Communications Team Meeting

This was our first formal Communications Team Meeting. In attendance were Talia, Andrea and Samantha, Daniela, and me - Susan. Shirley wanted to come, but was unable.

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Finance

Andrea and Samantha arrived just after me and we started to talk about her research into finding a bank account for the Perth Dupont Community Garden. The others arrived so we circled around with introductions and continued to talk about the bank account and the reason why.

Garden Up-grades

(Since the time that this story was written, the posts have been installed, and the project has been renamed and is now called Accessibility Up-grades.)

We have won the grant from the Carrot Cache - $1500, to at least build the porch, and we have used our own fundraising funds to buy the lumber for the raised bed. Indra' s husband has almost finished building it.

We talked about where we can find a designer for the architectural part of this plan. We thought that having a person to take a Adult learning class for design might help. As well, we can look at George Brown for a Designer.

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Garden Guidelines for 2010

The main reason that I called this meeting was to discuss the Garden Guidelines for next year. There have been a few issues that have come up over the past year that I wanted to address, and make sure that they were mentioned in the new guidelines.

One issue that come up is that of gardeners that have a big plot in the High Park Allotment Gardens, as well as a plot here. Another issue is when somone has a big plot although they are a single person. We also looked at gardening styles that have not been very productive. So, there are a few people that we want to move to a smaller plot. There are many people that would appreciate the privilege of having a garden. There are certain actions and attitudes that are not community minded. -I don't like to use blunt words, but what else can I call it?

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There were other issues that were pointed out as well. Daniela has journalist skills and has volunteered to write up the new Garden Guidelines. Because we have the existing Garden Guidelines from 2009, the plan is for each of us to send our updated comments to her, and she would create the new document from it.

She will send us the finished product so we can see everyone else's comments as she has integrated them in. We can finalize through e-mail to confirm that we like it. Then we will call a community garden meeting - probably with a seed packing event, and hand out the guidelines for everyone to accept. We will have a discussion there, if there are things that they want changed, if they are minor, then we will make the changes and print them up and send them out, maybe by mail... This year we will make sure people don't hand them in too soon, so that we are sure that they have really read them over.

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Teams

Grass Cutting Team, Compost Team, Maintenance Team, Watering Team.

Over the winter we can Discuss the "Job description" of these teams. (even though the watering needs to be done more often then the other jobs, I have a feeling that most people are going to go for watering, it is the easiest. It will seem that the other teams have to do their tasks less often, but there will be less people doing it, and the physical work is harder, so it won't be an un-fair distribution of the work load)

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Core Group Teams

We did not mention the other teams, but we should also clarify the "job description" for the Building Team, the Events Team, the Fund-Raising team and us the Communications Team.

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Calendar

There has been a issue of people not attending the garden meetings because they have had other events scheduled for those days... to get better attendance for meetings, it was suggested, and agreed upon, to set up the calendar straight through the year for garden meetings so people can plan around them.

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For more information about community gardens guidelines and the community structure for the smooth running of the garden

Please go to the Garden Shed Folder and look for the:

• Community Gardens Tool-kit - in parks

• Community Garden Handbook - general community gardens

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Conclusion

I want to thank the Communications Team for coming and sharing their views. The input is very valuable to our community garden. Since the beginning of the garden, when we first learned about community gardening I realized that this is the opportunity for all the garden members to grow in their leadership skills. I hope that all the members of the team will benefit from joining, and I hope we can encourage and share this growth with all our members of the garden, young and old.