This is was originally posted at EnergyEmporium by Kim Quirk

Creating a Zero Net Energy Building in a Historic Shell

Read the original post WITH GREAT COMMENTS here

Last week we announced a new chapter structure for NESEA, and invited current NESEA chapters to work with us to iron out the particulars. This chapter restructuring is truly taking on a life of its own. I can hardly believe how much has happened since then – all good stuff, all worth sharing!

• Yesterday, we received our first, formal written response from a current NESEA chapter. The Board of GreenHome NYC indicated that they are interested in working with us to further design the ideal NESEA chapter. Per Andy Padian, who serves on their board, “Of course, New Yorkers always want to scream out “we’re #1” and this week, we can claim being the first (we think) existing Chapter to stay in the fold. Do we win anything?” We’ll have to see if we can come up with a suitable prize for those Yankees fans, but in the meantime, my undying gratitude to them for stepping up to the plate will have to suffice. We also have inklings from a few other current NESEA chapters that they’d like to work with us to design the ideal chapter and opt into the new structure – although no more formal commitments yet.
• We have received almost universally favorable comments about the proposal – even from those who are not sure they want to opt in. Some chapters have indicated that they are interested in having NESEA provide some sort of chapter programming each year – say a workshop or seminar – and that they would gladly trade some of their chapter dues share for such programming. We have learned that some of our chapters are reinvesting some of the dues share money they receive from NESEA in “the mother ship” – purchasing NESEA memberships in lieu of an honorarium for their guest speakers. And we have learned that we may need to do a better job of articulating the “WIIFM” (“What’s in it for me?”) to the chapters. If we are asking them to make changes that take more time and cost more money, they’ll need to know what these additional costs buy them in return.
• The proposal also has sparked comments from NESEA members who are not currently involved with a chapter have also shared ideas with respect to how to increase the value of NESEA membership, how to more readily connect NESEA members to each other directly – through pot lucks, house parties, and an online, member-to-member directory.
• Late last week, we received an inquiry from a professional in the Poughkeepsie, NY area who is interested in starting a new NESEA chapter. We filled him in on the chapter redesign process, and he’s very excited about participating in this process from the ground floor.
• I have been asked to share We have been asked to share this open and collaborative process, and our results so far, at the annual conference of our parent organization, the American Solar Energy Society (ASES), in May. Evidently, others in sustainable energy are interested in learning about how we are engaging the NESEA community with respect to these issues, and we are delighted to share what we’re learning!

So what’s next? In January and February we plan to start meeting with those chapters who have expressed interest in fleshing out the new chapter structure to get their perspective on exactly what the new structure should look like, and how and when to roll it out to best serve them. We will also likely create some sort of forum at BuildingEnergy11 so that chapters, NESEA members, and the sustainable energy community at large can weigh in with their ideas. Once we’ve gathered feedback from all the stakeholders, we will present a clearer proposal and roadmap to the NESEA Membership and Chapters Advisory Committee, and ultimately to the NESEA Board for their consideration at the May Board meeting.

As excited as I am to move ahead with all this, I recognize these are big changes we’re making, and big changes take time. And, of course, these changes are occurring in the context of a whole system, a system in which we face competing priorities every day. We’ve opened the spigot, and the ideas with respect to chapters and membership are flowing much faster than we can process them all, especially as we are trying to deal with a server that crashed earlier this week, and with making BuildingEnergy11 our best conference ever. Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to sharing our progress, and hearing your thoughts

After 30 years at sites around New England NESEA’s Building Energy Conference arrived at the Boston World Trade Center in 2005. We named that conference “The Practice of Sustainability: Art/Science/Business”. And we said this to the NESEA community:

If you practice sustainability, this is where you belong!

I see sustainability as a principle equivalent to democracy or justice and a practice we are constantly striving toward; imperfect in execution, but aspirationally fundamental. If your practice supports sustainability you belong to the community that shares this principle and we belong together in Boston in March. I want to invite you to consider how important it is for you to join me at Buiding Energy in 2010. This is about the necessity of advancing your practice together with mine.

Narcissism led me to NESEA in the late 80’s. It was then the “Advanced Residential Construction Conference” and I concluded that it was most obviously for me. The moment I arrived I knew that I had found my tribe. This community made it apparent that the foundation of my ethic, to be a “good builder”, must always include an understanding of what it meant to be a “green builder”. I could not be one without being the other. The journey had begun.

Like any good journey, it led to discovery. Over time, and not without some resistance, I came to appreciate that the practice of sustainability required us to understand and operate as connected parts of a whole system. My provincial practice, building, confined my view.

Our good fortune is that NESEA, considering energy as its fundamental currency and sustainability as our aspirational principle, attracts and symbiotically connects a cosmopolitan breadth of practices, of which mine is only one. I came to appreciate and rely on the diversity of experience and ideas that this community continuously challenged me with. And I grew.

On a good day at NESEA I am engaged, informed, and connected. I am engaged by ideas that demand me to think clearly. I am informed by practitioners with an uncompromising commitment to action and measurable results. I am connected to a diverse network of fellow travelers, at every stage of their own journeys, and with whom I can differ as easily as I can agree, without acrimony.

If you practice sustainability this is where you belong, having good days at NESEA with me and the thousands of others who continue to shape what Ambrose Spencer so aptly termed our “confident vision”.

The journey continues again in Boston in March. I can’t imagine finding my way forward without being there, where I belong.