Meeting Minutes

Attending: Gail, Ellen, Lucy, Shannon, Casey, Margaret, Rick

1. Denver Meeting 30 June – July 1  (Casey)
2. Botanic Garden – Rooms reserved all day on Jun 30th and half day on July 1st.
   • We can talk to the Botanic Garden about our food needs, next.
3. Hotel information forthcoming
   • Warwick hotel contract secured (30 room nights; $179 per night):  reservation deadline of June 3rd.
4. Late Night arrivals on 29th/informal gathering (nothing major):  steering committee dinner on June 29th or should we have a general reception on June 29th?
   • Rick, Margaret, Bob Kellam will not be able to attend NICH meeting in June.
5. Transportation costs (Shannon): information forthcoming
   • No transportation on the 29th, unless we have a reception on the 29th.
   • Transportation on the 30th:  roundtrip out to the Botanic Garden, and then back (full day)
   • Transportation on 1st of July:  one trip out to the Botanic Garden, and one trip back (half day)
   • Does the Warwick have a shuttle?  If so, could we look the Warwick as an alternative?
   • Action Items:  Shannon will call the Warwick and ask about transportation; will follow up on transportation options.

1. Program Committee Update (Rusty, Ellen, Lucy)
2. Survey Results – Update:  not many responses (~12), and seems like we may be recruiting from within our group.  Not many responses from outside of our group.
   • Action Items:  Lucy will resend the survey, with a deadline of May 13th to respond.
   • Action Items:  Steering committee should fill out the survey, as well.
   • In the survey note ~ send out information about the Warwick hotel.
   • Denver has a train to plane service at Union Station (http://www.rtd-denver.com/a-line.shtml).  The Warwick is ~ 1 mile from Union Station.
3. Should we put the organizational structure on website?  At this point, Casey suggests holding off on putting the organization structure on the website.
4. Mission – Vision – Goals Committee Update
   • Updated goals and objectives were included on the survey.  They are not currently posted on the website.
     • Decision Made:  we will put the new goals and objectives on the website.
   • If survey closes on May 13th, is there enough time for the writing committee to meet, prior to our Denver meeting?
   • Should mission and vision be ready to be presented at Denver meeting?  Writing committee was given permission to take a renewed look at mission and vision.  But, we will not change the mission and vision (on the website), for now.

1. Action Items, Website updates (Ellen will take care of this):
2. Add Shannon and Rusty as steering committee members.
3. Add updated goals and objectives to website.
4. Add hotel and meeting information to the website.

1. Sponsorship
2. Shannon had talked to a local foundation about sponsoring NICH activities, but they declined, at this time.

1. Identifying and Working with Like-Minded Groups (Margaret)
2. There are other efforts that are related to what NICH is doing, and many of them are commercially-oriented.  There may be a way of joining forces.

1. We need Private Industry members! (Casey)
2. Casey has meeting scheduled with Suzie McCoy (from Garden Media Group) in the next few weeks, and will broach the topic.  Suzie may have a better idea about what type of campaign we can use to engage them.
3. Timing:  spring is a bad time of year to engage nursery production folks.  It’s their busiest time of year.
4. Our efforts to engage industry should be focused on long term involvement, rather than short-term funding.
5. Other efforts focused on getting funding to solve problems that affect industries.  Our efforts seem one or more steps away from what an industry person might be looking for.
6. Another challenge is that we don’t have enough industry involvement for them to even say what their needs are.
7. Other folks who might be involved: Charlie Hall (gardening impact data) or other researchers who work in consumer hort.
8. Ellen has a meeting with a marketing professional at Bonnie Plants to discuss NICH.
9. We need to develop a list of industry talking points, that can be linked back to our goals.
   • Action Items:  Margaret will take the first stab at writing industry talking points, in collaboration with American Hort (Jill Callaborough?).  Casey will assist, perhaps putting draft past Suzie McCoy.  Approach will be to take NICH goals, and put them into industry-specific language.

1. Next Meeting – May 17, 2016

Attending:  Tom, Ellen, Beth Horne (Event Coordinator, Center for Urban Agriculture), Shannon Spurlock, Rick Durham, Mary Meyer, Lucy, Gail

1. Upcoming NICH Meeting:  tentative date of June 27-30 Shannon Spurlock and Denver Urban Gardeners will be hosting.  Beth will be part of the conference planning team.

a. Hotel or Downtown.  Shannon~ pre- and post conference tours might work better if we meet downtown (bus tour or b-cycle tours).  Distance between downtown and airport ~ 30-40 minutes.  Denver airport hotels very isolated.  Consensus is to have the meeting at a downtown hotel.  Shannon will reach out to local contact to see what ACGA used as hotels when they met in Denver.  Let’s line up hotel, before promoting the meeting dates. Hotel should have one larger meeting area, with smaller break out areas.

b. Number of Attendees: Shannon would like to know how many people will be attending.  Estimate is currently 100 people.  Is that correct?  Are DUG going to be expected to do outreach to recruit more folks to the meeting Tom:  our focus is a national audience, although local folks are welcome. For national focus, include folks who weren’t able to attend the first meeting to attend the second meeting.  Ellen notes that our mailing list is currently 46 people . . .  half of our 100 person target.  Also, that we did not get good representation from family and consumer science, even though many of our goals fall into that area.

c. Tours:  Shannon~ pre- and post conference tours (bus tour or b-cycle tours). Bike tour or walking tour to urban farms, urban gardens and People’s Gardens, in Denver.  Denver Botanic Garden has also offered pre- or post-conference tour.

d. Conference Committee:  Shannon, Beth, Lucy, Mary, Ellen, and perhaps Rusty.

e. Agenda:  June 27th is the travel day, perhaps a tour on the 27th.  Meeting on June 28th-29th (day and a half).  Folks can either travel out on June 29th, or stay around for a tour on June 30th.  Focus of this meeting should be the organizational structure of NICH, including forming working group team.

Need to move work beyond the steering committee.  The night of the 27th, we might be able to do an informal dinner at ‘the horse barn’.  It should be a no-host type of event.

f. Facilitator:  Shannon mentioned that they have worked with a local facilitator named Rusty Collins, who has done a good job for them in the past.  We have used Warren in the past, but it might be good to reach out to Rusty.  Shannon will reach out to Rusty Collins to see if he is available June 28-29th.

g. Registration Form:  The conference folks at the Center for Urban Ag will handle the registration form and collection of money (if money collection is needed).

2) Writing Committee Volunteers:  Tom (will host) and Rick are also willing to be involved on the writing team.  Other folks who volunteered for the writing committee include (Ellen will send a note to the three below, saying there are two other committee members, and they will be in touch, soon).

• Rima Green
• Adena Sabins
• David D. Close

3) Adjustments to the NICH website

a. Surveys have been stopped.

b. Adjusted the Vision Statement.

c. Richie can (and has) created registrations forms so that can be done on the web site.

d. NICH Steering Committee Minutes are being posted on the website.

e. Writing Committee members will be added to the website.

f. Steering Committee Member Adjustments:  Mark Boxson has resigned from the committee.  Maree Gaetani has resigned from the committee.  Bob Kellam is taking a leave of absence from the committee.  Jenn Tedeschi is backing off of (but not out of) engagement with NICH.

4) Other Business

a. We should get a ‘hold the date’ notification, with meeting location, out to our lists.  We should all use our listservs to get a ‘save the date’ out to all of our lists.

b. Lucy will send information out on ‘how to subscribe’ to the listserv to all of us, so that we can get that information out to our network.

c. Next phone call: March 22nd at 10am EST.  Focus of next phone call will be the program agenda for our June meeting.

Summary of Decisions Made
1. We’ll be meeting in a downtown hotel, not the airport.
2. Conference committee consists of Shannon, Beth, Lucy, Ellen, and a facilitator (perhaps Rusty Collins).
Summary of To Dos
1. Shannon will reach out to Rusty Collins to see if he is available to facilitate our meeting in June.  She will also ask about cost.
2. Ellen will send a note out to writing committee members letting them know they have two more members, and that information on next steps will be coming soon.
3. All of us will get information out to our networks, asking them to save the date (June 27-30) for a meeting in Denver, CO.
4. Lucy will send us information on ‘how to subscribe’ to her listserve, so that we can begin to grow the NICH network.
Next Phone call:  March 22nd at 10am EST.  Agenda item = planning program agenda for June Meeting.