Next NYCCGC Meeting - Thursday 17 December 2009
Magali Regis
Subject: Next NYCCGC Meeting - Thursday 17 December 2009
Dear gardeners,
You are invited to attend the next NYCCGC Gardeners meeting &
Holiday party on Thursday, 17 December 2009 - 6:30 - 8:30pm
305 Seventh Avenue (btw. 26 & 27th St.), 15th Floor, New York, NY 10001
Metro: C or E to 23rd St. (8th Avenue) / 1 to 28th St. (7th Avenue) / R or W to 28th St.
The upcoming Gardeners' Forum
Washington DC visit
ACGA workshop
Meeting with Quinn
Feedback from Food Summit
Report on Visioning Retreat
Committee reports
Community reports
Party time
_______________________________________
NYCCGC Gardeners Meeting Notes
Date: 19 November 2009
Citizens for NYC Conference Room
6:30 - 8:30pm
Ellen
Attendees:
Annie Moss – la Finca del Sol Farm (south Bronx)
Sarah Wali – Journalist (Columbia Univ)
Eric Thomann - Backyard Garden (Brooklyn)/NYCCGC
Karen Washington – la Familia Verde (Bronx)/NYCCGC
Alan Ginsberg – la Plaza Cultural (East Village)/NYCCGC
Haja Worley – Joseph Daniel Wilson Memorial Garden/NYCCGC
Sean Michael Flemming – Wodbine Garden (Brooklyn)/NYCCGC
Marilyn Moseley Carrie McCracken TRUCE Garden (Harlem)
Pat McCarthy – NYCCGC
Aresh Javadi – Cortlandt Street Garden/NYCCGC
Tanya Fields – the Black Project (Bronx)
Laura Vallere – New York City College of Technology/CUNY
Tyira Singledon – New York City College of technology/CUNY
Mara Gittleman – CENYC/Greenthumb
Alessandra Zucconi – freelance photographer
Nichole Taylor – NY4 Parks
Ellen Belcher – Morris-Jumel Community Garden/Children’s Magical Garden/NYCCGC
****************
Scheduled upcoming meetings and other events at a glance (more details below):
December 17: NYCCGC Holiday Party (all welcome) @Citizens for NYCJanuary 25: The NYCCGC trip to Washington DC.
February 6: NYCCGC Forum @New School
March: GreenThumb Grow Together @Hostos & Making Brooklyn Bloom @BBG
Introductions, welcome, Citizen’s for NYC thanked for letting us use their space and their upcoming grants announced. Applications available at: http://www.citizensnyc.org/grants.html
The NYC Food and Climate Summit is taking place at NYU on December 12 on the same day as the Copenhagen climate summit. We have been allowed 15 spots from NYCCGC, names were taken for the list, which Ellen will submit to Just Food. Tabling is full but we are first on the waiting list, and we will have some presence on that day, Karen and Eric are coordinating our participation—we will try to have something to handout (a flyer?). Details on this summit are here: http://www.nyu.edu/sustainability/foodandclimatesummit/ [and Copenhagen summit here: http://en.cop15.dk/]
The NYCCGC Forum date is confirmed at the New School on Saturday February 5th. There’s a good chance that Livia Marques of the USDA People’s Garden Initiative will be able to come for the keynote talk, there is much more planning to do. Anyone interested in working on the planning this is invited to come a planning meeting at Haja Worley’s house (216 West 122 Street btwn St. Nicholas and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd) this Tuesday November 24at 6:30. Outreach to gardeners ideas included radio shows such as WHCR 90.3, which can be listened to also online (http://www.whcr.org/) and Heritage Radio network (http://www.heritageradionetwork.com/ )
The NYCCGC plans a trip to Washington DC on Monday January 25th to meet with Livia Marques and other federal officials in advance of her speaking at our forum in Feburary. We were invited to this meeting, 10 board and general members will come – contact Karen if you are interested in participating.
The NYC School for Urban Agriculture asked NYCCGC for a letter of support and in-kind donation, we have sent it committing to some participation in this new school in the form of workshops. The letter was passed around to meeting attendees.
NYCCGC Visioning Gathering is scheduled for December 5-6 at Brooklyn Botanic Garden this is a follow-up to putting ideas from our June visioning gathering into a practical plan. Aresh & Eric are coordinating this, a facilitator has tentatively been identified.
NYCCGC Finances we now have over $4,000 in the bank, mainly from grants to fund a new brochure, new website and the 2010 forum. Another grant, from NYState agriculture is a reimbursement grant. Other potential grantees were mentioned including Northstar and Brooklyn Community Foundation. We will know more about what we want grants for after the visioning gathering.
New ideas for NYCCGC meetings Northstar, NYBG (Bronx), BBG (Brooklyn) NY Horticultural Society, Citizens for NYC (manhattan), Queens County Farm Museum were mentioned as potential free meeting and venue spaces. We might want to continue to move around our meetings year-round to be available to the maximum amount of gardeners. Karen suggests we start inviting speakers to our meetings so more people would like to attend- we should also do a needs survey of gardeners so that we can try to meet them at these meetings. Eric suggests that we should push voter registration at meetings, Haja pointed out that the ‘Plant the Vote’ project through Green Guerillas was successful in the past. Our next general meeting is on December 17th, and will be a pot luck Holiday party at Citizens for NYC (301 Seventh Ave @ 27th Street, 15th floor).
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Report from Detroit: Karen reported from a trip to Detroit, where many urban farms are appearing in the many empty lots. There’s going to be an Urban Justice meeting there in June, we might organize a bus to take NYC gardeners to participate. More info later.
Heart to Heart garden (Bushwick) has been made permanent, nearby Warwick garden is still fighting for their garden and now might secure a lawyer, the NYState Attorney General, GreenThumb, and Habitat for Humanity are involved in the garden negotiations. Aresh and others are working with all parties to come up with a solution.
Carrie McCracken/TRUCE garden (Harlem) had a great season and is now registered with GreenThumb and no longer endangered. They have a website: http://harlemgarden.org/
An urban farm in the south Bronx is currently working to save their growing space. They are in conflict with Parks, which wants a playground on that land, though the community expressed interest in growing vegetables.
CENYC is continuing to reach out to all NYC gardens to encourage them to fill out surveys so that they can be included in the OASIS upgrade. The survey is available here: http://www.cenyc.org/survey
The Woodbine Block Association Garden is having a winter solstice party 12/20 to benefit the Bushwick Farmers Market.
New Yorkers for Parks was contacted by the City Council asking for a meeting regarding Community Gardens, a formation of a Gardens task force was mentioned they want NYCCGC to be involved.
--Ellen Belcher
November 22, 2009
Join the NYCCGC list serve:
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All NYCCGC Gardeners Monthly Meetings take place on the 3rd Thursday of each month. Please keep this in mind for your calendars. Feel free to forward to other gardeners in your contact lists.