Food Group Meeting 19 March 2008
1. Richard Heinberg event Decided not to provide drinks on the night as no time to organise this – will do this for other events in future.
Tues lunch: Kristina to be back up for Julia, in case her sheep need her.
- request not to discuss detailed practicalities in Food Group meetings, but instead in project sub-group meetings
2. Tracking projects
a. Labels Jiffa, John, Polly met and want to have proper discussion next week for group input on where it’s got to so far; what sort of feedback has been received etc. Polly and Jiffa will present an outline at next meeting.
b. Waste Discussed last week, and group want to go ahead.
c. Garden Buddies Stall at Farmers’ Market: Kristina, Polly, Julia to have small group meeting to sort out details.
Current projects: Waste day Garden buddies Labels Celebrating local food Farmers’ market
Enough to be going on with – other ideas can be put on the Wiki and then be looked at when time/resources/energy allow. But see discussion below.
3.Contacts Currently have two contact groups: People are added to the Google group if they come to a meeting. Currently has about 9 people on it. This is the active group.
TTL-food is other group – need bodies from this group to become more active.
It was suggested that have recruitment at Heinberg lecture. Julia to contact Adrienne to make announcement; Kristina to organise clipboard/sign up sheet to get names.
It was agreed to aim to get minutes out to Google group by Monday after meeting; to contact other group for specific invitations/requests/ideas.
4. The Plan Ruth to bring something rough to meeting on 1st April. Currently vision is too vague – need to look at something more concrete. Ruth will also try to find the large town map from the EDAP meeting in January.
5. Project review and selection Discussion on how to decide as the Food Group what to do. This follows on from discussion last week about presenting projects in an outline format (example – waste project presented last week).
Each project has to be owned by someone who is willing to lead on it. But when input from other group members is needed, have to prioritise and select projects carefully. We have limited time and resources and need sign-up from a number of group members to take any of these projects forward.
Keep in mind difference between one-off projects and long-term activities: projects are awareness-raising and doing things that are visible. Need to put ideas on the Food Group Wiki so they don’t get lost.
It was noted that in the waste group and business group, several ideas were presented all at once, pros and cons weight up, group signed up for the ones they prioritised and put their weight behind them.
Suggestion is to have this process, to ensure we are using our time to the best advantage and that the group agrees with work being done. Assumption is that group can take on one more project at the moment.
Process needs to be flexible enough to enable take up of opportunities.
Polly has a list of approx 12 ideas which she will circulate. Any new ideas should be sent to Polly. Invite to be sent to wider group to ask for new ideas and to explain the process.
Kristina will produce a template for people to write up ideas for projects on a side of A4. We will discuss ideas and agree on one or two to take forward at two meetings on 8 and 16 April.
6. Dates of next meeting Next meeting 1st April. Kristina to minute; Polly to chair. 8th and 16th meetings to discuss projects.
Wed 27th Feb., 7.30 - 9.00 at the Lewes Arms
Issues raised;
1- an up to date food directory[where to shop avoiding multinationals] More next week
2- A discussion on prioritizing our efforts. Kristina concerned that our projects were high impact. DEFRA had waste as high priority. We are finding ways to intergrate this with any future 'eat local' projects. So...........
3- Purpose re-work to cover waste and the cycle of production [see attachment]
4- the [ongoing]list of projects [this will form part of the PLAN] I will put this on the wiki soon.
5. We are having space at the next Farmers Market. Garden Buddies will form the focus
The Re-launch on Thursday Jan 31st was a success with 11 people attending. Much of this success was owing to Pete Burden of the business group who will continue to support our developement. We were able to make 1st draughts of our purpose and principles which will be refined in future meetings. It was agreed that we will meet more frequently to maintain the momentum and get to know each other better.
At our next meeting we spent time working on the priniples and purpose.[P.P.s] These will be published here shortly. Our current projects were outlined and discussed against our P.P.s
The Local Food Labelling Pilot project is to begin this w/e when Polly and Jiffa will meet with the 2 shop owners and set the ball rolling. It was agreed that the press release will be delayed until the process is underway. The Garden Buddies Project was launched on Seedy Saturday. Carolyn has 44 interested people! This is to progress slowly and care fully. Other future projects will be discussed at the next meeting on 13th Feb at the Lewes Arms.
Get involved: contact one of the Group contacts on the Groups page
