New Board meeting dates have been added to the calendar. The meetings will take place on the second Thursday of the month beginning January 12, 2017. All gardeners are welcome to join or submit items/suggestions/issues for discussion. Winter locations TBD. Check garden communications prior to each meeting.
Board Meetings
Board Meeting December 8
November’s Board meeting has been rescheduled for December 8 at 7:00pm. The location is TBD. Once the location is confirmed it will be posted. Gardeners are welcome to join us — or email board@hilleastgarden.org with agenda items.
July Board Meeting Minutes
HECG Board Meeting Minutes July 2016
July 18, 2016, 7PM at HECG
In Attendance:
Brenda Dunlap, Secretary
Joan Gregory Saenz, President
Erin Harms, Treasurer/Membership
Katie Lefeber Donahue, Garden Events Coordinator
Luke Manion, Vice President
Garden Members:
Nicole Shank
Absent: Matt Bradley, Web & IT Coordinator
Officer Reports:
President:
- Joan is updating the perimeter map: Gardeners who would like to adopt a section of exterior perimeter to plant should contact the Board (board@hilleastgarden.org) and gardeners who are already managing sections of it should notify the board.
Vice President:
- Luke: Luke followed HECG formal procedures and contacted Plot #4C three times by email and attempted to contact the gardener by phone twice. Plot 4C’s membership was terminated due to non-compliance. Thanks to Joan Gregory and Stephanie Spahlinger for cleaning Plot #4C and to Matt for removing the bags of weeds!
- Brenda suggested the Board develop 3 boilerplate letters with wording that follows HECG rules and processes that can be sent to non-compliant gardeners. Board members agreed that this could simplify the reminder/notification process for Board members. Joan volunteered to draft the letters and Katie volunteered to review them.
- Luke reported that he saw a fire engine one night when a gardener was using the fire pit. No one in attendance knew about this or had details.
- Brenda thought that it was possible there is an ordinance against using a fire pit like this and Katie volunteered to research it.
- Luke volunteered to fire dragon the perimeter and patio weeds wherever possible.
- Luke will email Plot #4E and #3F to weed their plots because the weeds are seeding and spilling over.
Secretary:
- Brenda trimmed the hibiscus and variegated tree and will continue to trim them since the fledglings moved. Someone taller would need to trim above her reach. She reported that the second Saturday workday lead by Abby Pound went great. 3 gardeners weeded a section of exterior and interior perimeter and straightened shed.
Treasurer/Membership:
- Erin and Stephanie completed transfer of financial items, and Erin can now administer the HECG PayPal account.
- Contessa Riggs has agreed to repaint the HECG sign in August.
Garden Events Coordinator:
- Katie is planning a social for August and a weekend cook-off on a weekend after Labor Day.
- Katie will email gardeners who have not logged work hours and ask them to participate in an August workday.
- The workday goal for Thurs Jul 21 work eve: removing vines from fence. Weeding was completed along the southeast perimeter, including removal of several trees of heaven. Thank you Amy!
- Katie to purchase a few bags for weeds at Fragers for upcoming workdays. Erin will purchase them in bulk from Costco to ensure we have bags on hand for future workdays.
- The Board authorized the purchase of five chairs to replace five damaged chairs. Amy, Matt, and Beth Baldwin led workdays in July and August. One leader is still needed for first workday in August.
General Business
Water discussion:
- Katie reported that Charles Allen’s staff suggested contacting Capitol Hill Community Foundation for grant opportunities to raise money for an HECG water line (or other project) and knew of no other resources.
- Katie noticed that Greenseed has a cistern and suggested investigating if it (or something else) might be an option.
- Brenda volunteered to research whether or not drilling a well is a viable option.
- Erin reported that Joanna (Greenseed) went to a water meeting recently and plans to post information about it. The Board will discuss the information Joanna posts.
- Erin emailed Daniel Ridge to invite him to tour the garden and meet the gardeners, the ANC rep twice to talk with him about the garden and the process of obtaining a permanent water source someday and other issues related to the garden, for example how to get a physical address for HECG.
- There was a discussion about whether or not grants are needed for any special projects for HECG.
- Gardeners with ideas on improvements needed at HECG should email board@hecg.org
- Brenda suggested non-toxic options for weed control or paying to install landscape fabric on exterior perimeter to make weeding easier since maintaining it hasn’t been a priority for gardeners. Erin thought the fabric would not be helpful in the long term (there are already several layers under the mulch within the fenced area) and Brenda suggested trying it in 1 section for comparison.
Web/IT (Matt via email):
- Matt will demonstrate at an upcoming meeting how the Board might use the suite of Google Apps.
- Removed Plot 4C former members from HECG Google Group
- Volunteered to give water barrel training upon request
- Purchased the new grill cover, refilled a propane canister, and volunteered to clean the grill.
- Reported that Behrad Mahdi refilled a propane canister! (Behrad, please forward a receipt to erin@hecg.org to be reimbursed).
Other Business
- The Board agreed that effective August 1, 2016, HECG primary gardeners must reside in zip codes 20002 or 20003 unless they are already on the wait list. An individual may sign-up on the wait list if they reside in a different zip code, but must reside in 20002 or 20003 to become a primary gardener. Secondary gardeners are not required to reside in zip 20002 or 20003.
- Brenda reported an infestation of spider mites and aphids that ruined most of her vegetables and suggested HECG might benefit from releasing ladybugs and green lacewings, which are known to reduce spider mite and aphid populations. The Board agreed to a purchase for now and spring. However, the high temperatures are problematic and Brenda now suggests delaying purchase until spring.
Action Items:
For 8/2016:
- Joan to draft boilerplate letters; update perimeter map
- Luke to fire dragon the perimeter and patio weeds as possible; email #4E and #3F to weed their plots
- Matt to demo and give on how to directly post on site and access shared Google Drive
- Katie to purchase 5 chairs and bags for weeds; remove 5 broken chairs; seek Aug workday leader; announce Aug garden social, contact CHCF, research fire pit ordinances, review Joan’s draft boilerplates.
- Erin to re-invite ANC rep to HECG and to debrief with Greenseed on the water meeting fallout.
- Brenda to investigate wells
For 9/2016: Erin to purchase nematodes (in the fall) and weed bags (Costco).
For 11/2016: Revisit garden taking over its own insurance policy.
For 2/2017: Brenda research free wood chips from reliable source.
For 3/2017 (spring): Brenda information on beneficial insects; Erin to purchase nematodes.
NEXT BOARD MEETING: August 15, 7PM at HECG (all gardeners welcome)
NEXT COMMUNITY WORK DAYS: Aug. 13, 9AM-12N & Aug. 18, 2016 6:30PM-8:30PM
Goals: (1) remove vines on fence, (2) weed exterior perimeter
https://www.facebook.com/hilleastgarden/?fref=ts
Log your hours: https://hilleastgarden.org/work-hours/
May Board Meeting Minutes
HECG Board Meeting Minutes May 2016
May 16, 2016, 7PM at HECG
In Attendance:
Matt Bradley, Web & IT Coordinator
Brenda Dunlap, Secretary
Erin Harns, Treasurer/Membership
Katie Lefeber Donahue, Garden Events Coordinator
Luke Manion, Vice President
Absent:
Joan Gregory, President
Officer Reports:
President: Nothing to report
Vice President: Nothing to report
Secretary: Nothing to report
Treasurer/Membership:
- Banking has been transferred to Erin. Stephanie will be transferring Paypal and the
ledger to Erin. Insurance fee increased to $437.50 because Greenseed dropped off our
policy. The garden will explore taking over its own insurance.
- Erin is receiving back statements, but online banking is not currently available. Erin will
call the bank to set that up. There are two debit cards. One will live with the treasurer and
the other with the garden president (Joan).
- One plot next to patio is still vacant.
Garden Events Coordinator:
- Katie has the sign-in sheets from 2 workdays but the 3rd work day was damp and there
was no sign-in sheet. She will log-in hours where she has complete info but some folks only
signed in (they didn’t include the amount of time they stayed). She’ll remind those who
worked to make sure their hours were logged in.
- Katie will email gardeners future reminders about works days ~ 1 week in advance and
also 1 day in advance.
- The Board agreed that gardeners should log their own work hours in the future. It
creates unnecessary work for the Board otherwise.
- Katie will begin to contact gardeners to lead workday starting with gardeners who have
not logged any work hours yet.
- Katie plans to coordinate a garden social for June and we discussed ideas. Per Erin, the
Homebrew Association wants to hold a social at HECG and invite gardeners. Erin and Katie
will contact them about setting it up. Katie will solicit other ideas from gardeners and also
contact Nicole who wanted to host a social at one point.
- Erin will set up a date for a water training happy hour
- Matt will lead 5/19/2016 Wine & Weeding event. The goal will be weeding vacant plot on the west side of the patio. Other priority is Bermuda grass on patio against the wood and the East perimeter area
Web/IT:
- Matt will send an email to gardeners with instructions on accessing HECG content in
HECG google group since he has finished setting it up. He will also start a google sheet of
Board members contact info.
Other Business:
- Luke will purchase a fire dragon estimated at $40 to torch the patio weeds. He’ll email Erin the receipt for reimbursement. Because it might be unsafe to house it in the shed, he will store it for HECG.
- Mrs. Gold’s request: could be link spamming or a teacher’s outreach. Everyone disliked that it’s affiliated with a corporation. Erin will add a shout-out on the home-page recent blog posts and respond to Mrs. Gold that we will not link the article.
- Plot check: Luke will contact Gene Kim and Chris Forney and ask them to weed their plots. Kimberly Kennedy will decide by Friday 5/20/2016 if she’s going to continue her plot and will weed it if she stays.
- Katie will call 311 for bulk pickup of discarded boards and broken chairs & umbrellas. We suggested putting the discarded tomato cages in the alley for the metal recycler. Matt will assist if Ryan needs assistance moving items in preparation for pickup.
- Erin will purchase nematodes since it’s still cool enough.
NEXT MEETING: Monday June 20, 2016 at 7PM at HECG (all gardeners are welcome to attend)
Check out HECG online: https://hilleastgarden.org/
Like us on FB https://www.facebook.com/hilleastgarden/?fref=ts
April Board Meeting Minutes
HECG Board Meeting April 11, 2016
Updates
- Stephanie is working to finish transferring over Treasurer duties to Erin.
- Joan, Erin and Stephanie will go to the bank next Thursday to transfer the account to allow us to sign.
- Lucie was reimbursed for the patio furniture. Joan needs paid back for signs—trying to do through Paypal.
- We are still working on change of garden address. We are checking to see if we need a physical address if we are ever to get a water hookup.
- Joan bought new signs that say “water me” and “harvest me.” Please feel free to grab from shed and use when needed. Red flags still need purchased.
- We also discussed a potential gardener wanted to barter instead of pay new gardener fees. We said no. We will continue looking at these on a case by case basis, but said no in this case.
- Erin will now continue to fill plots, we have four open.
- Nematodes order: will be late April after we mulch.
Work Days:
- Matt is going to add work days to the google calendar and Facebook. We will also send out emails. Please let us know if you think there are other good ways to keep gardeners in the loop.
- This coming work day SATURDAY will be led by the board. We will focus on: weeds in common areas and in-between plots. Clean shed, inventory tools.
Check water hoses.
- We will be asking gardeners to sign up to lead additional set work days. Please contact Katie kathryn.lefeber@gmail.com to sign up. It is a great way to get your 4 work hours per plot. As a reminder, we are keeping a close eye on work hours this year and will hold gardeners hold gardeners to their commitments to performs 4 hours of tasks per year or ask them to leave the garden.
Next HECG Board Meeting Dates Set:
Every third Monday of the month in the garden at 7pm.
- May 16
- June 20
- July 18
- August 15
- September 19
- October 17
- November 21
- December 19
Annual Meeting Minutes 3-5-16
Board Meeting Minutes 01/11/16
Hill East Community Garden—Board Meeting January 11, 2016
–Officer Reports
- Nicole Shank-President no update
- Lucie Anan-Vice President NOT IN ATTENDANCE emailed notes
- Jennifer Shoemaker-Garden coordinator NOT IN ATTENDANCE
- Erin Harms-Membership renewal update (see below)
- Joan Gregory-Secretary no update
- Stephanie Spahlinger–Treasurer one bill paid (Go Daddy for website renewal)
–Annual meeting March 5
- At NE Capitol Hill Library (330 7th Street NE) 2-4pm March 5th
- Tentative Agenda
o Annual report from each officer
o State of the garden
- New rules on work hours
- Planned work days for 2016
o New officer slate (There is still time to throw your hat in the ring, please email any officer to get details!)
o Vote on new board members
o Speaker TBD
–Renewal application and status to send
- Erin is in the process of creating a new form for garden renewals. We will now accept PayPal to pay your 2016 fees!
- Renewals will be sent out within the next week and be due back by February 14.
- We have over 100 people on the wait list. It is imperative that renewals are sent in in a timely fashion. If not, you run the risk of losing your plot.
- On that note, all folks on the wait list now will be kept. Going forward we will have boundaries to make sure we are keeping our community garden within our community. New boundaries are being worked on and will be voted on at the next meeting.
–Board recruitment
Gardeners Brenda Dunlap and Matt Bradley were in attendance as prospective new board members.
Please contact any board member if you have an interest in being on the board.
Next Meeting February 17, 2016.
Hill East Community Garden 