Notes from Britannia Neighbours Meeting 15 April 2010

Sorry it took me so long to get these notes out to you, but I've been dealing with a fractured knee cap!

First of all, we decided that instead of scheduling and announcing every work party separately, we will just have one every Sunday, starting next week, April 25^th, 3:00-4:30 … and whoever is able to come, great. How does that sound? I'll be a bit out of commission for a little while because of my knee, but the tools are down there and there is always litter pick-up and weeding to do!

We have stored a lot of our tools in the Info Centre but we should store them in our storage area instead so they aren't in the way in the Info Centre. I have a set of keys if anyone needs them.

We have $9,477.91 in the bank — of which $5000 has been promised as a contribution to the new Britannia sign & "clock tower" which will go in the greenway — but we were talking about what we might want to buy.

Pat suggested that we provide nice snacks for our work parties.

We want to have a sandwich board made that advertises "Britannia Neighbours in Action" and invites people (who are strolling through the greenway while we are working) to join us. It will have a little rack for flyers/brochures which will describe our group and give the URL to our Web site and blogs. Jane will provide plastic racks for the sandwich board for brochures (4) and flyers (1). There's a good print shop on Powell at Victoria near JJ Bean who might be able to make us our sign. Ann has a kids' chalkboard that we could use that would be the perfect size. Helen volunteered to work on the sign design.

I suggested we buy a Lee Valley curly hose, but I was talking to Katherine the day after our meeting and she says we have a couple of perfectly adequate curly hoses in our storage area, so we probably don't need one. Katherine will be back in the neighbourhood and will be watering again this summer! Yay!

We will want to buy some new plants. Pat says no pernicious plants! Herbacious! It seems that most of our hostas have been stolen. (The ones at Florida Market have been stolen too.)

Pat will contribute a "Nine Bark" which the bees will like.

The bees are back, by the way. Ann and I met with Hartley in the greenway on April 7^th and reinstalled the bee condo and populated it with cocoons.

 

We decided that we would fund a Britannia Elementary School Field Trip to Van Dusen Garden ... We agreed that I would talk to the Britannia Elementary principal Greg Barnes and that Jane would contact Van Dusen to find out what the procedure is and what the cost would be. I talked to Greg on Friday and he was quite delighted. He suggested a grade 3 class whose teacher is very keen about teaching science. I think he said there were about 15 kids in the class. He said the Britannia lunch program would provide lunches for the kids (but maybe we could put together 15 gardening packages for the kids or something??). And I said that if there weren't enough chaperones, that a Britannia Neighbour or two might well be able to go along to help out. We would pay for transportation and for Van Dusen entry fees. So we left it that Greg would get in touch with the teacher and would then get back to us — me and Jane — to make more specific arrangements. It's not an easy time for the folks in the schools right now with the huge funding shortfall, so this was a good time to make this gesture! (Pat has since suggested that because the class has only 15 kids, maybe we could send two classes. To be continued…)

Plans for this year's garden tour are going ahead nicely. Ann has started publicity (Gardens West, Gardenwise, store newsletters, the Straight, The Sun, the Artery, etc.) We have the Library display case reserved for the week before the tour and we will be having a table at the Trout Lake Farmers Market on June 12^th (Jane).

Janet says we have an artist working on our brochure and it will be somewhat flashier and Glen is happy. The tour this year is Victoria–Lakewood on 6^th and 7^th.

Pat will give me a list of e-mails so we can send reminder message to people who have gone on the tour in previous years. The first one will be soon and will just be a "save the date" message and reminding people to check the blog.

Cheers,

Penny