Betsy and I were ENORMOUSLY PLEASED that you could join us at STEP IT UP 2 yesterday!!! With hurricane Noel bearing down on us, the weather forecast was bound to restrict attendance. Still we managed to draw just about 100 souls who braved the penetrating, damp cold and the competition from a Dartmouth home football game to share energy with the rest of us.

Adrienne LaBombard, Eric Merberg, and Carol Wengeist deserve a collective THANKS and CONGRATULATIONS for their superb (!!) job of organizing, handling all the logistics, and stage-managing the event itself. If only we had more young folks like those three.

Even with the cold, we went through gallons of free Ben and Jerry's ice cream, garnered 73 petition signatures (several of whom said "YES" they'd like to volunteer to do more), consumed lots of welcome, hot mulled cider, bagels and cream cheese, painted faces, made signs, listened to the inspiring music of Dave Clark's JukeJoynt group (their song "SAVE THE PLANET" is becoming our local "National Anthem"), gave away lots of literature on Cool Cities, and ways to address climate change, distributed every one of the CFLs that had been left over from the Halloween "Trick or Treat" effort, and listened to some VERY inspiring speakers!

Thanks are due Professor Terry Osborne from Dartmouth's Environmental Studies Program gave one of the best 15 minute talks I've yet heard on the need for personal engagement, committed leadership, and robust initiatives to address global warming. Karen Liot Hill, Lebanon City Councilor, described municipal plans to curb energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Former astronaut Jay Buckey described emphatically the leadership initiatives needed at the federal level.

Please accept our loud and heartfelt "Thank you!"

Best -- Denis and Betsy