Minutes: Tuesday March 20, 2007 Hinesburg Buy Local Task Force

Meeting at 7:30 PM

Susan shared a new draft of the Mission Statement. There was little discussion as all present strongly endorsed the new draft and the Mission Statement was adopted.

James has agreed to write and submit to the Hinesburg Record and to Karen who keeps the Hinesburg Website an article about our task force that includes its mission statement our three principle objectives.

Bill committed yet again to introduce James to Megan Camp at Shelburne Farms who is a central resource for integrating locally produced foods in schools.

Sally Riese joined our meeting and briefed the task force members on the genesis and success of last year's Hinesburg Fall Festival  on Sept 29 and 30, 2006.

She welcomed any support and input that our task force might supply and noted especially the need for:

Better coordination and support for participating artists. Emily suggested printing a poster for the town and for the artists and offered to look into costs and resources

Help organizing a community bulletin board or showcase for local producers of goods and services.

Help showcasing Hinesburg Town History

She suggested that the hikes had low participation as folks elected to stay in town and participate in the centralized activities.

She suggested that the local rug hooking organization would like to participate and might be an organizing force for crafts.

She suggested that the principle organizer of the evening's food, Phil Bouch (sp?) had worked very hard to bring in local foods from Goose Creek, LaPlatte beef and baked goods from local bakeries and would be very open to help and suggestions for alternate organizing principles such as a pot luck composed of locally produced food, perhaps with a core serving such as a harvest stew. They estimated that 150 people signed up for dinner.

This led to a discussion of possible venues which included the Community Church Hall, St Jude's, an outdoor tent or the school.

Sally also suggested they could use help with promotion. This led to a discussion of the need to establish a date soon to be held and promoted earlier.

The task force members agreed on the establishment of the three working groups reflecting the distilled objectives of the Group:

Buy Local Campaign, D/B Resource, Producer's Market and Harvest Supper Work Group

Chaired By Jo White

Members include Bob, Wendy, Susan, James and Barbara

Objective: Acknowledge the accomplishments of the Lions Club and work with them and Jo to determine how we might broaden the scope, resources and market power of the Hinesburg Farmers Market. Explore a possible name change to broaden reach by including "producers", a possible site change and what amenities might enhance its community market impact.

Work with Sally Riese and her group to support and develop the Hinesburg Harvest Festival into a broader, better-resourced event that ultimately creates a town-wide celebration of locally-produced food, goods, arts and services and attracts visitors from other communities. Also discussed was the idea of a local farmer's diner night, perhaps at a local eatery.

Develop a database of locally produce, goods and services and better market them to the community with a buy local campaign and appropriate marketing materials such as a website (Front Porch Forum, Hinesburg Record?) and perhaps a brochure. Bob has offered to lead here. Andrea may have already jump started this process.

Local Gardening / Agricultural Resource in the Community and Schools Work Group

Chaired by James Donegan

Members include Rhonda, Emily and Barbara

Develop an integrated agricultural / gardening education initiative in local schools that strengthens the link between locally-produced food production and school meal programs and also nutrition education and an agricultural / gardening curriculum. Specific objectives will be to use local food in school and community meal programs, heighten awareness of the availability and quality of locally produced food, and to develop agriculture /gardening and nutrition curricula.

Establish a community gardens, incubator farm and agricultural resource center perhaps on the Geprag property that would enable:

a. local people to have gardening space and resources,
b. young people interested in farming to have a place where they might be develop a herd or crop initiative and
c. a community resource where students and visitors could come to see the connection between gardening / agriculture and community.

Carbon Farmers of America and Hinesburg Carbon Neutrality Campaign

Chaired by Joe Donegan

Members include: Emily, Wendy. Joe will be recruiting work group members from other community task forces which have a focus on farming and agricultural resources

Establish Carbon Farmers of America chapter and local Carbon Neutrality campaign for the people and producers of Hinesburg.

Please feel free to shorten your work group names as you wish and be prepared to bring a tentative work plan to our next meeting on April 17, 2007. I will be working intermittently with all three groups.

Thanks for all your hard work.

 Bill