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June 10, 2015 CCCG Advisory Board Minutes

 

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CCCG Advisory Board Meeting

June 10, 2015

Present: Alice Ammerman, Nancy Easterling, Claire Lorch, John O’Sullivan, Becca Wait, Diane Webster, and Vicki Whitfield

Guests:  UNC students, Giszell Weather and Bronwyn Fadem

 

Updates

  • Greenhouse –Our design/builder needed to alter the design to accommodate a 4’ by 8’ thermal panel which resulted in Facilities pulling it from Historic District Commission (HDC) consent agenda scheduled last Tuesday. We will be meeting Thursday, June 18th with Facilities staff and design/builder to discuss alternative design that will not require us to get approval from HDC again. Although we were disappointed that we are not further along in this process, we continue to feel confident that we are moving on a steady course and will have a great product in the end.
  • Distributions – We have been doing them at garden since the Housekeeper headquarters bldg. (where we normally do distributions) won’t be habitable for another 18 months or so and this new location is going very well. It is more convenient on our end and the housekeepers have enjoyed seeing the garden. We are exploring the possibility of using the Grounds Services Bldg. for distributions when it is either too dark, too cold or raining to do it at the garden. Also, participation of third shift housekeepers at distributions has increased from an average of 6 to 14 attendees, perhaps due to zone managers providing transportation to their staff.  Hopefully, this trend will continue.
  • Summer Splash-Though it seemed that there were fewer staff in attendance, while we were there from 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. which may have been due to the cloudy/misty weather, we had a good participation at the cooking demo and the rubbed kale salad was a big hit. Folks continue to enjoy the choc chip sweet potato bread and to sign up for the t-shirt raffle. Specials thanks goes to Diane and Chris for their wonderful enthusiasm and great assistance.
  • Natives of the Earth– UNC students, Giszell Weather and Bronwyn Fadem presented their plans to create a community garden on top of the Wallace parking deck on Rosemary St. Giszell has been working with youth through the Teen Center and Bronwyn, through Blue Ribbon and both want to involve these populations (youth and people of color) in the garden. They have gotten the support of the Town and Parks and Rec (which oversees the Teen Center) for moving forward. There are already beds on the site (3800 sq. ft.) and irrigation. Giszelle and Bronwyn are aware that some homeless individuals frequent that site and hope to find ways to engage them in this effort.  Although they are interested in getting UNC students involved, they very much want this to be a community-wide effort.  They would like to find ways to recruit volunteers that are people of color.  If you have recruiting ideas, please contact them at bfadem@live.unc.edu and giszelld@live.unc.edu

 

  • Survey
  • Responses: 230 faculty, close to 1000 staff including 126 housekeepers completed hard copies of the survey.
  • Staff participation at the workdays has increased presumably as a result of the survey and the efforts of the Employee Forum (regular publicity and Earth Day event at the garden). We now have about seven staff members that come regularly compared with one or two before this effort.
  • To increase faculty awareness of the garden and what it has to offer, David Schwartz suggested that the CCCG be included in the campus tour sponsored by Center for Faculty Excellence, offered late summer for new faculty. He also suggested contacting faculty chairs or their assistants directly to see if they would be interested in having a social event at the garden. David thinks faculty need to see the garden before they are going to consider utilizing it in some way.
  • Data entry and analysis: Need to find grad student to help us with analyze the survey data… Someone who has experience with qualitative research analysis- perhaps from sociology, public health, psych, environmental science, etc. Could also use someone to help enter data from hard copies. (Alice identified a doctoral student to who is currently entering the data.)

 

  • Edible Landscaping at UNC – There has been some recent discussion about creating edible landscaping on campus. Some may remember a proposal some years back to plant fruit and vegetables in the beds in front of Davis Library but that never materialized. Emily Auerbach, a recent UNC graduate that was very involved with HOPE Gardens wrote a proposal to create edible landscaping on campus and to make this University the first to commit to commit to distributed edible landscaping on a large scale.  Apparently Chancellor Folt is very excited and supportive of this idea.  Claire Hannapel, a current UNC student plans to continue Emily’s efforts.  Emily’s proposal and website can be found at https://dochub.com/emilyauerbach/KMzKmx/edible_landscaping_proposal    (Alice has asked Cindy Shea of the Sustainability Office to keep us posted on any new developments on this front.)

 

  • Strategic Sustainability Plan-Health and Wellness: There is a campus-wide effort being organized by an outside consultant to develop a Sustainability Plan. CCCG is represented on the subcommittee for Health and Wellness.

 

  • Upcoming Events:
  • June 28 – Pollinator Workshop (2-3 pm)
  • July 10th – Sports Plex Campers (10- 11:30 am)*
  • July 29th –CCCG Advisory Board Meeting
  • Aug 19th – Week of Welcome (4- 5 pm)*
  • Aug 21st – Sports Plex Campers (10-11:30 am)*
  • Aug 26th – CCCG Advisory Board Meeting
  • Aug 29th – “Getting Back to Our Roots” 5K and Fair: Eta Epsilon (Environmental Honors Fraternity will be sponsoring a 5K run and Fair on Aug 29th to benefit the CCCG)
  • Sept 26th – Family Weekend (3- 4 pm)*

* Please contact Claire if you are available to help out for any of these events.

 

 

 

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