Attending: Tom, Ellen, Beth Horne (Event Coordinator, Center for Urban Agriculture), Shannon Spurlock, Rick Durham, Mary Meyer, Lucy, Gail
1. Upcoming NICH Meeting: tentative date of June 27-30 Shannon Spurlock and Denver Urban Gardeners will be hosting. Beth will be part of the conference planning team.
a. Hotel or Downtown. Shannon~ pre- and post conference tours might work better if we meet downtown (bus tour or b-cycle tours). Distance between downtown and airport ~ 30-40 minutes. Denver airport hotels very isolated. Consensus is to have the meeting at a downtown hotel. Shannon will reach out to local contact to see what ACGA used as hotels when they met in Denver. Let’s line up hotel, before promoting the meeting dates. Hotel should have one larger meeting area, with smaller break out areas.
b. Number of Attendees: Shannon would like to know how many people will be attending. Estimate is currently 100 people. Is that correct? Are DUG going to be expected to do outreach to recruit more folks to the meeting Tom: our focus is a national audience, although local folks are welcome. For national focus, include folks who weren’t able to attend the first meeting to attend the second meeting. Ellen notes that our mailing list is currently 46 people . . . half of our 100 person target. Also, that we did not get good representation from family and consumer science, even though many of our goals fall into that area.
c. Tours: Shannon~ pre- and post conference tours (bus tour or b-cycle tours). Bike tour or walking tour to urban farms, urban gardens and People’s Gardens, in Denver. Denver Botanic Garden has also offered pre- or post-conference tour.
d. Conference Committee: Shannon, Beth, Lucy, Mary, Ellen, and perhaps Rusty.
e. Agenda: June 27th is the travel day, perhaps a tour on the 27th. Meeting on June 28th-29th (day and a half). Folks can either travel out on June 29th, or stay around for a tour on June 30th. Focus of this meeting should be the organizational structure of NICH, including forming working group team.
Need to move work beyond the steering committee. The night of the 27th, we might be able to do an informal dinner at ‘the horse barn’. It should be a no-host type of event.
f. Facilitator: Shannon mentioned that they have worked with a local facilitator named Rusty Collins, who has done a good job for them in the past. We have used Warren in the past, but it might be good to reach out to Rusty. Shannon will reach out to Rusty Collins to see if he is available June 28-29th.
g. Registration Form: The conference folks at the Center for Urban Ag will handle the registration form and collection of money (if money collection is needed).
2) Writing Committee Volunteers: Tom (will host) and Rick are also willing to be involved on the writing team. Other folks who volunteered for the writing committee include (Ellen will send a note to the three below, saying there are two other committee members, and they will be in touch, soon).
- Rima Green
- Adena Sabins
- David D. Close
3) Adjustments to the NICH website
a. Surveys have been stopped.
b. Adjusted the Vision Statement.
c. Richie can (and has) created registrations forms so that can be done on the web site.
d. NICH Steering Committee Minutes are being posted on the website.
e. Writing Committee members will be added to the website.
f. Steering Committee Member Adjustments: Mark Boxson has resigned from the committee. Maree Gaetani has resigned from the committee. Bob Kellam is taking a leave of absence from the committee. Jenn Tedeschi is backing off of (but not out of) engagement with NICH.
4) Other Business
a. We should get a ‘hold the date’ notification, with meeting location, out to our lists. We should all use our listservs to get a ‘save the date’ out to all of our lists.
b. Lucy will send information out on ‘how to subscribe’ to the listserv to all of us, so that we can get that information out to our network.
c. Next phone call: March 22nd at 10am EST. Focus of next phone call will be the program agenda for our June meeting.
Summary of Decisions Made
1. We’ll be meeting in a downtown hotel, not the airport.
2. Conference committee consists of Shannon, Beth, Lucy, Ellen, and a facilitator (perhaps Rusty Collins).
Summary of To Dos
1. Shannon will reach out to Rusty Collins to see if he is available to facilitate our meeting in June. She will also ask about cost.
2. Ellen will send a note out to writing committee members letting them know they have two more members, and that information on next steps will be coming soon.
3. All of us will get information out to our networks, asking them to save the date (June 27-30) for a meeting in Denver, CO.
4. Lucy will send us information on ‘how to subscribe’ to her listserve, so that we can begin to grow the NICH network.
Next Phone call: March 22nd at 10am EST. Agenda item = planning program agenda for June Meeting.
Leave a Reply