Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
2.
GET THE PARTY STARTED
Meetings with a Mission
All the world's problems can be solved in a garden.
—Geoff Lawton
My mother is a proponent of the “ounce of prevention” school of thought; I've found it's especially true
when your garden community is just forming. Starting off on a solid foundation can go a long way to-
ward simplifying things down the line.
If your garden is in the inception phase, follow the meeting planners in this chapter and chapter 3 for
your initial community meetings. If your garden is already established, the planners will offer helpful tips
to make your community organizing more effective.
Starting with a clean slate will help your group dream up the garden together during your first meet-
ings. In reality, you and other interested parties may already have a list of tangible factors that will impact
the future community garden. These givens, such as who owns the property, where the water source is
located, or any limitations to land use, are useful pieces of information. You and others may have also
already begun outreach and had discussions with neighbors and select individuals such as city officials
and property or local business owners. All of this information is important to share, but before the plan-
ning train gets too far down the track, it is important to pull the community into the process. This way, all
interested parties can define the outstanding issues together. This is the heart of community organizing:
encouraging and empowering participants to make the decisions together and to combine their assets and
talents to create the outcome they desire.
This chapter outlines a process for your initial meetings. I've broken it down into two meetings: the
first focuses on introductions and getting to know the participants; the second focuses on developing the
mission for the garden (the third meeting, on structural design, is covered in chapter 3 ). Depending on
the dynamics of your group, you might be able to breeze through all three objectives in one meeting,
or it may take many more. The important thing is having everyone participate in the evolution of the
garden—no matter how long it takes. Only you and your community will know the pace at which things
should proceed. Trust your gut and use the following information as a guideline only.
SPREAD THE WORD: A New Community Garden Is Forming!
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