Committee approves Atlantic Beach entry in Minecraft challenge to run as a pilot

The Environmental Stewardship Committee voted Nov. 19 to move forward with Atlantic Beach’s participation in a Minecraft sustainability challenge, approving a single pilot challenge tied to the new community center and authorizing virtual coordination with the city of Jacksonville.

Chris (committee member) moved the motion and Dan seconded, and the chair called a voice vote that was recorded as 'Aye.' The motion instructed staff to complete the required confirmation by early December so the city’s entry appears in the preliminary round.

Committee members discussed whether to submit one or two challenges and recommended starting with one pilot to limit upfront staff and financial commitments. “We would do 1 challenge and it would be the community center to start with,” Chris said when making the motion. Members noted the early-December deadline for preliminary placement and discussed a mid-January fallback for later submission.

Members also discussed the challenge’s educational framing — resilience and marsh/shoreline topics were proposed as ways to connect the game to the committee’s priorities. The chair said the pilot approach would allow the committee to expand participation in future years if the event proves successful.

Next steps: staff will coordinate with Jacksonville and finalize the entry by the early-December deadline. The committee recorded the motion and its approval by voice; the transcript does not list named vote tallies.