April 16 Community Meeting Notes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Thank you Brian for taking notes at the meeting!)

The first part of these notes relate to all things Poki:

1) he will train both Gaia and DR folk in the art of blogging. Contact him if interested.

2) he stated that DR should have a life of its own beyond the intent or blueprint that was originally spearheaded. That means all opinions are welcome. Start rehearsing.

3) he will still be at DR twice a week on the regular Wed and Sat schedule (until when depends on God's favor and Dominique's patience but the writing on the wall is that Poki will make a physical break with DR and the yurt in the near future); he is also available to meet at prearranged times to teach skills or to consult, so contact him.

4) he advised us to read and understand The Sharing Garden, a poetic tome that enforces the notion that giving is better than receiving, a beatitude that causes capitalistic druids to blush and bluster in their difficulty to understand it. Read it to better answer some curious newbie who asks: How many pounds of produce do I get per hour worked? Check it out at http://communities.ic.org/articles/1513/The_Sharing_Gardens

OTHER DISCUSSIONS...
How do we communicate amongst each other? One suggestion was a Google calendar that will list all events from and for all DR people. Meetings, gossip, teachings, festivals, etc. That list is independent of the blog. It will be an interactive scheduler that any participant can list on and get info from. Another option from the Token Luddite Society counseled that a hand written calendar with drawn daisies in the corners might benefit those Baby Boomers amongst us if said calendar was pinned onto the garden bulletin board. A quick souring murmur from the TechnoCats slowed that motion.

For Hell's sake, somebody invite Joaquin back to the tribe for his razor sharp garden wit and knowledge. We would love to have him as a consultant and teacher also.

Some quick notes about the AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY drawn up and delineated by Kirsten of all the work necessary to make the garden run like a smooth machine. In part these tasks will replace the Perpetual Motion Machine named Poki who attended to many of these tasks while living on the premise.

1) are there too many tasks compared to the small numbers of DR participants?
2) each person(s) who signs up for a category is thought of as a Coordinator who does some of the work them self but also delegates chores to others. Just as long as that task gets done!
3) this is all an experiment. Try these tasks for 1-3 months and see what works.
4) it was suggested that The Community Meeting Manager be merged with the Communications Manager.

We went through each AREA OF RESPONSIBILITY and described what it would include. Then people signed up, and the list now looks like this:

Transplanting/Seeds: Carmen (?)
Watering/Row covers: Dan Piburn
Soil:
Comost: Bella, Giselle, Carmen Harris
Weeding/Harvesting: Tess, Iwona, Bella
Tools/Supplies: Dan
Money Management:
Fundraising:
Bloggers: Dan, Carmen
Community Meetings/Communications:
New Member Orientation: Iwona
Celebrations: Elizabeth(?)

Five major garden areas that need work before the Kitchen Garden Chicken Coop Tour July 29:
Main garden
Shrine Hill
Shine Hill
Herb Garden
Shedville
These are projects above and beyond the general Areas of Responsibility listed above.

How about pre-work party meetings for half an hour or hour on Wed and Sat to talk things over?

Consensus was that DR would meet every three weeks.
We're aiming for MAY 7 FOR NEXT MEETING.
To be discussed at the next meeting:
Yurt/WWOOFER
Money
Time slots for task work, expanding open work hours
Water source and separate irrigation source
Redefine mission statement