December 18, 2007                                                                    Positive Change Begins with Personal Choice

Dear Members, Partners, and Friends of AVR,

Last September, AVR sent you a letter detailing our need to prioritize our services and reorganize.  After several months of strategic planning, we are pleased to announce that AVR has entered into a partnership with the Northeast Resource Recovery Association (NRRA) that will allow us to resume programming, complete our current membership contracts, start accepting new memberships and expand both the scope of services available to our members and the geographic breadth of our operations.

NRRA will provide financial and administrative support for AVR programming. AVR will remain a separate entity, with its own Board, providing its unique Vermont services.   AVR will also expand its educational programs to cover schools outside Vermont, concentrating on its core mission while NRRA manages operations and finances. Charen Fegard, Carl Witke, Bill Pelton, and Kendra Gratton will continue to deliver programs on behalf of both AVR and NRRA.  Kelly Pearson of NRRA will administer services in New Hampshire. AVR’s Executive Director, Norm Staunton will continue in a volunteer capacity, working strategically with NRRA’s Director Mike Durfor to complete projects, grant applications, and development of the first annual Northeast School Recycling Conference.

To our members, who have shown us great support and patience, we offer a very sincere “Thank You.”  As promised, we will resume the completion of your membership contracts immediately and hope to have all current contracts complete by the end of the Spring 2010 school semester. Charen Fegard will continue to be your primary scheduler and program coordinator, working directly with our actors and NRRA staff to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of your membership programs.  Mike Durfor, Norm Staunton, and Charen Fegard will be in touch with you in the very near future to discuss the details of our plans and requisites for programs to resume.

Simultaneously, we are pleased to announce to the Solid Waste Management communities of Vermont, New Hampshire and the Northeast that we can, confidently and in good faith, resume accepting memberships to provide services.  We declined to take on new liabilities until now, but with NRRA’s support, we can now resume those operations under our new structure.  Consider using AVR’s newly expanded Member Services Menu to order community programs that meet your obligations.  For some of you, a new fiscal year is about to start.  Please leave your budget line items for AVR in place. 

While recycling markets have been tough for all of us during the past year, AVR and NRRA provide a model for working collaboratively to leverage strengths, and reduce costs, without sacrificing services.  Both organizations share a vision which will benefit all in the Northeast.  NRRA is pleased to renew its commitment to school based recycling programs. Last fiscal year the NRRA successfully marketed over 65,000 tons of its members’ recyclables throughout the Northeast and expects to benefit its Vermont members by continuing to assist Vermont communities as it has in the past.

In similar news, AVR recently accepted a merger with the Vermont Earth Institute (VEI).  AVR is now the sole provider of VEI’s acclaimed community discussion courses on a broad range of sustainability topics.  We are extremely pleased to be able to offer VEI programs to our members and the communities of Vermont.  With our merger with VEI, AVR now has the tools and the precedent to provide programming and outreach on a much broader array of topics, including local foods, energy, travel, community building, and the like.  Our hope is to be able to add these programs to the AVR Member Services Menu for 2010/2011.  Of course, given AVR’s history and mandate, much of this programming will draw on examples from the waste prevention and recycling community and will further drive our work to create sustainable waste prevention programs across the Northeast

The staff of NRRA and AVR will be in touch with our members shortly to begin making arrangements to resume providing programs.  In the mean time, to our members, partners and friends, we say another hearty “Thank You” for your patience and support during this time.  While there is still a period of transition ahead of us, we are pleased to be moving upward and outward.  Please feel free to be in touch with: Mike Durfor of NRRA at mdurfor@nrra.net , Norm Staunton of AVR at director@vtrecyclers.org, or Charen Fegard at techassist@vtrecyclers.org if you have any questions.  Please also note that our mailing address has changed to PO Box 385, Montpelier, VT 05602.  Our phone number will be remaining the same.

Thank you all again.  We look forward to the benefits this partnership will provide us all and the opportunity to continue advocating for and educating about recycling and waste prevention.

Sincerely,

Board of Directors                                                                  Board of Trustees

Association of Vermont Recyclers                                         Northeast Resource Recovery Association

Norm Staunton                                                                       Mike Durfor   

Executive Director, AVR                                                       Director, NRRA