Windsor Park Community Gardens
Meeting Minutes 6/21/05 (Summer Solstice)

Attendees:
James, Elizabeth, Linda, Lori, Tom, Jimmy, Mike, Selwyn and some first timers - Garland (pastor of the church), JF (Master Gardener), and John Hart (student of landscape architecture)

Location:
Austin Mennonite Church

Topics Discussed:
Water
Keep Austin Beautiful grant
Articles of Association
Volunteer Resources / Grants
Fencing
Design
Committees

Water
Tom will be meeting on Friday with the planning & development director of the Housing Authority of the City of Austin about running water from Gaston Place. If you are interested in attending, contact Tom at alouwishus@sbcglobal.net

KAB Grant
Elizabeth reported that KAB, in addition to awarding us $2183. for materials, has offered to serve as our fiscal sponsor until we achieve non-profit status. (Elizabeth will follow up on that.) They are also available to help us with any obstacles that arise. We may call them in to help with the water. We have some commitments to honor, mostly mid-term and end-term reports with photographs (Linda has offered to be our photographer). We also have to show financial accountability.

Articles of Association
James will be re-working them over the next couple of weeks, so we can discuss them at our next meeting.

Volunteer Resources / Grants
JF suggested contacting Skip Richter at Travis County Extension Service to enlist Master Gardeners who have community service requirements.
Mike's wife is in charge of a foreign exchange student program. The students will be available for community service projects
Jimmy has connections with Friends of the Forest and has received grant monies from them for a school garden.

Fencing
This was a lively topic. We may be able to get about 200 feet of 4-foot chain-link fence for $150. Do we want it? We all agreed we don't want to fence to keep people out, but to create visual barriers for design purposes. Some people were quite opposed to chain-link fence. Many alternative fencing options were discussed. We will table the issue until after the design meeting.

Design
It was agreed that it would be worth taking another look at design. Selwyn (who teaches courses in permaculture design) agreed to head up a design committee. Seven people volunteered to serve on the committee. We will meet in the garden space behind the church on Tuesday the 28th at 7:00. Bring a lawn chair and water bottle. Wear shoes if you don't want fire ant bites.

Committees
We created a Utilities Committee to work on access and infrastructure for water and electricity. If you would like to serve on that committee, contact Tom at alouwishus@sbcglobal.net.
We established that we have need for a Compost Committee, a Labor Committee to gather materials, recruit volunteers, and organize work days, a Finance Committee and an Outreach Committee.

After the meeting, we adjourned to the plot for dreaming and scheming.