The Food Group met from noon to 1:20 p.m. on Thursday, April 1st at John Mayba’s office.
John, Dan Schubart, myself and farmers Bill Thomson and Bob Haines were present. The wide-reaching discussion was aimed at identifying the next steps in encouraging consumers to support local agriculture.
Topics included experiences at the Farmers’ Market, the general growth of interest in local food,
coming changes to the B. C. Water Act, progress on an Agricultural Plan for the Valley (hiring of a consultant soon), attempts to feature local food in schools, the importance of convincing people to grow at least some food in their backyards, and the need to increase awareness of the public about the benefits to health, environment, economy, community independence and resilience of growing, purchasing and eating local food.
Three immediate actions were decided upon:
– to produce bumper stickers in praise of local food and to give these out (free, at cost or by donation) at the Farmers’ Market (example” I EAT LOCALLY GROWN”)
– to use the www.patransitions.ning.com website to provide links to local producers’ sites and to post the Alberni Valley Farmers Directory (now in print form), so that updates can be made more promptly available.
Farmers would update their own websites, with patransitions updating the links only.
– to encourage everyone to learn about the possible implications for agriculture of changes to the B.C. Water Act and to write letters in support of agriculture as a priority use. Written submissions are being accepted until April 30. See www.livingwatersmart.ca/water-act for background. For a farmer’s point of view, see Bob Collins’ column in “Country Life in B.C.” Bob, Bill Thomson and Terry Shannon attended the workshop on Ministry of Environment’s drafting of Water Act Modernization legislation.
Category Archives: Groups
Next Meeting and what happened with Directors Feb 18!
Hey all,
Sorry I haven’t gotten to the email lately and updated to all on what happened at the meeting on February 18th.
Before I get to that though, I’d like to suggest our next meeting be:
Thursday, March 18 at 6PM
Thursdays seem to be working reasonably well for us.
So our last meeting was basically to put pen to paper and sign off on both the Constitution that we have all been working on, plus sign up our initial slate of Directors (who I must emphasize are tasked to do as little as possible… leaving the workings to Group Leaders!).
We did indeed sign off on the Alberni Valley Transition Town Society Constitution and Bylaws.
Everyone who was there (Dan, Bonnie, Colin, Edna, and myself) signed the document. We did make one change to the document which was to change the “Carbon Energy Reduction Plan” specified in the document to “Energy Reduction Action Plan”.
While there was only a need for 3 Directors, everyone in attendance actually volunteered to become a Director so, the Directors of the Alberni Valley Transition Town Society are:
Myself,
Bonnie Ruttan
Edna Cook
Dan Schubart – Secretary/Treasurer.
Colin Frazer
You’ll notice Dan is the only one with an actual title afterwards. As Secretary/Treasurer Dan has accepted responsibility for archiving the minutes of any AGMs and other meetings of the Society and has also accepted responsibility for handling any money raised, etc.
So there you have it.
Just today I have created an account for us on BCOnline so that our Society creation fee ($100) can be payed (I’ve put up the cash for it) once our application goes through.
We also have everything we need in order to send in our application to become officially recognized as a Transition Town so I’ll be sending that away shortly.
Hope that serves as a reasonable update.
I hope to see everyone at the next meeting! There is lots to do! The Food Group needs to get some traction again. The Energy Group going to have its first meeting very soon and talk about what we can do in town. The Housing Group has a Society now and I’d like to hear how things are progressing there.
Cheers.
Chris