CNA 08.10.09 General Meeting Minutes

Ex Comm Attendance - Paige, Marcus, Tim, Don, Deanna (absent - Kat, Eddie, Tonia, Heidi)

Announcement: There will be a Fall Plant Swap on September 20th, 2-3:30 in Brentwood Park. Pot-luck refreshments. Anything gardening related (books, seeds, plants, tools, etc.).

Alice Nance, coordinator of the Parks and Recreation Wildlife Austin program, gave a talk about turning your yard into a wildlife habitat. Wildlife habitats require 4 thing: food, water, shelter, and a place to raise young. Examples were given for each - water (bird baths, ponds), food (seed-bearing plants for birds, flowers for hummingbirds), shelter (plants providing ground cover, loose stone wall barriers), and places to raise young (dead trees, logs, nest boxes). There is an application to get wildlife habitat certification for your yard. This requires the addition of two sustainable gardening practices (listed on the application) in addition to providing the above 4 necessities. Paige Hill, the CNA Vice-President, is the regional wildlife steward, and she can be contacted for more information. There is currently a Neighborhood Habitat Challenge, an attempt to get as many neighbors as possible to certify their yards as habitats, that ends Nov. 15th.

Emily Wilson discussed the Green Neighbor pamphlet that will be distributed throughout the neighborhood in September along with the neighborhood newsletter. The pamphlet shows practices that neighbors can implement to conserve city resources. If you make 75 points on the pamphlet challenge, you can be registered with the city as a Green Neighbor. Crestview has a neighborhood goal of 500 Green Neighbor residents to be considered a Green Neighborhood. Individuals can get T-shirts or passes to Barton Springs. The neighborhood can receive tree give-aways, free 2-hour landscape designs, and more. Green Garden Update

Paige Hill discussed her Community Supported Agriculture Project, the first non-profit, neighborhood-centric CSA. The movie Food, Inc. is a good summary of the state of our existing food supply (also the books Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food) - unsustainable and non-nutritious. The idea is to lease land from residents in Crestview, have farmers raise crops on these plots, and then distribute weekly baskets of produce to share-holders. Neighbors can get to know the farmers and benefit from organically farmed, local food. Chicken coops also supported. The ideal size of the plots would be 1000-2000 sq. ft., ideal length of the leases would be 2+ years (although a 1-year lease might be possible). The price of the lease would be $0 for the first year, as the benefit to the leasor would be the added infastructure and improvement to the soil quality (including soil testing, irrigation, etc.). Afterwards, an annual dividend of $0.25-0.35/sq. ft. is estimated. The cost of a share to receive a weekly produce basket is competitive with the cost of receiving 2-3 vegetables per day from HEB, and can either be picked up from the demo site in the neighborhood or delivered 1/week for $2/week. For the fall, the plan is to have a single plot with 25 share-holders. For the spring, the goal is to have 1/2-acre with 100 share-holders. To participate in the fall season, leasors would need to lease their lots by October. The intention is to remain a non-profit to take advantage of grants. The goal is to eventually be able to provide employment to farmers and researchers, pay dividends to leasors annually, deliver 10% of the produce free to a "neighbor in need" each week. Contact Paige in advance to arrange a tour of the demo lot (1115 Taulbee Ln.).