Eugene Permaculture Guild

Help!  My raspberries, ever-bearing golden and reds, have exploded.  I must thin them back and I have an adverse reaction to tossing them in the thorny/woody compost.  Please, take some for your yard and family.

Help!  My raspberries, ever-bearing golden and reds, have exploded.  I must thin them back and I have an adverse reaction to tossing them in the thorny/woody compost.  Please, take some for your yard and family.

EPG Steering ‘Committee Meeting

May 14, 2007, at Bryna’s

Present: Julie, Aleta, Bryna, Krishna , Jan and Nick

Minute taker: Julie

We need to commit to sending out e-mail reminders before meetings. Jan suggests

taking turns doing this (for several months?) so it doesn’t all fall on Nick’s

shoulders. Nick fesses up to laxity of attitude.

Feedback on recent events:

WINTERGREEN: hedgerow work party went swimmingly.

COSMIC PIZZA: Low turnout (about 12 people) but some new faces. There

were some good conversations around the topics. Either Bryna or Aleta

suggested that spring/summer might be a hard time to get people in to

these types of events and that we might concentrate on them more at other

times of the year. Jan wants other people to take a turn organizing

upcoming events. He will continue to organize the Cuba video showing

this coming Sunday at 

6:00

BIKE TOUR: great turnout. About 30 people at the beginning…some

drop-off…then a bunch more joined up in the second neighborhood.

Lots of neighborhood interest…turned into kind of a party at the Zenco

intersection repair site.

City repair convergence in Portland starts next week.

Neal-lives on Tiara street and is interested in organizing a bike tour. In

his neighborhood. In addition, Jan has friends in the South Hills area who

live in a small, five property permaculture enclave next to, and across  the

street from each other. Perhaps we could do a bike tour there later in the

summer.

EARTH DAY: Very wet day but good turnout. Julia suggests that we need

banner(s) and offered to make some. Bryna suggests we need a booth.

Discussion about getting plans for building a booth from the Sat. market.

Nick suggests using one we particularly like at the market as a template.

Krishna suggests making one out of 2 by 4’s and plywood. He also offered

to borrow back a booth he donated to a local Buddhist group that only uses

it for short periods during the summer. Krishna will talk to them about

it. Both Jan and Aleta were keynote speakers inside and report low turnout.

Jan was excited to have made a connection with a Bob Grimes from

Berkeley , CA , who has been very active for years.

RELOCALIZATION EVENT: Two city councilors attended as did Mayor

Piercy. Otherwise kind of low attendance. Good discussions amongst those

who were there. Jan said that it went really well at the church on Friday

and that it was a good venue for the event. He believes many of the attendees

would not typically attend a permaculture gathering. Krishna spoke about

the food panel. John Sundquist, Kevin James ( Full Circle ) and Harry

McCormack (Ten Rivers Food Shed in Corvallis ) spoke. Harry spoke about

how they are organizing Corvallis by City Precinct. Councilmen/women

work with their local interfaith groups to get the food to where it is most

needed. Krishna videotaped the panel discussion and will edit it and figure

out what questions/topics to include in further interviews of the panelists.

NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE PLANTS CONFERENCE: began in town

with a reading at Tsunami books by David Theodoropolous (SP?) author of

“Invasion Biology:Critique of Pseudo-Science”. The bookreading was a highly

contentious affair. The conference at Lost Valley attracted about 100 people

and was considered a great success. 

Krishna brought up an interesting question. In light of the current  interest

in banning field burning… how do we feel about supporting the field

burning the native people did before we arrived if the concept were to be

rekindled now (ha! A pun!)

Upcoming events:

The regional gathering will henceforth be known as “Cascadia Ecofair:

Gathering to Create Sustainable Culture”. It will not be at the Country  

Fair site as not enough people are showing up to the organizing meetings 

to  Help out and it is too much for those who are organizing it to take on. 

Must  Keep it smaller until more people come aboard to help out. Two

possible sites  are John Sundquist’s farm in Coburg and Elkdream farm

in Pleasant Valley . Krishna wonders if John’s farm has enough room

for the event and the campers. It is heavily planted. Nick suggests the

possibility of camping in/behind the bamboo  area. In any event, it will

be August 24, 25, 26th. Last year Jan counted approximately 120 people (?)

at one circle. Aleta said 117 registered but that doesn’t include some of

the speakers and some folks who just dropped by.

WINTER CROPPING WORKSHOP/SOLSTICE EVENT: Sat, June 23rd

3:00 PM - as late as 9:00 at Nick’s/Springfield Food for Lane County site.

Nick is excited  about procuring some unusual seeds from Europe .

Unusual to this country but relatively easy to get overseas? Many of these

winter crop seeds need to be in the ground the last week of June which

precludes our getting an article about them in Oregon Tilth for this

season at least. If people commit to growing these seeds and saving them

then we can share them and get the Word out for next winter’s season.

Nick spoke cryptically of a threat to organic seed procurement  And

promised to get the word out on the website this week as a call to

arms…so to speak.

FALL POTLATCH/POTLUCK:

 Aleta suggests that it’s a beautiful, cyclical idea to have it 6 months

after the seed swap…to share the fruit of the seed that was shared.

Krishna suggests that we try to find out what sort of raw

product will be available and then have any people interested in cooking

work as a chef’s Corp in the kitchen and create a meal out of what is

brought right then. Aleta or Jan spoke of a table at the 2005 Gathering

that offered dishes composed of indigenous foodstuffs. Jan suggests

that while some people are cooking others might gather to share

information, skills, talk etc. in the “livingroom” at the longhouse.

JAN’S VACATION/OUTREACH JOURNEY: Jan will be travelling to the

Okanogan with his brother and will continue through the Tanasket

area, Mount Vernon , Snohomish, Seattle (Phinney Ridge,etc) Port

Townsend. He will ferret out like-minded groups at all stops and will

make connections that we can follow up on in the future.

SAT MAY 19- Suburban Conversion event at Jan’s. Time?

Our next meeting is on June 11, 6.30 p.m at Bryna’s.

Seeking large diesel vehicle to move from Sac to Eugene and would rather pay you (or your friend in Sac?) than the big corporate entities; strengthen local economy, etc. I want to run it on bio-diesel (or veggie oil? I have ~40gal). We don’t have a ton of stuff, so won’t need anything HUGE (maybe large cargo van w/ my small trailer, big pickup with a BIG trailer, or 10-16′ moving van size). I’ll pay fuel plus about $300 or more depending on the vehicle and/or trailer. I can provide references, have you over to our house, provide DL#, or perhaps you want to come along to Sac…

I live at Lost Valley Educational Center in Dexter; evening til 9pm (541)937-3351 x125, if I don’t pick up, please don’t a leave message: its currently the volunteer message line. Daytime, (541)736-1056 x223 talk to me or leave message.

Thanks bunches! Cory

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