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Fairview Community Gardening Initiative Meeting Minutes

February 4th 2013, 7:08pm

In-Definite Arts

11 in attendance:Katie Morrison

Dave Eisenbart

Vanessa Hanel

Stacey McDougall

Adrian Buckley

Lynda Howes

Elena Castro

Heather Nelson

Lorraine Bedet

Trudy Gabriel

Greg Rushford

Introductions around the table

Update on where we are at:

-started in November, still in planning stages, looking at fundraising, City of Calgary application

process underway

Update on workshop How to start a community garden put on by CHS (Community

Garden Resource Network) last Thursday- update by Lynda

Very informative - walked through all aspects of community garden setup - resources,

construction, fundamentals, community relations, theft and vandalism (tips to avoid), site

selection and layout planning, rental agreements, fundraising, volunteers

Subcommittee updates

Admin

Katie discussed decision making options - 1) full consensus, 2) modified consensus (set a level

e.g. 60%), 3) majority vote (51%), 4) supermajority vote. Katie prefers a modified consensus

vote, full consensus too difficult and chews up a lot of time to get everyone to agree. Group

agreed to use a modified consensus system

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Garden guidelines - rules and regulations for the garden- would like to have a subcommittee

meeting to brainstorm ideas to put together this document - Katie, Heather, Vanessa to tackle this

Location and Design

Subcommittee did scoring system on different sites in Fairview as presented at last meeting -

Flint was top score (behind Flavelle, but it is out for several other reasons), central park regionaround schools would be second, but subcommittee is starting to favour the baseball diamond

site.

Met with Guy Beavers from Parks earlier today - City is also interested in the baseball diamond

site, Guy is looking into whether it is used much, water source nearby and drawings of the site.

Should hear back by end of this week. Parks will also offer letter of support, pay for water usage

costs and up to $5000 in-kind donations for initial construction (can go towards water setup,

fencing, etc.). He will need a concept design before anything can go ahead - subcommittee is

planning on meeting in the near future. Douglasdale has a really good garden and good at

fundraising.

Vanessa brought up last CGs meeting stuff at the FCA meeting in January and there was no

opposition to what was presented.

Communication and Outreach

Vanessa wrote article for the recent Fairview in Focus

Jano has just started up a blog-style website through Wordpress - work in progress

Jano has also started working on an education plan

Consider a movie night sometime in the near future, charge $5 donation and play a documentary.

Vanessa to look into ideas for this, Katie has list of movies that we can get from library.

Seedy Saturday coming up on March 15th - Stacey to send out info on this

Next Fairview in Focus column - Vanessa to use some of Lyndas info from the workshop

Fundraising and Finance

No major updates, have list of grants that were mentioned, but require a concept plan before

applying

Expected average of $15,000 for a typical community garden startup

Discussed various grants available

Parade of Garage Sales - April 26th, previously used as a playground committee fundraiser, but

would like the community garden group to try their hand at this. We raised around $600 in

previous years, typically committee members donate stuff (and some outside of the committee)

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to sell. Stacey agreed to be central organizer of CG garage sale, ideally need to find a double car

garage

Casino funds - Dave discussed - need to estimate a timeframe when we will have an application

for Gaming to ask to use casino funds for community garden. When we submit such an

application for anything from FCA, it typically takes 2 months (but up to 3 months) beforegetting it approved, but anything else submitted during that time frame will be pooled and also

approved. Anything submitted after their decision will wait another 2-3 months. The group

figured we should have something together within the next couple of months, so Dave will start

the process by submitting a different FCA gaming funds application.

Dave also to send gaming application and an example letter from Flavelle or Flint playground

applications to fundraising team.

Casino for FCA is coming up March 20/21. Signup list passed around. This is a huge fundraiser,

bringing in $65,000-75,000 for the FCA, some of this money will likely go towards community

garden. Shifts are day or evening, several different jobs, all quite easy. Contact Dave to volunteer-president@fairviewcommunity.ca

Other business:

New attendees - please state interest in various projects if you want to be involved in

subcommittee work

Next meeting - Tuesday, March 4th

Adjourned 8:25pm

mailto:president@fairviewcommunity.camailto:president@fairviewcommunity.camailto:president@fairviewcommunity.camailto:president@fairviewcommunity.ca