Initiating Group Minutes: 22 Oct 09

Minutes of Initiating Group – 22/10/09

Present:  Careen Hertzog, Jane Edwards, Elaine Henderson, Michael Stuart, George Latham

Michael’s apple picking project has been an overnight success.  From a standing start in September the project now has had 40 volunteers, 14 garden owners and 4 schools taking apples.  The next steps for the project are to help with pruning during January/ February, and then to try to expand the project for next year.

Awareness raising

Awareness raising so far has involved holding stalls at QP day and at the farmers market during Oct

Future plans:

Farmer’s market once a month – aim for next one 15^th Nov – plan to sell hot spiced apple juice on the stall, sourced from the apple picking project.

Leaflets – we are looking into some funding for TT, and if that comes through we are looking into costs involved in producing a print run of leaflets to use on stalls and in shops and community centres.

Schools – we would like to have a presence at a number of school Christmas fairs to build awareness.

Outreach – Jane Edwards

We are going to create a spreadsheet/ list of organisations and contact points to establish contact with for the TT.

We could post a number of links to other groups on our website.

Vision – Careen Hertzog

We are going to carry out a review of other urban TT websites to pick up the best ideas.

Education – George Latham

The monthly film nights continue at the Lexi.  The next film night is Wed 18^th Nov 7pm at the Lexi – showing “The power of Community”

We would like to show a climate change related film in December, possibly a cut down version of Age of Stupid.

We will consider additional film nights / private screenings to fit better with people’s evening timings

We are starting up a HandBook Club – details on the website group

Food – Elaine Henderson

The apple project has been a great success this autumn

It has been suggested that we could use the same model for helping people with gardening – ie a group of volunteers could be organised to ‘swoop’ on a ‘willing patch’ to remove concrete / get a space ready for planting etc… we need to find a volunteer to set up such a scheme.

There is a guerrilla gardening cell active in Kensal Rise already.

Action points for follow-up

-         GL to introduce MS to Alexis in Transition Belsize re apples

-         We need to do some research on insurance for apple picking and other activities – MS to report back

-         EH/ CH to organise meeting with council to discuss funding application

-         All - Organisation for farmer’s market stall 15^th Nov – need to find volunteers and look into ‘activity’ for the stall – suggestions: hot spiced apple juice/ soup/ roast chestnuts

-         Various - Aim for stalls at school fairs at Mallories/ Salusbury/ Princess Fred’s + others

-         All – aim for ttK2K group to march together at ‘The Wave’ on 5^th Dec

-         CH/ GL – consider speakers for November’s film night

-         Build spreadsheet to use for outreach