A response to the self-righteous keeper of the Clinton Gardens. "We all have insurance problems in our NYC gardens.
But if you keep your garden safe and tidy, and don't leave crap all over the place for people to trip over, and think of yourselves as a public venue, one that's open more than 10 hours a week, for a neighborhood that's open 24/7, you'll be fulfilling your mission better. Honest injun - we've been doing this since 1978. " 1) If you were getting insurance from Neighborhood Open Space Coalition, you don't have it anymore as of August 30th. They did not bother to tell anyone. 2) Our garden is neat and tidy whatever you think that means. 3) We are open an average of 25 hours a week not including when free events happen. 4) We are a public venue which is why we spend time fixing it for the safety of the public. That is why the public can't come in during work time. 5) If I visit your garden at 3am in the morning will it be open? 6) Were you at our garden last week for the annual Harvest festival where we give away free food all day long? Chicken, Hot Dogs, Roast Corn and more? 7) 1978? Does that make you better then us? "And justifying your existance on a rather valuable piece of NYC real estate. You've been saved - and we all worked for that. Now think of how you can serve the entire neighborhood, instead of just yourselves. " Excuse me? The arrogant tone here is remarkable. Please let this valuable forum be for community gardeners to help each other not indulge in ego trips and flame wars. "Please address how any garden member could think of saying, "when we're closed, we're closed," to anyone! Especially when gardeners all over the city pulled for 6th & B, and cashed markers for you to survive, despite yourselves, and your "when we're closed, we're closed attitude,"." We saved ourselves with the encouragement of other gardens and by the sweat of our work. The social skills of individual gardeners varies. A community garden lets all sorts of people in as members. Some are good with people, others are better with plants. As soon as I saw the post I set a plan to address the situation at the next meeting by reading the person letter to the membership. By the way, your intemperate post is a good example of less then stellar social skills. You do not address the important issue of safety in the gardens while work is happening. Please talk to the woman whose foot was crushed under hundreds of pounds of rock last month when she innocently entered a garden while construction was going on. She is justly suing the garden and the volunteer who was in charge of the rock. We are not going to let a situation like that happen in our garden. It's not the fear of a lawsuit, it's concern for our fellow human beings. "You could start with a sign, like we have at the Clinton Community Garden that says," If you want to visit our garden when the gate is closed and a gardener is inside, please ask to be let in. " And this in a neighborhood with clubs, a growing crystal meth problem, homeless folks who are always with us, some of the most unsavory whores in the city." Interesting idea, thank you. I'll present it to the membership. "If you can stand going above 14th Street, we'd be delighted to show you how a community garden can serve 5,000 keyholders, in a catchment area that has 90,000 people, on less square footage than your garden, playing by the same New York City rules that you do. If you want to see how it's done, in a neighorhood with rampant drugs, prostitution, with all the multi-ethnicities of the Lower East Side, please come up any time. Don't worry, if there's someone inside the garden, we'll be sure to let you in. " The snide tone you present is very unfortunate. Do you actually represent the garden? I would like to attend a garden meeting, when are they held? ______________________________________________________ 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: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden
