immensely with my current office state!!

This has taken us to a whole new level of funds and means that we may really be able to do some projects we initially hadn’t considered. Although nothing firm is in place here are some of the projects and areas we are considering directing our funds to:

• air, soil testing in DB
• supporting a tree planting project
• more recycle bins in and around DB and the schools and maybe for items currently not easily collected (glass, computers and other electronics, boxes and wrapping materials, plastic bags in PnS etc)
• compost bins
• organic garden project
• our own stock of beach cleanup nylon bags and outdoor BBQ cups
• help with making our school events and local events more green by encouraging use of non disposeable items and more recycling and any items that might help with this.
• power points for electric golf carts or supplement some of the cost if owner forced to pay
• any other projects that may come up or that you may have an idea for…

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Flea Markets are a wonderful opportunity to reuse and recycle! DB has a flea market in the plaza every 3 months. This is a wonderful opportunity to sell the ’stuff’ you no longer use and find some second hand goods at amazing prices!

The stalls cost $100 and you can register for the next flea market on the day at the registration ‘tent’. If you remember take some ID that proves you live in DB. Items for sale are not allowed to be new items.

If you don’t want to have your own stall then DB Green has a stall where all money raised goes to DB Green.

Bring your goods down at 12 noon and if you can, try and put a price on it but remember the flea markets are for people looking for a bargain! If you can stay and help even better!!

If you have large items or alot please either pick it up at 5pm if it hasn’t sold, or let us know if it’s OK to go to the Salvation Army pick up point. Unfortunately we can’t store everything at our homes but so far we have tried to keep things for a second attempt and then we give them away but I’m running out of office space (and an understanding husband).

The next flea market is Sunday the 20th Jan and unfortunately I am working. Please let me know if you are free to run the stall.

REMEMBER ONE MANS TRASH IS ANOTHER MANS TREASURE!!

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