Westside Food Security Collaborative Meeting Minutes

Tuesday Jun 15, 2010

Present: Spring Gillard, Lisa Ross, Chelsea Calder, Ellen Wickberg, Zsuzsi Fodor,
Ross Moster, Charlotte Roth, Sally Spears, Dellie Lidyard, Dolly Araquel, Gord
Magee, Darlene Seto.

Pocket Market Presentation: Spring, Zsuzsi & Gord

• The first pocket market will be at South Granville Seniors Center on June 25th
and then at KNH July 6th.
• Gord Magee will be the onsite manager for both market locations
• Zsuzsi has been the communications assistant for the past month,
completing all the posters, flyers, vouchers, etc but will be going to the
Philippines for the summer. She will be back in the fall.
• The promotional material is ready today and we will be dropping off the rest
of the materials over the next few days to supporting agencies. Ready today
are the vouchers for the participating agencies: 60 for each agency, 5 per
market. We are asking for feedback on the first fresh sheet, sandwich board
signs, flyers and posters. The design has been approved by the committee
but if there are other mistakes that are noticed, please let the team know.
The flyers/posters can be sent electronically to agencies.
• Web promotion: there is a special page on KNH website with an introduction,
schedule and photos of the pocket markets.
• KNH has the put the Pocket Markets in the printed Summer Program Guide.
The dates for the KNH markets will be on the large senior’s calendar in the
hall.
• Will be connecting with the Courier to have a story featured on the pocket
markets and building a food hub at Kits House on the Westside.
• Gord has been working on price comparisons by checking out Meinhart’s,
IGA, Safeway, Apple Farm and Young Brothers. The challenge with pricing for
the Pocket Markets is that we want to make it as affordable as possible but a
long term goal is to make this a viable business. We need to find the balance
in price to make this a sustainable project for everyone.
• We welcome volunteers to help out during the gaps over the summer. Please
spread the word with your volunteer networks and agencies.

Governance: Lisa Ross

We have decided on our top 3 goals for the upcoming year. We now have to decide
on the activities to achieve each goal and who is going to carry them out.

Goals Activities Who

We create opportunities to
educate others about food
security.
* As agencies and as individuals, we
are all responsible for spreading the
word about food security issues on
the Westside.
1. Promote/partner on 1. All involved in promotion
workshop/educational 2. All members
activities 3. Is currently happening
2. Promote food security and being led by Spring
issues on the Westside
and WFSC through word
of mouth, outreach at
events, presentations,

We support community
capacity building to address
the issue of food security
(We help people and
organizations do food
security work)
We bring together those who
are concerned about food
security; representatives
from agriculture, health,
food, program delivery,
community economic and
political fronts and members
of the community.
links to websites
3. Get media attention
around WFSC and food
security issues and
activities on the
Westside.
4. We act as an incubator of 4. All – on-going
ideas around food 5. Lisa, Chelsea and Dellie
security will work to create a set
5. We support and/or of criteria for WFSC to
endorse specific help which
programs or projects projects/programs we
based on established support and which we
criteria including student endorse – to be
work completed by early fall.
6. Link and collaborate with 6.
Village Vancouver and its
Westside transition
villages
7. Link with the Network of 7. Many of the collaborative
Food networks members were at the
8. Increase membership in initial meeting to begin
the WFSC in a the process of figuring
strategic/intentional way out with is the most
that furthers our goals useful structure for a
9. Invite Guest speakers Network of
10. Get regular updates from Neighbourhood Food
Vancouver Food Policy Networks. The process is
council still moving forward.
8. Catherine
9. Anyone can provide
suggestions at anytime,
Nicole to coordinate
10. Ross will present as a
regular item on the
agenda.

How do we know that the activity is a success?

1. Spring will begin tracking the number of events, brochures distributed
and media stories. It may take form as an on-going agenda item during
the updates: report what events have you been to, who you have
talked to, where and how many posters did you distribute, etc.
2. This year will only be a tally of the events, brochures, media stories.
Next year, we will attempt to measure the effect this is having on the
development of the collaborative and our activities.
** We did not have time to go into great detail regarding how we are going
to measure the effects of each activity. For now we decided to just track the
number **

Roundtable Updates
Ross:
2. VFPC updates: council had its first open meeting in 3 months because they
have been doing a lot of strategic planning. Council has now put together
 workings groups that cover 6 areas. These groups don’t include everything
and do overlap.
1. Local Food in the city
2. Food Waste
3. Food resiliency (community resiliency plan – to become less
dependent on oil)
4. Research
5. Neighbourhood Food Networks
6. Communication
3. Working with Metro Vancouver in developing a regional food system strategy
and advising the Greenest City Action team on community initiatives.
4. Village Vancouver got an article in the Vancouver Sun about the backyard
chicken workshops. They are partnering with Langara College to offer 3
weeks of Summer School on Building Community. Is a major organizer of Car
Free Day People’s Summit on Main St.

Lisa:
• Lots of food programs coming out of World in a Garden. Will be hosting film
screenings and workshops throughout the summer. Has been partnering with
Vij’s and Rocky Mountain Flatbread and will be supplying the restaurants with
produce from World in a Garden.
• Has a lot of organic local wheat that has been milled into flour. If you want
any, please let Lisa know.

Darlene:
• UBC Masters student in Environmental Studies, focussing on Urban Food
Policy for thesis.

Spring:
• New tour series: one around Granville Island and one on Chocolate and
Coffee
• Feedback on NFN: not sure if we need another layer – VFPC could be the link
instead of adding another group but they need to develop better
communication systems to link the NFN

Zsuzsi:
• Just finished a Food Policy course with Wendy Mendez and created a report
on Food Desserts.
• Will be compiling research on the Neighbourhood Food Networks for her
thesis
• Will be facilitating youth capacity building by doing urban agriculture in the
Philippines throughout the summer.

Sally:
• 16 boxes for the Fruit and Veggie deal this week. This is a lower number
since joining UBC.
• Steeves Manor is only doing one meal a week on Thursdays
 • Realized that the homeless and hard-to-house are going to be given first
priority to vacancies in social housing – Steeves Manor will be affected by
this.

Gord:
• Was visiting Gibson’s and was happy to see CSAs growing out all over the
place

Dolly:
• Received funding for a new resource center with the potential location will be
Fir & 7th by 2012. The new center will have 16 housing units.
• MPA Society serves breakfast and lunch daily.

Charlotte:
• Excited to be helping out with the Pocket Markets when she is not away on
holidays throughout the summer.

Chelsea:
• Harvesting from the garden is happening now, getting more and more each
week. If there is a program that could use some of the produce, please let me
know. We want to donate some of our harvest to the community.
• Together with Village Vancouver and James Gates, garden volunteer, we are
putting together a grant application to Hellmans’ Real Food Grant Program.
The grant program will fund up to $10,000 for a community food celebration.
This celebration will be held at Kits House in the garden and we will invite
various food oriented community organizations and families to celebrate in
local food. We’re hoping the event will be held in early Sept.