EAT June 2010 Meeting Minutes
EAT Meeting
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
6:30-8:00 pm
Wenatchee World Conference Room
In Attendence:
Mike Brogan
Mike Cochran
Tony Davis
Nadine Lehrer
Ally Neher
Joan Qazi
Kerry Steffan
Treasurer’s Report: Current balance $1169.12
Updates:
Calendars – Café Mela has money from calendars. Mike will be collecting it.
The Community Garden - It is looking great---even the EAT plot! Rich Colson has taken over care of our plot and it’s doing very well.
Community Garden Lecture Series - Andy Khan did the most recent presentation (on tomatoes). It was not well-attended, but like all the other presentations thus far, it was well-received. Dave Gerlach is excited about the series and would like the Wenatchee World to come back and do another article at our July meeting probably on the 19th.
We need to consider what we can do to generate better attendance and get all of the users of the community garden involved. Our first step is to talk with Dave and find out when most of the gardeners are there tending their plots. If we can have our presentations coincide with their gardening times, we might get more people to attend. Also, next year we might just do fewer presentations.
In addition to getting the current community gardeners more involved, we’d like to encourage more involvement by people living in the neighborhood around the gardens. Suggestions include having a booth at the Methow Park Farmers’ Market and hosting a community garden “block party” in August, featuring food grown in the gardens.
Upcoming in the lecture series – Nadine suggested a local food potluck at the Community Center combined with a “tour” of the gardens and discussions of what’s growing, how the plants are doing, and maybe some troubleshooting.
IRIS meeting – NCW Food Coalition - Ally attended the meeting last month. The meeting focused on figuring out their mission. They have decided they have 3 main concerns, and will have committees for each one: 1-education, 2-policy, 3-production.
They will serve as a unified group to share information and resources with others.
The next meeting will be in Okanogan on September 15th, and the following one will likely be in Quincy or Wenatchee.
School Gardens – The Office of the Superintendent offered two $400 scholarships to Joan and a teacher within the Wenatchee School District to attend a sustainability conference on Bainbridge Island at the end of this month. This will be a great opportunity to learn more about connecting school gardens with larger curriculum.
“Youth United” is a way for local high schoolers to get a varsity letter in community service. We are looking into getting them involved with the school gardens.
Local Food Fridays – It has expanded this year, and is doing very well! CFC has asked EAT to staff a booth. You can chat with nice people and educate them about local food while you listen to music and eat delicious local food! We decided to take the August 6th date with a focus on chickens and eggs and a game to match a photo of a chicken to its colored egg. Also, we’ll have a list of local egg suppliers and an update on keeping chicken in your backyard in the city. Mike will follow up on the backyard chickens policy. Please contact Joan (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you want to staff the booth and/or if you can help create the games PLEASE!
Other news - Mike Brogan has land in Nahahum Canyon. He’s looking for growers to use this property. It would need to be terraced farming.
Something to ponder:
How can foodies like EAT go beyond their core group (who attend all the same events together, great for socializing, but still preaching to the choir) to try to diversify the audience for our educational campaigns?
We had the following ideas, but we would LOVE to have other suggestions!
Again, having the EAT booth at the Methow Park Farmers’ Market, with recipes available using ingredients that are available at the farmers’ market. Also, we are considering having more interactive things at Local Food Fridays, such as games with prizes. Use variety of media connections including Hispanic radio stations.
Upcoming Event:
Film showing – “Two Angry Moms” at the YWCA in support of Café AZ’s and to raise awareness of school food and nutrition. Wed, July 14th at 6 pm.
For more info on this film, visit: http://www.angrymoms.org/
Next Meeting may be postponed from July 28th to August 4th…stay tuned for updates.