Westside Food Security Collaborative Meeting Minutes

Tuesday February 16th, 2010

Present: Nicole Mireau, Spring Gillard, Chelsea Calder, Sally Speers, Ross Moster,
Zsuzsi Fodor, Lisa McCune, Dellie Lidyard, Karen Dar Woon, Charlotte Roth,
Catherine Leach, Lindsay Clark, Ellen Wickberg.

Review of our Terms of Reference:

• Our Vision: Everyone on the Westside of Vancouver will have secure access to
adequate amounts of safe, nutritious, culturally appropriate food, produced in an
environmentally sustainable way and provided in a manner that promotes
human dignity. We all agreed that this continue to be our vision.
• We wanted to list our Goals and Activities and match them with our Actions and
Achievements.
• This was a great exercise and way to show what we have accomplished. This
chart is helpful when applying for funding.

OUR GOALS AND ACTIVITIES OUR ACTIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

• Fruit and Veggie Deal strengthened through volunteers and

1. We support community
capacity building to address
the issue of food security.
2. We encourage and promote
groups, resources and
programs that the
community identifies as
directly contributing to food
security.
connections achieved through the Collaborative
• Kits House started hosting Wed. night potlucks
• The Kits House fall fair has a stronger food focus now
• Kits House started a community garden
• We are more strongly linked with Village Vancouver
• One member helped produce emergency food bags
• Promotion of Fruit and Veggie Deal – Steeves Manor
• Promotion of Pocket Markets at South Granville Seniors Centre
• Promoted the Winter Response Initiative meeting through our listserv
(a few Collaborative members attended)

3. We bring together those

who are concerned about
food security;
representatives from • Our members include community-based organizations/service
agriculture, health, food providers, small businesses, health professionals, students (e.g.
program delivery, post-secondary students in planning, nursing and geography), faith-
community economic based communities and interested community members
development, economic and
political fronts.
4. From the grassroots to
policy makers, we network,
collaborate and share • We have about 70 members on our listserv
information about food • We have been and continue to act as a model for other food security
security in our community. networks
5. We invite guests to share • Guests have included: Kitsilano Showers for the Homeless,
information about existing Neighbours Organic Weekly, Vancouver Food Bank, Kitsilano Farms,
resources or needs in our Quest, Terra Nova Farm, City of Vancouver, Food Runners,
community.

6. We create opportunities to
educate ourselves about • Guest speakers as noted above
current resources and • Several reports are shared via the listserv
issues related to food • Learned about the ‘food desert’ in South Granville
security. • Participated in community forums
• Postings on the Kits House webpage

• Jane’s Walk 2008, 2009

• Student’s research project 2007
• Exploring Food Systems on the Westside (in partnership with Garden
7. We create opportunities to
Heart) – 4 tours
educate others about food
• Presentations at UBC and Kits House
security.
• Our brochures have been available at over 20 events
• All members are knowledgeable about food security issues on the
Westside and we are able to talk about them in our day to day lives
• Articles in the Courier – “Malnourishment a City-Wide Problem” April
2009

Planning for the future:

• To enhance our education opportunities we will have an annual tour/field trip –

Spring to organize for 2010.
• Each month a member will organize a guest speaker for the following month.
This responsibility will be shared among members.

Questions for Discussion:

1. Membership: everyone who actively comes to the meetings and who is
currently on the listserv are considered members.
• Roles and Responsibilities of leadership:
Co-Chairs: Catherine Leach and Lisa Ross – call the meetings
Host: Sally Spears
Publicize the meetings: Lisa McCune
Steering Committee: Sally Spears, Spring Gillard, Catherine Leach, Lisa
Ross, Zsuzui Fodor, Lisa McCune, Nicole Mireau – make decisions
between meetings and bring back those decisions to the group. The
membership of this committee will be reviewed annually.
Media: Spring Gillard

2. Activities of the Group: Projects

• We will continue with our key activities listed in our Terms of Reference
• If a member comes to the table with a project idea that requires funding,
they are welcome to request support from the WFSC. Support may be
provided through letters, volunteers, partnerships, etc.
 • The coordination and management of specific projects will be done by the
member agency
• Outstanding question: what criteria will be use to evaluate
whether to support a particular project?

Final Meeting Activity:

We ran out of time to complete this reflection exercise but all members were given
a double-sided card, each side having a question.
1. Using this side of the car, write down a few things that you – yourself or your
organization – want to get out of participating in this Collaborative.
2. Using this side of the card, write down any ideas you have about:
a. How can we better serve our members?
b. What isn’t working right now?
c. What other needs you have that the Collaborative can help meet?

All members are requested to fill this out and either bring it to the next meeting in
March or email your feedback to Allison Reynolds at Kits House,
allison@kitshouse.org. She will compile the feedback from members and provide
the information to Nicole Mireau who will then report back to the group at the March
meeting.