Sunshine Gardens Newsletter Sunshine Community Gardens Weekly Weeder July 10, 2008 _______________________________________________ All-Gardener Meeting July 26, 2008 _______________________________________________ NEWS BRIEFS   All-Gardener Meeting - Scheduled for Saturday, July 26th at 10:00 am.  See below for details.   Lost: Safety Goggles - A pair of safety goggles has gone missing near the greenhouse - please reply if you've seen them. Lost: 600 plastic pots - More than 600 sterilized 4" pots destined for the fall plant sale were either removed, or mixed back in with the un-sterilized ones.  To help replace them or otherwise help with in the fall plant sale, contact maria.beach@yahoo.com or austinjasmine@gmail.com.   Lost: Green-handled tools - Ila Falvey donated a number of ergonomic tools to the gardens this winter.  They are very nice, and lot of them have walked off.  Any that find their way back will be welcomed back to the toolshed with open arms.   Solar Cooking and Simple Living Workshop is postponed: As of Wednesday, we did not have quite enough people to make the class, so it will be rescheduled for a later date. Plant Sale Updates: The first fall plant sale is tentatively scheduled for July 25/26, provided the plants are big enough.  Also, John Kerr has shared the slide-show from this spring's plant sale here.  Thank you, John!   _______________________________________________ OPPORTUNITIES & REQUESTS   Bindweed? How do you get rid of (or otherwise control) bindweed in your plot?  Send in your suggestions to scgsecretary@gmail.com, and stay tuned for responses next week.   Seeking Weeder Writers!  Earn fame and prestige (or possibly infamy) as a contributor to Sunshine Gardens' regular newsletter.  Submit questions, or share your expertise about garden pests, techniques, equipment, or anything else garden-related.  Volunteer opportunities to complete service hours include: - Attend the 7/22 Board Meeting - Attend the 7/26 All-Gardener Meeting - Sort pots, sterilize pots, and put plants in pots as needed (contact Maria Beach at maria.beach@yahoo.com or Jasmine Baker at austinjasmine@gmail.com). - Dig out weeds along the fencelines - Help with a group of kids from a Unitarian Universalist summer camp that will be visiting the gardens later this month   Ergonomic tools: Ila Falvey reports that Sunshine Gardeners have an opportunity to buy their own green-handled stainless steel ergonomic tools at a significantly reduced price.  There are some of these tools in the tool shed but quite a few have disappeared. The "Weeder" is particularly useful for attacking Bermuda grass.  Interested gardeners should check the kiosk board and contact Ila by July 26.   Election procedures committee: The Board approved an election procedures committee to address outstanding procedural concerns raised by the prior Board and gardeners before, during, and after the May all-gardener meeting.  Valerie French is chairing   _______________________________________________ ALL-GARDENER MEETING CALLED! Cedar Stevens, SCG Board President   Come One Come All! Saturday, July 26th 10:00 am   On Tuesday evening the Board of SCG received the final report of the Identity Committee (IDC). This very important document is a guide for Sunshine Community Gardens as we move towards our new identity as as an independent organization. The Board and the IDC very much hope that as many Gardeners as possible will join together at the All-Gardener meeting to ratify, implement, and/or amend the recommendations which will enable us to become our own nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization. This is a decision for all of us.   The report of the IDC is as thorough as one would hope for a set of decisions so important to our future. It is 46 pages and very well crafted, and the Board is very impressed by the professional, high quality results of this process. All this was done in only four weeks. Many congratulations to the IDC members and its Chair, Scott Morris.   There is a copy of the complete report in the trailer. Please leave this one for anyone to read. Another copy has been posted to the files of our Yahoo group.  If you have not joined we hope this will get you to do so! You will need a Yahoo account to access the group, and it is quite easy to sign up if you don't have an account with them yet. Because of server space issues, we can't attach the whole document to the Weeder. But of course any Board member or member of the IDC would be happy to email you one by request.   The agenda of the All-Gardener will focus on the eleven recommendations of the IDC committee, found on pages 6-7 of the report. Please read these and the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) at the end of the document if you don't have time for the whole report.   Notice of the All-Gardener meeting will be delivered by postal mail to gardeners on file as primary contacts (whose addresses we have), by email, and by signs posted in the Garden. The mailout will include the eleven recommendations and the FAQ of the report. We are doing this very quickly to give everyone as much time as possible to review the material. Our fast pace is driven by the need to become our own legal entity by the time Greenlights, our current parent organization, ends their umbrella sponsorship of SCG at the end of this year.   Many thanks to everyone involved in this process.   _______________________________________________ CALENDAR Every Tuesday - Workday, 9:30 to noon (Ila Falvey) Every Thursday - Micah 6 Food Bank Delivery (Nancy Seibert) Tuesday, July 22 - Board Meeting, 6:00 pm July 25/26 - Tentative Tomato Sale July 26 - All-Gardener Meeting, 10:00 am August 1 - Plot Renewals August/September - Plant Sales                                                                                                        KEEPING IN TOUCH   Website: www.sunshinecommunitygardens.org Address: P.O. Box 302349, Austin TX 78703-0040 Many Gardeners: sunshinegardenscommunity@yahoogroups.com (subscribe first by sending a blank e-mail to SunshineGardensCommunity-subscribe@yahoogroups.com) All Gardeners: Send to scgsecretary@gmail.com for inclusion in the next Weeder.   OFFICERS President:  Cedar Stevens (poisonivypixie@hotmail.com) Vice-President:  Steve Barrett (sh_barrett@yahoo.com) Vice-President: Linda Booker (linda@swartzbrough.com) Treasurer: Jesse South (jsouth1@austin.rr.com)  Director-at-Large:  Elaine Meenehan (elaine.meenehan@gmail.com) Secretary:  Valerie French (scgsecretary@gmail.com) Director of Fundraising: Victoria Vanderyken (despinstijl@gmail.com)   ZONE COORDINATORS Zone 2 - John Lee (onionman1015@aol.com) Zone 3 - Gail Reese (ghraustin1@yahoo.com) Zone 4 - Nancy Seibert  (nancyrseibert@yahoo.com) Zone 5 - Mary Gifford (mgifford@austin.rr.com) Zone 6 - Kathleen Cobb (kgb@onr.com) Zone 7 - Merlene Crumbliss (merlenecrumbliss@gmail.com)   COMMITTEE CHAIRS Under construction.   SUBSCRIBING AND UN-SUBSCRIBING This is an official communication from Sunshine Community Gardens in Austin, Texas.  If you have received this message in error, want to update your address, or just want the e-mails to stop, please e-mail scgsecretary@gmail.com or reply to this message.  SCG does not have an automatic un-subscription method, but a human being will attend to your request promptly.    Happy gardening!