Dear Ms. Hughes, I'm so glad you've had the heady, first flush romance of a successful first season of your community garden, because what you're talking about is the "marriage and kids," phase of community development, and you, my dear, have just been elected "Mommy." Lucky you! Or as we say, in my late parents part of China, "mazel-tov!" You've come to the right place. This is the American Community Gardening Association Listserv. The first thing that you need to do as newly elected garden "Mommy," is to authorize a membership in the American Community Gardening Association (http://www.communitygarden.org/) which will have answers to every question you have on community gardens except how to get a winning lotto ticket to finance your piped in irrigation system. No kidding... Read all of the links, all of the free content on the site and then join so you can get some of the organization's great publications, and get deep discounts on our community garden seminars that actually teach you how to build community, "from the ground up." As one of the rank and file members, from a garden with a few dues paying members, and NOT and employee of the ACGA, these encomiums come directly from my heart, as clogged as the artieries may be. You may want also to look the website of my home garden, NYC's Clinton Community Garden, which at 28 years in existence is now in the "marriage with kids and grandkids," phase for suggestions on governance, etc: http://www.clintoncommunitygarden.org/ One modest suggestion - As you're going to be working with volunteers, a key point in community garden culture is the subsitution of the word "please," for the less effective, "could you help me out?" or "would you like to?" while dealing with volunteers; and learn the two words, "por favor," when asking Hispanic community gardeners for assistance. It really works wonders and I've gotten so much good volunteer work out of that word that I want to share it with you as my little piece of "good luck," for you and your garden. Best Regards, Adam Honigman Hell's Kitchen, NYC -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org Sent: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 12:02 PM Subject: [Community_garden] How does your Community Garden Function?
Hello everyone, I've just been appointed to head a new organic community garden. This is the end of the first year, which has been energized with the newness of the garden and beautiful results we have achieved, but we now need a way to make our garden sustain itself through the work of the bed holders. We have about 100 primary gardeners. We would like to see more participation in the running of the garden from more of the gardeners and were thinking about requiring attendance at several meetings and some volunteer hours as a part of the agreement to have a raised bed. So if you have a couple minutes, could you help me out by answering at least the following. How much time from members does it take for your garden to manage itself? Do you require volunteer hours? How is that working for you? If your garden ever has required volunteer hours, what was your experience? Do you require attendance at meetings? If so, what is your experiences with that, do people like it, resent it, or what? For Organic Gardens - how do you manage compost? If you have any other advice or words of wisdom, etc, please let me know. I would rather benefit from someone else's experience than make all the same mistakes all over again. Thank you for helping me. It's a huge job and I don't want to disappoint. We have a meeting the 29th and I'd like to have some data for the members. L ------------------------------------------ Laurie J Hughes Silicon Valley, CA (formerly the Valley of Hearts Delight) Bobbin lace, social history, gardening ------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20061125/1a1f0e68/attachment.html _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org ________________________________________________________________________ Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20061125/4bf92dcf/attachment.html
