For those who were there, thanks for coming to the first open meeting for the Clifton Community Garden project! This post is intended as a follow-up to that meeting and as an informative introduction to those who have expressed interest but were unable to attend the meeting.
The next meeting:
Sunday, Feb 17 from 4 to 6 PM in the Community Room of the Clifton Center. Hopefully by then we should know whether we have permission from Sacred Heart Vilage to use the land, so it would be nice to see some planning and work crew organization happen. Perhaps a walk to the site would be helpful to discuss ideas for layout and design?
Soil testing:
A few of the people who organized the meeting would like to go to the site together within the next couple of days as their schedules permit, in order to take some soil samples to send to the Cooperative Extension Service. If anyone would like to be present for this in order to learn/teach about soil testing, please call Matt (649-6104) or reply at this address (cliftongarden@gmail.com) and let us know what times are good for you. Soil testing will be the first monetary expense of the garden project, and since there is no official Clifton Garden bank account presently, the present organizers will personally incur the cost. We will bring documentation of the cost to the next meeting at which donations will be welcome, not exceeding the said cost in total.
A call for Organizers:
We, the present organizing group of the Clifton Garden, would like to let you all know that any time is a good time to step up as a key organizer on any particular aspect of the creation or management of the garden. The five of us (Jennifer, Jarrod, Matt, Sam, and Whit) have been proactive on organizing this project up to its present point of development, but we would like to see this group expand. Any aspect of the garden may be organized by more than one person, and any one person may be proactive in organizing more than one aspect, but an clearly identifiable group of proactive leaders could really move this project forward quickly to planting in the spring. Some (but certainly not all) of the key areas that will need organizing are:
- Compost: On site system construction, identification of and collection from sources
- Water: Catchment systems, on-site storage, organizing with city to get free water
- Tool/resource aquisition: Searching for donors, checking on Freecycle, etc.
- Treasurer: organizing and management of a Clifton Garden bank account
- Grants/Cash donations: seeking donations from local businesses and other organizations for necessary funds
- Site planning & design: plot allocation system and rational placement of infrastructure
- Construction: The site will need a tool shed, gathering space, bulletin board, and small greenhouse
- Outreach: informing the community about the garden--an ongoing task
- Education: organizing educational workshops and visits from educators to teach relevant topics
- Art: organizing artistic initiatives in the garden and an artistic element to garden construction and design projects
This is by no means an exhaustive list. Feel free to inform us of anything we haven't mentioned that you feel needs attention. What are your talents, interests, knowledge, and passions? Just send an email to cliftongarden@gmail.com or tell us at the next meeting if you'd like organize or get involved in a project--we're wide open. You are the Clifton community garden!
No comments:
Post a Comment