June 2007 Meeting Minutes

! * June 23rd Meeting Notes Dearest Gardeners: My deepest apologies for the prolonged delay in getting out the notes from the last garden meeting. Itdoes not mean that I love you any less as gardeners, simply that my secretarial skills are lacking. First and foremost, Hollenback Community Garden remains the top garden in the universe (as well as the underverse, the monoverse, and the otherverse). Congratulations. Updates: Sarah P. went to the BQLT Operations Committee Meeting. – They are discussing coming up with a systematic method with the BQLT to test the soil in all 34 member gardens. They also discussed operations stuff for the land trust and seem to be formulating a way to make the gardens financially independent. She will report back as to how both of these progress. People at BQLT know our garden and are impressed that we can get such big work crews together. I am too. Make Music New York! – Gardener Allen was our point person and mastermind behind Hollenback’s part in New York’s first Make Music New York Festival. We hosted I-Crisis, and in keeping with most of our musical events, it poured rain. However, not before I-Crisis embodied rock and roll, kicking out three jams on electrified instruments in a lightning storm. There was a great opening poet, and Allen set the mood spinning some soul classics on 45 (Say Allen, can I borrow a copy of your “Hey Soul Classics”?). Thanks to Allen for his stewardship, to Pete for his grillmanship and to everyone who came out. Children at Hollenback – School children from P.S.11 was treated to narrated tours of the garden at the hands of Mark and Hannah (and one day with Sarah’s mom). There were two days of tours given to classes ranging from kindergarten to fourth grade – about 10 classes in all. Each class did something slightly different, but the tours mostly revolved around a sensory exploration of the garden. The students and the teachers and the gardeners all had a great time, and Mark now has children screaming “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, Miiiiiiisssssterrrrrrrrrrrrr Maaaaaaaaaaark!” everywhere he goes. Our Neighbor and Our Compost: – At the previous meeting we discussed complaints lodged with the Washington Avenue Block Association by our new neighbor, Kathleen. Kathleen is the recent owner of the carriage house on Waverly, right behind the garden, and more specifically, the compost. After our last meeting, Mark met with Kathleen. In our ongoing attempts to mitigate the problems arising (ahem) from the compost pile in the back of the garden, in an effort to work with our new neighbor, and (perhaps most importantly) to maximize our accessible common space, the garden voted to move the working compost piles to the center of the garden behind the apple tree. The workdays for doing this were scheduled for the following Tuesday and Thursday nights. They were successful. Go look at how much space there is in the back of the garden. As we move forward, we’re hoping to find a balance that makes our neighbor content, continue to provide an alternative process for community food waste, let’s the garden maximize its community open space, and enables us to reap the benefits of our legendary compost. Food Donations: – As a reminder, we have discussed combining the contributions of any willing gardeners who wanted to donate extra food to a soup kitchen or food pantry. If any interested gardeners know they will be out of town for any length of time this summer, let Mark know if you want to donate some food during any time you may be away from the city. Budget Report: Pirate Andy reported that we’ve still got some money in the bank after a few outlays for our recent composting toilet and water tank projects. Mostly, though, PLEASE PAY YOUR DUES. It’s only $10/summer. Pure, unadulterated happiness is cheap at Hollenback. Our First Event – Though Mark and Cara will be out of town, it was suggested that July 21st be our first community event of the summer. The idea of a movie night was proposed. The idea was to make sure we are not letting our amazing, but strenuous, construction tasks keep us from having lively community events. It seemed unlikely that anyone would step forward to spearhead this event, but from the ashes there has arisen… Allen Thayer. We thank him beforehand for volunteering to coordinate our group efforts to make this a wonderful event. So stay tuned for more about the group effort he will need from us. See everyone on July 21st at the meeting. Secretarially, Mike D. (with some additions by Mark)

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