August & September Meeting Notes

The Importance of Leadership

for August 22nd and September 2nd 2009

In Attendance for Aug. 22nd. were: Susan, Alison, Indra, Gaye, Patel Family, Meg, Edmond, Andrea and Samantha. Notes taken by Samantha and Alison.

In Attendance September 2nd. Were: Susan, Edmond, Alix and Ivar, Milada, Kevin, Andrea and Samantha, Kanthilal, Phung, Dahlia, Edward, Alison, Shirley, Nao and Indra.

Susan's speech (read at both meetings):

We are a multicultural group of gardeners, with ethnic and life-style diversity. This community garden is a place to grow – not only good organic food and flowers, but a place for people to grow and learn. In this garden you have a chance to learn and strengthen your leadership skills, as well as your gardening skills.

My role as the garden coordinator has two parts. Outside the garden I am the designated person to to talk to city officials and to represent our garden group. But here, inside the garden my role is to teach.

As a Community Garden, we have a certain amount of responsibility. We have a responsibility to each other regarding the garden. Caring for the tools that we all share, and to make sure there are no safety hazards like messy hoses that are a tripping hazard. We have a responsibility to the City. Because this garden is in a City park, they expect us to keep it neat, and free of safety hazards. The other responsibility is to the community – our neighbours well respect our garden as far as they see the effort that we put into it.

So this leads us to the first topic in the agenda.

Garden participation in completing garden duties. I have written two lists of chores that need to be done around the garden area. The first list is things that need to be done on a regular basis. This is good for people that come on regular days. The other list is of things that can be done when ever you are at the garden. If you are not sure which duty you should take on, please don't hesitate to ask me. These are easy to do chores that you can do when you come to the garden, and the expectation is that you come to the garden at least once a week. Even if it has rained, you will need to pull weeds.

The other thing that needs to be done is the grass cutting. If it is cut regularly, it is easy to cut. If every one helps with the grass cutting, it shouldn't be too much for any one person. Of course there are exceptions with peoples heath problems, but they can contact me to make arrangements.

There is one more area which needs gardener participation. The actual running of the garden group. I am just one person. We do not have a parent organization that oversees our garden. I am just a volunteer. I don't get paid for this nearly full-time position. And as a community Garden Group, we should all share this responsibility.

And this is where those of you that are interested in strengthening your leadership skills comes in. I need to delegate the work load, and share these responsibility with you. In the past, I talked about committees. But I realize now that that word is too strong and has probably made some of you hesitant to be that involved- that it would be too much of a commitment. So we will now have teams to assist in running the garden.

With delegating some of these responsibilities I hope that you gardeners will feel as if this really is your community garden, and be able to take ownership of it.

The next topic on the agenda is Garden Plot Assignment.

We have some large plots where there are single people. Many times they are too busy to care for their plot properly. And we also have families in small plots. I don't want to take plots away from anyone, especially if they have put effort into their plot for more than a year. So I am proposing that the gardeners in question get support and share their plot with other gardeners. I will speak with them personally to help make arrangements.

At this part the conversation is open to the group. (notes taken by Samantha)

• Q. when you say rearrange, what do you mean?

• A. Garden plot #9 is having trouble with the grass taking over, she is a single gardener, she needs some help.

• Q. would it be easier to have single size plots for one person, and larger sized plots for families?

• A. Susan doesn't want to change the original plots and garden design. There are twelve plots that are 10' x 20'. The plots on the north side of the main path are different sizes, plot seventeen is the largest, and they taper down to plot twenty two. On the east side of the garden are four 10' x 10' plots. And behind them is the area that will become the raised garden beds. That area was divided into for gardens, but they are “un-satisfyingly small”, so when the raised beds are created, that area will be just two gardens that are about 4' x 20'. Many of the gardeners have been here for a few years. Susan has preached about soil health and that is why she doesn't want to just move gardeners around, they have all cared for their soil and put work into it. (It's not 'just dirt').

Suggestions about standard size of garden (from Edmond) standard size size for families, and standard size for single people, ( or for people with lots of time or too little time on hand)

The problem with that - is interrogating new gardeners to find out how much time they have, and to find out if they have a family or if they will have help in the garden. And new people just don't have an idea how much time is needed in the garden.

“Expectations is to come once a week and participate in helping the community garden... cutting the grass so that it doesn't fall on one person.

September 2nd Follow up of the discussions from the Aug. 22nd meeting.

This was a very successful meeting. We discussed in greater detail the issues that were mentioned in the meeting of Aug. 22nd. And we have created teams for the different areas of running the garden.

The first development was to let each person that has a comment, write it in the notes (instead of one note taker)

We also decided that the date of the Garlic Party was not good, as it is the long weekend. It was decided that September 20th would be better.

We were also successful in forming most of the needed teams:

Steering Team. Susan – (more people needed)

This group would work with me to set goals for our garden and set up outlines for what is needed to make gardening her the best. These people would meet with me and help to determine the direction of the community garden. How much community help and involvement there will be for the next year. Projects to have as goals, etc. This information would be brought to the community garden group for approval.

Communications team. Shirley and Andrea

They would keep track of all the gardeners, and phone the members that don't have e-mail. As well they would keep track of people on the waiting list. These people would help keep track of the gardener contact information. They would draw up the garden guidelines for the next year. This would be presented to the community garden group for approval. They would also phone the gardeners that don't have e-mails.

As well, they would contact gardeners (or notify Susan) whose gardens look like they have not been cared for, for more then two weeks. They would keep track of which gardeners are on vacation and who their replacement is, and they would let the group know of serious illnesses that might have befallen any of the gardeners, or their families (if that is their wish).

Financial and Fund-raising Team. Samantha and Andrea, and working along side Regina and Frank, volunteers this year.

These people would keep track of money that is made during events, collected from gardener registration, and any donations to the community garden from outside sources.

They will also look at grants that we can apply for, and fund raising ideas. There would be a financial report given at community garden meetings.

I would like a few people to come up with ideas... and I would like to make it clear that they wouldn't have to do all the work, just have plans and let the group know how many people they think are necessary to pull off their plans.

Events Team. Edmond and Samantha

As the name suggest, this group would look for opportunities to have events and work shops, and let the group know in advance how many people are needed to help with the set-up. They would make sure that there is a clean up team for the end of the event. They would design the posters to invite people, and flyers too.

They would be involved in choosing dates for events like the spring and fall clean up days. Letting the group know how many volunteers are needed to set up an event, and make arrangements to clean up afterwards.

As well, there are time that we will be invited to attend events and have a display table. They would coordinate with the fund-raising team for things to make and sell at these events.

Building Team. Alix and Ivar

This team has a responsibility to follow the safety code for the City of Toronto. They would work on the projects and repairs for the garden. They will need to have the proper safety equipment like safety goggles, safety boots and gloves. They will be expected to read the safety guide that comes with the power tools.

Susan will be acting as team captain with each of these groups until more people join in and the teams are more established.