Notes Jan 15 Meeting

Sat. January 15, 2011, 7-9 pm at Around the Sound (Started with potluck at 6 pm)

NEXT MEETING: Tuesday February 15, 7 pm at Around the Sound . Ron will facilitate.

Agenda Items to include:

-rack cards & re-skilling poster (let's see 'em!)

-updates on Re-Skilling Gardening workshops, Chickens, Community Kitchen, Around the Sound / Food Co-op

-update phone list (anyone to add?)

ACTION ITEMS:
- Allison/Kelda/Ron: Rack cards created and printed for Feb 15 - Allison
- Allison: post rack card to LM website once finished
- Allison: type phone list and email to each other
- Everyone: invite / accept each other as friends!

- Ron: look into Paper about chicken bylaws

- Re-skilling Group: post March Gardening event to LM website

- Everyone: consider food cooperative & volunteering with community kitchen

Present: Phil, Bonnie, Anne, Pauli, Kelda, Ron, Ang, Allison

1) December minutes - everyone agrees they are fine

2) Promotion:
-Kelda and Allison met and drafted a rack card (1 panel with 2 sides of information) that would provide info about Transition Owen Sound
-group thought it was generally good, needed some additional material.
-Kelda and Allison to consider slightly different wording and blurb on peak oil & transition network
-Ron will provide drawing(s) for inclusion in rack card
-once finished, Allison/Kelda will post electronic version to Localmotive site to share
-consider asking RLA for money to help with copies (Allison to initiate discussion with RLA)
-have rack cards printed for next meeting: Feb. 15

3) Community Kitchen:
-Cupboards arrived Jan. 14 and electrical work is done, hurrah!
-Still need volunteers to help with: stove venting, plumbing (need plumber), fixing bathroom door, molding, drywall sanding, carpentry (to build a cupboard, base and supports under sink), fixing chairs, painting, stove needs to be put together
-Anne will ask Georgian college carpentry program on Monday about getting help
-Still need items: dishes, cutlery, trays
-Another fundraiser would be useful, financially, but would need help from others - not just Kelda and Anne
-Grant report needs to be done by March, so a lot of the above work needs to be addressed by then

4) Around the Sound:
-Store has been incorporated. Process almost finished.
-There is a very strong and urgent need to develop a cooperative in order to ensure there is enough help, time and energy to manage the store
-group agrees that creating a food cooperative is part of the transition movement and the sustainable distribution of food is an essential element as well
-Creating a cooperative involves creating the structure / legal entity as well as forming a membership and deciding how to manage
-several kinds of cooperatives exist (workers cooperative, members cooperative, for eg.) Food Cooperative examples are Ontario Natural Food Co-op and Karma Co-op.
-A group met in Fall 2010 to discuss establishing a cooperative. There is a need to revisit project and get more people involved.
-Energy & time to creating a co-operative will have to come from outside the store (ie - not Anne and Kelda)
-Question remains: How to create broad community support?
-idea - create a flyer to put at till re: co-operatives

5) Re-skilling Workshops:
-Met last week, decided to host a series of Gardening Basics workshops on Saturday March 12, 1-4 pm at Downtown Bookstore
-geared towards beginners

-Suggestion made to consider adding workshop on community garden specifically. Find out if anyone interested in being coordinator
-This kicks off a series of workshops we want to have on other topics. (Others include bike maintenance, healing, preserving and canning, etc)
-Will advertise workshop series with a permanent poster located in key areas. Inside a pocket on poster will be upcoming workshops.

6) Chickens:
-Ang found out that there IS a bylaw that states “no chickens”. (Although can have rabbits!)
-Meeting Monday Jan. 17 at Ron and Ang’s to discuss how to amend the law
-Ron will look into a paper that was presented at the Bringing Food Home conference last year

7) Contact List
-at meeting we wrote down email addresses & phone numbers
-* We still want to use LocalMotive as the primary way to contact and communicate with one another, but will keep the info collected on hand in case we need to contact one person specifically and quickly

-List will be passed around at next meeting in order to add more folks
-Let’s also invite / accept one another as friends on LocalMotive!

8) Announcements:
-Sat. April 9th is Kemble Maple Syrup Tour - lots to learn about production. Post as event on website?
-Last weekend in January is Guelph Organic Conference. Speak to Ron & Ang or Allison if you want to carpool.