Meeting Notes from April 15 Meeting

Farm Visit
The group decided to plan a trip to Bainbridge Island to visit the consortium of organic farms where Ariana is interning this spring. A weekend in the first half of May was decided upon as good timing in terms everyone’s schedule with regard to the 10-week quarter. Ann will write Ariana to determine which weekend might be better from their end. It might be a bit early for some produce but we will just have to work with the season and with the reality that things might be a little late this year. Once the date is set, we can plan logistics for getting there. It would be wonderful if we could travel as foot passengers on the ferry, but it depends on what transportation will be needed once we get to Bainbridge. I will get that information from Ariana and will pursue the rental of a UW van if that seems like the best way to go.

I will also set up a doodle poll to determine the dinner date. A strong preference was expressed for a Friday evening in mid-May.

Slow Food on Campus
Emilia Ptak talked to us about her conversations with Slow Food Seattle. Affiliation might bring some resources to help us fund (and expand) what we are already doing and also might make it possible for us to send a delegate or two to Terra Madre in 2010. Student membership is only $10 (which includes the magazine Slow and the monthly newsletter). The question arose as to whether our current group is large enough to meet the organizational requirements for organizing as a Slow Food convivium (we need a full roster of no fewer than 10 officers!). We agreed that we could use our next meal event as an opportunity to increase our numbers. Emilia agreed to take the lead on any planning to pursue an affiliation with Slow Food in the future. She also mentioned an upcoming visit to Washington State by Josh Viertel, the President of Slow Food USA and director of the Yale Sustainable Farm Project, and we might want to see if we can either invite him to campus or send a group off to meet him (Emilia, can you provide us with some details on his visit? I forgot to make notes on that).

Broadening Our Base
Other opportunities to expand the group were discussed: a table on Earth Day (coming up soon on April 22), having a fundraiser at the cob oven, seeking affiliation with the Green Coalition. If any of you would like to take the lead on this, please let me know. I would especially like to have a table on Earth Day. It seems like too good an opportunity to pass up to get the word out about what we are doing. If any of you know what this entails, please get in touch with me. I would be willing to help out with this, but I need a student who knows the ropes about how to set one up.

Eat In
We discussed briefly the possibility of staging an "Eat-In" similar to the one that happened at Slow Food USA last Labor Day weekend. It is too late for this year, but we might want to think about it for next fall--a kind of harvest home. If you would like to learn more about staging this kind of event, please check out the Eat-In website.