Thursday, August 21, 2008
In Attendance: Vlada, Lorne, David, Kriko, Alice, Deema, Rachel, Stephanie, Emerson, Charlie, Cara, Mark, Gabe, Sarah, Mike, Judy, Michael
Updates
– The Pirate Andy’s Treasurer Report says we’ve got $4992.46 in our account, including $2,229 that we have raised though grants and donations for our compost consolidation project.
– Cara survived a Raccoon attack on Long Island!
– Those who took part had a great time at the annual Green with Envy Bike Tour organized by Jon Crow of the Pacific Bears Garden! Its always great to meet other gardens and talk about similar struggles, look at how each of us has dealt with those struggles, and to be inspired by the breadth of experience, dedication, and passion we all share. Thanks, Jon!
New Business
The Third Annual Triple Threat is on for Saturday, Sept 6th, noon until… (Sunday, Sept. 7th raindate)
– we voted on a $200 budget for this event, primarily to be used by whoever volunteers to be the BBQ coordinator from grillings.
– the call was put out for volunteers to step up into event coordinator positions
Thank you to Emerson, for volunteering to coordinate the movie!
Thank you to Stephanie for volunteering to coordinate the tasty bake sale!
Thank you to Deema for volunteering to coordinate outreach!
– No one volunteered at the meeting to coordinate the Sidewalk sale or the BBQ. The word was spread to the membership through e-mails and phone calls. Thank you to Kriko for volunteering to be the sidewalk sale coordinator! After no one was able to coordinate the BBQ… Double thank you to Cara for performing double duties, coordinating the coordinators and coordinating the BBQ!
Attendance for Meeting and Workdays
In the RSVP request before the meeting, we said that we were going to discuss the attendance for meetings and workdays, as well as the possibilities for make-ups. (As you all should know by now, the garden voted this year to require everyone to attend 4 workdays/events and 4 meetings to either keep their plot for next year or get on the wait list for a plot for next year.)
The discussion of make-ups was on the agenda to talk about our new by-laws and membership commitment, especially in light of the fact that as of last Thursday’s meeting, 3 plots are mathematically unable to fulfill their membership requirements. We thought that we should all start to talk about this issue now. The attendance list for workdays and meetings was passed around the meeting and e-mailed/mailed out to the members not in attendance.
Workdays:Make-up workdays are not really an issue, since there are many opportunities between now and the end of our season to fulfill our membership commitment of four. We still have 1) our final workday, 2) a workday(s) that our workday coordinators are organizing, 3) a workday to paint the rainwater harvester to look like a caterpillar, and 4) helping with a 3-hour shift at the Triple Threat. There is also always the option of doing a three hour shift with Charlie to help with the compost.
Meetings:In terms of making up meetings, things were a little more complicated. There was some discussion, and several proposals.
– Mark initially proposed to allow gardeners to attend either a BQLT Board meeting, a BQLT Operations meeting, or a BQLT Communications meeting. In order to get credit for attending a BQLT meeting, the gardener would then have to come to the next Hollenback monthly meeting and report on the BQLT meeting. That proposal was initially passed unanimously.
– Rachel then made a second proposal to count workdays as make-ups for meetings. Several members present felt that meetings and workdays were different commitments to the garden, and that 1) meetings were more about face to face discussions about the direction of our garden, and that 2)attendance at meetings is important and distinct from workdays because without active attendance at meetings, an undue amount of volunteering falls upon the people who attend meetings.
– Then Gabe and Emerson proposed that we hold off on any amendments to our membership commitment and see how things stand in October at our last meeting. In the ensuing discussion, several gardeners said they felt that the membership commitment was very fair. It was said that we all voted on the commitment and it passed by an overwhelming margin and we should stand by it and see what, if anything, we want to address at the end of this first season. This proposal passed by a vote of 14 to 2 and the first two proposals were withdrawn (though saved for possible measures in our October discussion).
In terms of our October discussion of the by-laws and membership commitment, there were a few other points brought up. For one, there is the consideration that there are some gardeners who cannot attend one of our two meeting days(Thursdays or Saturdays). For those gardeners, they only have four possible meetings they can attend.
New Final Meeting Date
– It was proposed and passed to change our last meeting from Thursday, October 16th to Saturday, October 18th.
New Workday
– For anyone needing a workday, Kate volunteered to run a make-up workday on Saturday August 30th.
Respectfully recorded and submitted by Mark
Hollenback Community Garden 