There is momentum building up with the Human Sign on August 20th. Read from the bottom for time sequence. I will keep updating the summary below:

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Peter Reefman wrote:
Thanks Fran

The radio grab went well I think. A couple of people already down here have said they heard it and thought the whole human sign project sounded great.

So it’s already working. People are excited and talking about sustainability.

Hey I was thinking I might approach a crane company as a backup in case the weather is too bad for aircraft. Our beach is under a reasonable cliff, and if a (big) crane was on that cliff, it might be high enough to do a photo anyway. The crane company (Keppel Prince) down here is also the company that’s building and erecting lots of windfarm towers, so it’d be great for them as well. What do you think? Is it worth all groups/signs to have a crane as a backup? Maybe Matthew Nott would know.

Matt (if you receive this), Do you think a high crane on top of a cliff looking down at a beach would be high enough to use as a backup? The cliff is very stable by the way with a main road, etc. This would/could be a backup only, as we’ve got an aircraft (helicopter with removable door) anyway. Thanks for your “How to make a human sign” doc and other help by the way.

Cheers,
Peter

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Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 12:04 AM

To those of you that can access websites and can manipulate them, can you help make the “Climate Emergency” aerial photo a top Google Image search result? David Robinson has set us up to do so. See below

Can you add a link from your website(s) to Climate Emergency Network at http://www.climateemergencynetwork.org/ ?

Thanks,

Tim Forcey
Sandringham Vic
03 9598 3272

From: David Robinson [mailto:david.robinson@...]
Sent: Wednesday, 23 July 2008 2:54 PM
To: ‘Forceys’
Subject: Tim Forcey requests the “Climate Emergency” aerial photo to be a number 1 Google Search result

Hi Tim
To get an image to appear high in this Google Image search we need to comply with Google’s algorithm that ranks search results. This is what I have done.

1 – Selected one image as the one we want to appear as the number 1 search result. Then use the phrase climate emergency in the name of the image. I have chosen this image and called it climate emergency.jpg.
This tells Google that this image is all about climate emergency
2 – Use the phrase climate emergency in the image’s ALT tag, and TITLE tag. This reinforces the message to Google that the image is about climate emergency
3 – The target page, where the image appears, must mention climate emergency often. This tells Google the text around the image is also about climate emergency.
4 – Now for the hardest, and most important thing to do. Get other websites to link to the target page that displays the image. Moreover, these other websites must use the phrase climate emergency in the link. As the target site is called Climate Emergency Network, this is ideal. Currently only 5 sites on the web link to Climate Emergency Network.

This Google Search shows you the sites that do the linking. If you can get a site like The Age to link to it then it counts for more in the ranking. David Robinson | 03 9699 2852 | david.robinson@… |
http://www.live.org.au

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Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 4:37 PM

Hi Simon

How do you wish to work this? do you want a plane to come down your way as well? Hopefully i get a reply soon and i can ask the person how much extra it would be to fly down to Apollo bay. Logistically it is a bit difficult because we cant do things at meal times with the kids. So we will need to do two runs; one in the morning and one in the arvo. is there a company there who might do Lorne and Apollo Bay and maybe aireys? We could all split the cost. Have two planes and two companies. both leaving in the moring and meeting in the middle soewhere.  What are your thoughts?

regards

Fran

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Hi Peter and Fran

Wow this is fantastic!!! I’m so excited the human signs are going ahead in Victoria. Please send me any links to media so we can read about your success and so I can share it with the rest of our Clean Energy team, they will be excited and inspired by this.

How tall will the crane be? Let me know and I will find out if it will be a good back up in case the weather is bad.

The “Turn the Tide” sign movement is growing contact Turn.the.tide.kevin@gmail.com
they are looking for images for their campaign. Turn The Tide is aiming for over 1,000 images from people all over Australia before the end of September.
This visual petition to Kevin Rudd will be showcased between now and then on the web, but before they build the site they need a good chunk of images to get it up and running.

If you need any other help don’t hesitate to contact CEFE.

Please keep in touch
Cheers
Liane Shields
CEFE Administration
02 64920505

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Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 4:43 PM

Thanks Fran. It’s really great being a part of this.

We’re getting organised down here. We have all 12 schools all providing students to the one main sign, of the word RENEWABLE.

I did an interview with the local paper to go into Friday’s edition. Thanks for the list of other participating groups, I’ll let our paper know that.

We have a helicopter and photographer, both pro-bono. A local environment fund (Eco-Trust, backed by the Port of Portland) will (probably-hopefully) be chipping in a couple of thousand to pay for buses and whatever else, and a local commercial video company down here wanted to do it, but aren’t available, so will lend a TV quality video camera to use in the helicopter.

I’m a bit worried about bad weather. Do we have a fallback in case the 20th August is too crappy to get aircraft in the skies across Victoria?

Oh, and the local ABC (Warrnambool, 96.9 FM) is giving me a 2 minute interview about it tomorrow morning at 7:40.

Cheers,
Peter

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Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 7:45 PM

Dear Sandra

I am writing to you on behalf of the Surf Coast Energy Group (SCEG).  As a statewide direct action towards alleviating climate change a group of energy, sustainability and climate change groups with statewide representation will be creating a chain of Human signs with community and school groups on August 20 2008. The project “Signs of Change-Creating a better future” will include school groups from schools in the Surf Coast Shire. All groups will be creating a human sign at a given time and the human signs will be photographed from an aerial perspective  (a human sign uses people to spell out a message and an arial photo is taken see website
www.cleanenergyforeternity.net.au

for examples of human signs) Basically, I have a number of project related questions for you based upon there being possibly 11 schools involved from the Surf Coast Shire. How much would it cost to have a plane and pilot fly over the shire to take photos (we have a photographer who has volunteered .) As there are possibly eleven schools taking place it means that the pilot and plane will need to fly over a large area. Is this possible? How long can a plane fly for and what would be the logistics of doing such a thing? Each school would be ready at a certain time and this would be coordinated from a central position (this is to be worked out) it might look like 9.00-9.15-9.30, etc. We would need to know how long it would take for plane to fly from each location etc. Torquay ( two schools close to each other) to Bellbrae to Anglesea to Aireys to Lorne to Deans Marsh to Winchelsea  ( numbers to be confirmed in the next two weeks.) What are the sorts of conditions that would inhibit the flight? Are there any other things that we need to take into account in regards to plane hire etc.

Of course your organisation would be well represented in any media releases that are to be distributed and accredited in any written or spoken material.

Looking forward to your rapid response. Please respond to
franwoodruff3@bigpond.com

Kind regards

Fran

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Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 9:49 PM

Hi all hope you are doing well.  Thought  I would send you some thoughts from Surf Coast Energy Group stuff from our meeting the other day as well as from our meeting between Dean and myself . It might be useful for those of you who are participating in the Human Signs project ( looks so far as if Bendigo, Castlemaine, Portland, Surf Coast, maybe Ballarat and Geelong any one else?)

Surf Coast Shire

We have eleven schools in our local area and we are contacting all of them to participate. At the moment I know four have been contacted (could be more as our members do their allocated tasks) and are eager to participate. One school has 850 students and all of them will be involved!

SCEG are telling the school principles the background to the project and what we wish the schools to do. The challenge is Climate Change and the solution is “How do we create a better future in response to this challenge?” The schools will each coordinate their own response and organise their own students individually. SCEG is organising the photographer ( a local media photographer has volunteered ) and the plane.  Not sure how we will fund it yet but it will happen!  We will also develop the media stuff. Basically our role is of coordination on a big picture level and schools will organise their own individual signs and students based upon the image, sentence or word they would like to develop. As a follow up we will create a photo montage which can be used (for a fee by local groups) and also put in the Shire’s calendar under August. We have also considered selling the photos to school students for one dollar. Fifty cents of which would go back to the school as a donation. The sky is the limit (or is it?)

Dean, Fran and Brett

We (I hope this means you too Brett)  have agreed to coordinate the state effort also on a big picture level. This would mean mainly media releases and tips to local and statewide news stations etc. We would write something about why, and who and where and the rest is up to you!  It would be great to get a contact number for someone from each participating group so that we can keep in touch and get up to date information. Brett has talked about developing a WIKKI so things can be posted and you can support each other and share information.

I hope you all have received the stuff from cleanenergyforeternity I sent out last time. By all means use each other and use the people who have gone before to support your efforts. This is such a fun and exciting way to get our message across. It is also a great way for you to get in touch with your local schools to build links think about solar schools project (remeber there is a twenty thousand dollar rebate/funding from Fed gov for all things green for schools)

Go For it

regards

Fran