December 2021

 Eagle Heights Garden Committee Minutes

December 8, 2021 7 PM

Remote Meeting

7:00 Present: Lily, Ninja, Ann, Niels, Colleen, Megan, Jolene, Jessica, Ric, Barb A and Karen.

Jessica started the meeting.

Minutes  Motion by Lily and seconded by Ric to approve the October 2021 minutes. The minutes were approved. 

Registrar Update

Lily said the English and Spanish applications are ready.  The Mandarin and Turkish applications will be ready soon. More row cover has been purchased for next year.  We have received seed from Agway, E and R, Territorial and Baker Creek.

A suggestion was made about having a tool Maintenance jury to check through the tools and have them repaired.

A new organization has contacted us, the Gardens Network is interested in collaborating on workshops and sharing knowledge.  They were thinking of having a panel in February to talk about growing vegetables.  They are also connected to the Triangle Gardens, who have lost some of their plots due to construction.  Lily told them that the gardeners who have lost plots are welcome to apply to Eagle Heights as Community Members. 

Discussion ensued.  If there is a Seed Fair, they could have a workshop then.  If we can’t have a Seed Fair, we could have a Zoom workshop.  When it is warmer, we could have an outside workshop.  Demonstration is better if there are any language problems.

Hiring a Garden Worker

There was discussion of hiring more Garden Workers due to the problem of there being little work for the Garden Workers in the winter.  Jolene said that at most the Garden Workers are working is 10 hours a week.  Garden Workers are TE and can work 20 hours per week.  There is not much structure for the garden workers.  Discussion ensued about the supervision of garden workers.  Tanya wants to continue mowing, which worked out very well last year.  Andy has resigned so we need to replace him.  

It would be better if the gardeners were more involved in the maintenance of the gardens.  We haven’t had workdays because of Covid.  Workdays do help gardeners feel more invested in the common areas of the garden.

When hiring a new garden worker, Megan stressed how important good communication between garden workers, the registrar and other people involved in the gardens is to doing a good job.  Megan thought it was important to always have a Garden Worker available in the event of a problem at the gardens, like a water leak. Jolene encouraged us to have a better onboarding process for the new garden worker.  The Garden Committee needs to discuss this issue.  

Should there be priority tasks for the Garden Workers?  Megan and Lily will talk about this and bring it back to the committee.

Doodle poll will not be used next year to schedule workdays after the problems this year.

Will still wants to do the new waterline next year.

Long Range Planning

The discussion of ongoing and long range goals lead to a discussion of the long range plan.  Lily will ask Rhonda about the status of the plan.

Jolene suggested that now would be a good time to order tools and supplies.  Megan said she would do it.

Motion by Barb A and seconded by Ann

Adjourned at 8:00 by Jessica

Submitted by Karen, subject to correction by the Garden Committee