Minutes of Transition Pt Chevalier meeting, 10 February 2015

Held outside at the Pt Chevalier Bowling Club

Present: Ellen, Ally, Adrian, Deryn, Ruth, Harvey, Sandra, Jenny, Walter, Heidi (notetaker), Terry

Apologies: Anna, Yolanda, Guido

1          Welcome New People. Brief discussion of what our group does.

2 Old Homestead Community Garden. Walter and Terry will communicate with Anna and organise a meeting at Walter's place about continuing the Old Homestead Community Garden.

3 Pizza Oven: A trip is planned for Thursday this week, at 2:30, to visit a large building site out west where a trailer-load of clay is being donated to help with the construction of the pizza oven at the Bowling Club Community Garden. Ellen, Walter, Terry, Ally are donating time, vehicle, trailer. However, this plan is on hold because: Terry and Jenny heard tonight that the Football Club on Meola Rd has a pizza oven they would like some community group to take away. Apparently they never use it. (Terry popped into the club after our meeting, checked out the oven, and will contact the right person soon).

4          Guttering, spouting for the roof at the BC CG: Ellen knows of a house that will be demolished on 15 March, and will ask about whether we can take the guttering and spouting. Terry will also talk to his cousin to see if we can get offcuts.

5          Mulch for the Bowling Club Community Garden: Ellen will contact Asplundh (who have the Council contract for trimming and mulching council trees) to see if they can drop off mulch at the BC. They had earlier indicated that they didn't know what to do with it. Terry, Walter and Heidi will all talk to our respective mulch-providers to see if they are a possibility too, in case Asplundh can't do it.

6          Community Mulching Day: This is a possible event for the neighbourhood we could facilitate. Terry will talk to Graeme to see if the mulcher he has is suitable / available. Next step would be talking to the bowling club to see if it is something they'd be happy to host, and who of their neighbours would need to be contacted. It could possibly be held on Neighbours' Day in March. Harvey suggested that people doing local building projects might be happy to drop off vegetation that they have removed.

7          Other Community Gardens: Members of the group have previously had a field trip to a number of other community gardens. Tonight, Terry mentioned the Wilton St community garden, known by its coordinator as the “Wilton St Picnic Patch” which is very small, and recently was halved by a sale of part of the property. Ellen pointed out that its success is due to the work of a volunteer coordinator, and that the role of such a coordinator, putting in 10 or 12 hours per week, is important in the success of a community garden. Yet we noted that Council seems unwilling to see that this is an important role to fund if they want community gardens to work.

8          Eco Neighbours. Sandra mentioned Eco Neighbours and how there is a Council co-ordinator who is interested in “eco” events or projects organised for at least 6 neighbours (living within a 5 minutes walk of each other). There is funding available for this. Ellen looked up the sorts of things this could involve: workshops or events on: bikes, waste/composting, water,  energy, eco design of houses, local food production, chicken-keeping, bee-keeping, resilience. Ellen also mentioned that Eco Neighbours was one of a number of council initiatives to connect residents which really stems from a concern for civil defence.

An idea for something we could run included setting up much larger water tanks at the CG which could therefore be water sources in a civil emergency.

Please see attachments below with some council information about Eco Neighbours.

9          Niki and her sister Laila are on a “Rethink the System” tour of New Zealand, holding meetings to discuss how the system isn't working and how to fix it. They will be in Auckland holding a meeting on 19 February at the Allelujah Cafe, 7 pm. All welcome.

10        Cow-pooling. Ellen knows of a beast who will be butchered soon. Several people were interested in sharing it.

11        Meetings this year: Second Tuesday of the month as usual, at the Bowling Club, and as there is always someone there, no-one needs to be “host” - we'll just appoint note-takers, chairs, etc as required.

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