ACM minutes 2023 03 08

Topics:  north garden or farmette

Proposal:  Designate the Wacoho Farmette, formerly the North Field,  as a Committee and prolong use of the Farmette without the need for renewal. Blocked.

All-Community Meeting minutes, Wednesday March 8, 2023, 7:00-9:00 p.m.

Present: Linda, Laraine, Alex, Jorge, Robin, Lynda, Lauren, Marina, Kay (notes), Renae, Vinnie, Eliza, Ben, Vicky, Mary, Cheryl, Myste, Kerry, Amy, Beth, Emilie

Check-in: In what ways have community members enriched your life or enhanced your dreams?

Review consensus process. Coming to consensus is giving consent to the proposal.  It may not be your first preference, but it won't hurt the community or violate community values.  During discussion you can give reasons why you prefer something else, and sometimes that persuades others.

Proposal Discussion:  The Farmette

Two parts of the proposal:  Continue being a garden without having to request permission every year.  Be a committee rather than a club.

The changes to the proposal are to clarify history and background.

The proposal talks a fair amount about things that aren't changing. 

Q. What is the point of becoming a committee? The proposal doesn't say. Most of the pros and cons are about things that aren't changed by the proposal.  A. The rationale is to get recognition of the north garden or "farmette" and to avoid questions about getting a budget when they are "just" a club. They view what they are doing as being for the community.

Some committee have been formed as a result of a proposal; others have not.  Committees usually start as a result of ACM discussion.  No club has ever changed to a committee.

Q.  How does this proposal affect other future uses of the space?  A.  It can always be changed by another proposal.

Frustration over why they need community funding when for years the people doing it funded it. 

Being funded by the community means residents have the privilege of using the produce without feeling the need to donate.

Mary was cut off by the facilitator.  Mary left.

People in the meeting keep saying "This has nothing to do with the budget".   What's the point of becoming a committee if not to qualify for a budget?  Committees aren't guaranteed a budget although in practice committees that ask usually get something.

As a new resident, joined the north garden under the impression it was under, and part of, the Landscape Committee.

Break.  Lauren needs to leave; she gives her approval. Alex said Laura supports proposal (is there a written proxy?).

The reason it appears the north garden overspent their budget two years ago(?) was that the budget was money from the Association whereas spending included money coming from a donation.

The funding for the north garden in this year's budget is less than a dollar a month per household.

Nobody seems to have a problem with the part of the proposal to not require permission every year, but a suggestion to separate the parts and pass the non-controversial wasn't acted on.

Call for consensus.  Kay stands aside. Marina is blocking. She feels pressure to go along; feels like the the insistence it isn't about money is masking the real reasons; a committee shouldn't be just because some people want something.  Call for consensus:  Is this a legitimate block?  Kay & Marina say yes. Everyone else says no. Kay and Marina feel they aren't being listened to.

Will discuss at another meeting.

Announcement

April 29 Beatles sing-along 1:00 to 2:30.  Two of the musicians are in a Beatles cover band.

Emailed _

PROPOSAL:  Designate the Wacoho Farmette, formerly the North Field,  as a Committee and prolong use of the Farmette without the need for renewal.

As a Committee, we ask to

• Continue the use of Wacoho North Field as a community organic production garden for 2023 

• Maintain the space for food cultivation without the need for bi-annual community approval.  Following Wacoho protocols, a unique proposal would need to be presented for any alternate usage of the space. 

Context: 

The Farmette has been in operation since 2016, whereby Wacoho reclaimed use of the land after temporarily lending the space to an urban farm business.  From 2016-2020, WaCoHo consensed that residents tending the site must submit annual appeals to use the space as a garden, pending a community-led desire to change the area’s purpose.  In 2020, Wacoho approved extending proposal submission from an annual to a bi-annual basis.   Given a nearly decade-long practice of urban gardening/farming in the area, we ask that we formally “zone” /adopt the site as agricultural, a purpose that can change at any time but only until a proposal is submitted contesting this status. 

Committee Mission: to strengthen the health and resilience of our community and care for the Earth by cultivating ⅛ acre of land we hold in common using biologically healthy methods to grow, share, and eat food.  We seek to enjoy a four-season harvest through organic practices, informed by our unique local environment and relying on the wisdom of other local and global growers.

Our Core Values 

Sustainability: As stewards or as strands in a web, we recognize our interdependence with the Earth and live in conscious gratitude.  We work to soften our impact on the Earth through various methods of conservation.  We remain mindful that our choices affect other beings and systems.

Beauty: We are committed to the synergy of aesthetic elegance and environmental harmony, both in the ways we live and in how we arrange and care for our physical environment. 

Cooperation: We recognize that working, playing, and celebrating together is essential to building relationships.  When appropriate, we place the interests of the community ahead of our own self-interests.

Meeting times: Meets at the farmette and/or the Seed Station in the Common House on weekends and some weekdays late spring-early fall, and as needed to plan and prepare for the growing season. 

Proposal Pros:

As a committee, we:

• Exemplify core Wacoho Goals: We seek to practice Wacoho core values by focusing on building relationships and working through challenges while celebrating cooperation, diverse ideas, experimentation, and the principles of sustainability. 

• Maintain Common Property: A passionate, inclusive, and growing team of Wacoho residents farms collectively and intensively a 5,500 sq ft plot of community land with the explicit goal of sharing the harvest with community members.  Our active management helps minimize fire hazards, suppresses competition from weeds, enhances soil fertility, and increases biodiversity. 

• Build Community:  We work together to feed ourselves and share with each other.  Through collaborative decision-making, participants co-design the farm and crop diversity plan based on community surveys.

• Model a healthy co-housing community, especially for children.  Working in the garden has an opportunity to represent a mini urban gardening internship with valuable life lessons that piqued one’s curiosity 

• Depend on Financial Security: The ambitious pursuit of managing a ⅛ acre space for scaled-up food production is labor-intensive and generates annual expenses in the form of natural fertilizers, seeds, and infrastructure. We seek to elevate the potential of this productive wonderland and explore our capacity to enhance access to nutritious home-grown foods. This aspiration relies on the generous support of Wacoho to literally “put their money where their mouth is”.

We prioritize using all of our resources responsibly, both material and financial, and working together to ensure the longevity of our tools and figuring out ways to maximize the resilience of the land. We invite all Wacoho residents to engage in  the creative, complex, hardcore, and rewarding opportunity to cultivate a melange of fruits and vegetables in ways that magnifies joy, are physically adaptive and are delicious.

  Accomplishments since the garden’s inception: 

• Community has elevated the use and value of the field through the planned growing of nutrient-dense foods and the creation of habitat for diverse organisms. 

• Expanded our crop variety with the adoption of four-season harvest methods and introduced more flower beds for pollinators.  Incorporated cover crops as a significant cost-saving measure that adds fertility to the soil and increases soil water-retention capacity

• Members deepen their gardening and other life skills using organic methods to improve soil-tilth, sow seeds, grow plants from seed, and cultivate various crops. 

• Harvested hundreds of pounds of produce for Wacoho residents & broader community  

• Increased participation, which enhances team-building and community buy-in

Proposal Cons:

• Farming requires regular watering and soil amendments but can be budgeted annually. 

• Time-consuming

• Physically hard work, but contributes to positive physical, mental, and emotional health 

• One definitely gets dirty, but frequent self-soilings and subsequent cleansings are healthy

Benefits of the Farmette

• Strengthens Wacoho’s engagement in local food initiatives as we share a wealth of high-quality food with the community; our work seeks to enhance accessibility to home-grown foods and promote healthy eating practices. 

• Exemplifies creative and productive Landscape Maintenance 

• Reduces fire hazard and weed pressure minimization 

• Saves money and water compared to lawn, reduces dependence on non-renewable resources

• Reduces Urban Heat Island Effect while enhancing biodiversity, magnifying productivity and health of the garden. 

• Simplifies space maintenance as we apply easier garden planning methods, improve task lists and formalize a garden calendar.

• Offers space for creativity, design, and re-use (ie. using jungle gym as a trellis,) and offers diverse projects for residents of varying skill levels and physical abilities. 

• Enhances connections with neighbors, and builds upon a sense of community-wide ownership 

• Channels already enthusiastic support and energy from the community