The Green Tea

Moving beyond conversation to environmental action

Hosting Your Own Green Tea

The most important aspect of a Green Tea is the participants' pledges of an environmental action and the celebration of their commitment. The size of the group is not important. Consciousness can be raised one or two people at a time.

Green Teas will not suit everyone. There are many actions we can take to help the planet. The Green Tea is part of a growing mosaic of possibilities. The following is a sample format for a Green Tea.

April 21 Green Tea Plan

		Twenty-five guests were chosen to create a group large enough to represent the greater community and small enough to ensure each person has sufficient time to be recognized.
Guests

Potential Guests:
• political representatives at the local, provincial/state, and national level.
• business people (i.e. oil, food, manufacturing and computer industry)
• representatives from agriculture industry
• children whose environmental actions are supported by their families
• people new to environmental action and
• people who have been leading the way.

The intention was to create a diverse group that represented different aspects of the community, so that our efforts could be seen as a collective force.

Guest Requirements:
• Attend by invitation only
• Commit to an environmental action
• Watch the move AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Guest Speakers: A small gathering of 5 to 10 people might be content to share ideas among themselves. With a group of 25 a guest speaker seemed more appropriate. The April 21st guest speaker was chosen because of his interest in and knowledge of environmental issues. His role was to encourage the participants and help them see the significance of their actions.

Guest speaker Dr. David Swann MD, MLA

Click here to visit his web site

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	Host, servers and speakers, as well as guests, were invited to pledge an environmental action
Volunteers

Host of The Green Tea

The individual responsible for coordinating The Green Tea.

Host's Assistant

An individual who was free of any particular responsibilities who assisted with with any unforeseen challenges. VERY IMPORTANT

Table Host Captain

Helped the table hosts and was in charge of trouble shooting.

Beverage Captain

Prepared all beverages and delivered them to the beverage table. He kept the thermoses for tea and coffee filled.The person selected for this particular job was exceptionally friendly. His interactions with the volunteers kept the tempo light.

Food Captain

Prepared food trays for guest tables. Requested food donations from local businesses.

People to pour tea

Traditionally special guests pour tea at a head table. Although it might work with other Green Teas we did not follow this tradition.

Table hosts

One table host was assigned to each table. The table hosts sat with the guests and served them their choice of beverage plus brought them plates of savories or sweets.

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Supplies for 30

30 tea cups (to accommodate guest speakers and mishaps)
30 plates
30 napkins (cloth were used as they are more environmentally respectful than paper)
30 utensils
1 punch bowl, ladle and cups (this was to accommodate non-tea drinkers especially the children)
5 thermoses (one for herbal, one for black - two in the kitchen on standby and one for coffee)
1 coffee urn
2 big pots (enough to boil 4 pots of water)
1 cream and sugar for each table setting
1 centerpiece (pots of ivy were used because candles were against fire regulations.) Centerpieces were given to table hosts at the end of the tea as was extra food

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Menu Plan

Beverages:
• Punch (if children are invited it will be necessary to give them a choice different from tea or coffee)
• Tea: both herbal and black
• Coffee (because tea and coffee can not be grown locally, fair trade organic products were used)

Savories
Donations from local businesses included organic carrots, organic milk, local cheese, local sour dough chocolate cranberry bread and local spelt cinnamon buns.

Sweets
Donations from local businesses included lemon squares. The food captain and neighbours made cookies and date squares. Organic strawberries were purchased.

Click here to learn about the environmental impact of buying locally.

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Agenda

(duration of event approximately 2 hours)
• Table hosts welcomed guests and escorted them to their tables
• Beverages were served as guests arrived
• Welcome from the Masters of Ceremony
• Invitation for one third of guests to share their environmental actions.
• Response from speaker.
• Savories and beverages served
• Guest speaker gave three minute response
• Invitation for one third of guests to share their actions
• Response by speaker
• Served sweets.
• Invitation for last guests to speak.
• Response by speaker.
• Final thank you by host
• All volunteers, speakers and host stated their pledge of action.
• Thank you notes handed to guests by table hosts
• Thank you notes to volunteers and guest speaker handed out by host.
• Thank you cards were printed on recycled paper with a quote from Ralph Marston on one side and a handwritten note from the host on the other.
Click here to see his quote and
click here to see his web site.

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