Neustadt LocalMotive Get Together- Feb 19th

 Who was there?  Nathan Carey, Jeff Boesch, Cory Eichman, Leslie Moskovits, Deb McKellar, Chris VanderHout, Ronan Bryson, Rosemary Crick, Jasmine Bryson, Tarrah Young

We had a discussion of what came out of last meeting, which became an update of sorts of things we’ve been involved with that are relevant to the group.  These were:

-An errand sharing network:  the 3 farms on 14^th concession formed a loose system of informing one another whenever they’re going to town.  That way if someone needs
something in town we can help each other out and reduce the number of drives
into town. 

-though not restricted to the Grey Bruce area, Tarrah shared her progress on the topic of bringing a mobile abattoir to Ontario,
and Cory shared his progress on the development of a Community Seed Alliance.

From there we broke into discussion about items or services we’d like to see in our community.

Listed below are the ideas that came out of the discussion, along with the name of someone in the group who will follow up on the idea for next time.  Although community economic
resiliency is the overarching focus of the group, simple community development
ideas came up a lot. Having a strong community seems to be a precursor to
community economic resiliency. 

• A treeplanting activity was suggested as a way to create community and help the environment.  We also felt it
  might have relevance due to the number of trees lost in the tornado last
  year.  Chris is going to further
  explore this idea.

• There was a lot of interest in getting our produce into the hands of people who cannot normally afford organic produce.

-Excess produce could be donated to those who need it:  Nathan to contact women’s shelter through the STC

-Creation of low-income CSA shares:  Deb to explore this

• Out of this discussion also came the idea to have a meal (free or very low cost) that we prepare using local ingredients and share with the community.  The idea behind the meal would be to
  expose people to foods they may not be used to trying or may think are
  unaffordable, through a fun, family oriented event. 

-Cory is going to check with his wife, to see what is already going on through the M’Wikwedong Centre that we may be able to support before starting from scratch. There may be some way we
can tie into the Healthy Communities Conference in May. Nathan is going to do
the same through Barry Randall.

• The topic of bees came up again, and there’s lots of interest in pursuing something here. The idea is that if a beekeeper is coming this way, then
  he/she could have hives in a number of places all very close to one
  another.  Deb is going to talk to
  her cousin who keeps bees and also with Saugeen Country Honey. 

• The topic of biodiesel was also explored, and we decided we needed more information about existing initiatives. 
  Jeff is going to do research on this.

• On the topic of reducing fossil fuels, we also discussed low-cost versions of alternative technologies, such as ‘pop can’ solar heaters, and solar
  dehydrators.  Rosemary is going to look
  into finding folks who have had success with these, and organizing a
  workshop where we could discuss and build these.

• The idea of informal workshops came up as a way to bring a fun learning element to our get-togethers, and increase knowledge transfer among
  members and in the community.  Of
  this, one idea that really got a lot of response from the group was that
  of Community Shared Alcohol J , which could start as
  workshops where folks made a batch of wine, cider etc, as a group and
  split the rewards.  Deb and Cory
  both have knowledge and equipment to share on this topic.  Tarrah will look into organizing
  something around this.

Existing ‘workshops’ to be aware of: 

-March 6^th at Cedar Down farm:  EFAO kitchen table meeting: Weaning Ourselves Off of Fossil Fuels / Ideas and Examples of Sustainable On-Farm
Practices.  Contact Leslie for more
details    

-March 8^th:  a meeting about the microFIT program.  Anyone interested should talk to Gerald Poechman.  It seems too that a more basic introductory information session would be more useful to anyone new to the
idea. 

-LocalMotive Durham meeting:  there has been some desire to have a meeting like the one we had in Neustadt, in Durham, and maybe amalgamating the two groups where applicable.  Nathan is going to organize this meeting.

• Finally, on the topic of Farmers’ Markets, the farmers in the group shared agreement that they would be much more likely to attend one relatively
  large farmers’ market rather than a number of small ones that have
  difficulty building momentum.  There
  was agreement that a Hanover Farmers Market would be a strong market which
  they would attend.  Cory is going to
  contact FoodLink about the role they could play in making this a
  reality. 

At our next meeting we will share our findings and progress on the ideas we are responsible for looking into.  The date for the next meeting was not confirmed but Nathan suggested we get together in about 3 weeks time.  Thursdays from 7-9 seemed to work for
most. 

Meeting adjourned!

If I missed anything or misrepresented anyone, please feel free to correct this.