The Birth of a Collective Effort
Visit this link to see workshops provided throughout 2010 by members of the Albuquerque Backyard Farms Collaborative, a group of organizations committed to teaching people how to grown healthy food in their own backyards:
 
http://calendar.yahoo.com/melrubin1
 
First Meeting: On January 20 a group of women with interest in gardening and backyard farming got together to talk about coordinating efforts in Albuquerque in  2010. We are launching this collective, (which still has no official name,) and for now will keep this particular effort to working with women, although we know we will also be gratefully working with men as well in other aspects of our work
 
Click here to read the notes from that meeting:
 
 
 
Second Meeting: Our second meeting was held February 2. Below are notes from that meeting.  
 
Meeting February 2, 2010
 
Present:
- Zoe Wilcox-Edrington          
- Chery Klairwator   
- Jennifer Dwyer       
- Gretchen Beaubier   
- Ellen LaPenna
- Melanie Rubin       
- Lisa Silva         
- Sara Van Note
- Yvonne Scott
- Katya Miller
- Robin Kennedy
- Leslie Buerke
- Maggie Seely
- Christianna Cappelle
- Donna Detweieller    
 
1. Integrating workshop schedules for this year
 
NOTES:
- We looked over the tentative schedule put together so far, which included workshops for Mother Nature Gardens, Sunstone Herbs, and Albuquerque Backyard Farms, and added several being coordinated by a collaboration of the Gardener’s Guild, Rio Grande Community Farms, and Buzz Action, including “Planning Your Garden” on Feb 13 at the Harwood, “Planting Your Garden” on March 20 at the Rio Grande Community Farm, and “Garden Maintenance” April 24 at Buzz Action.
 
- We also talked about education that is needed in Albuquerque at this time, including working with women’s shelters to teach the residents there how to eat healthy and prepare vegetables.
 
- Options for where and how we could teach nutrition/cooking workshops, where a garden would be available to a commercial kitchen, were also discussed, including the Garden Center’s kitchen and the South Valley Economic Development Center’s kitchen.

2. Possibility of coordinating sub-groups to organize tours:
a. Chicken coop/backyard farms and gardens
b. Community gardens
c. School gardens
 
NOTES:
- After quite a bit of discussion, we decided to do one integrated weekend of tours, including coops, backyard farms, community gardens, and school gardens on Saturday, July 31 and Sunday, August 1.
Contact Info for Organizers
 
For info about the tour of chicken coops and backyard farms, email Jennifer Dwyer at scouty_d@yahoo.com or Gretchen Beaubier at gababq@comcast.net 
 
For info about the tour of community gardens, email Chery Klairwator at chery@thesourceabq.com
 
For info about the tour of school gardens, email Sara Van Note at VanNote@aps.edu or Lisa Silva, renu.nrg@gmail.com
 
3. Future of this group:
a. Ongoing or just for now?
b. Women only?
c. If ongoing, a name?
d. Online forum?
 
NOTES:
The discussion around this was really interesting and useful, I felt. Noone wants to reject men – or working with men – and at the same time we are finding it very nourishing to be working in a group of women right now – for all of us to find our voices and support each other and feel strong in our efforts and enjoy each other.
So, we decided that, for now, we will continue as we are, a group of women, although subgroups from our efforts will also, include men, with gratitude and appreciation.
 
We decided we would meet again in six weeks, and that we don’t need to decide now whether this will be an ongoing group, or one that stays together for a while and then dissolves at some point when its work or usefulness is done.
We did not land on a permanent name but decided that for now we would use the name “Backyard Farm Collaborative”
 
Our next meeting is set for Tuesday night, March 16, at 6:30 PM. Chery Klairwator has generously offered to host us at The Source, 1111 Carlisle SE, for a potluck dinner.
 
4. Food Videos
 
NOTES:
Katya Miller showed her short video, recently completed, of “Tuna in the Desert” which shows how to use prickly pears. It was great.
Katya will be organizing a meeting of people interested in producing videos on food and sustainability issues. Get in touch with Katya if you are interested in being involved with this.

5. Actions
- Chery, Jennifer, Gretchen, Sara, and Lisa will coordinate re: organizing the tours July 31 and Aug 1. They can call on Maggie Seely’s class and the Gardeners’ Guild volunteers for assistance at the event, as well as others from our group.
 
- Melanie and Christianna will coordinate re: getting an integrated schedule of workshops online.
 
- Melanie will update the integrated schedule of workshops and send it to Robin Seidel for the coop newsletter.
 
  

  
 
  
Working and Learning Together
to Create Beautiful Food for Beautiful People