meeting:
4pm
Trolley Barn Park, at the cross of Park Boulevard and Adams Avenue, University Heights, 92116
we'll try to get one of the tables on the opposite side of the park from the playground. if you have an extra chair, please bring, along with a snack to share.
see you then!
possible topics for conversation:
•revisiting, who is this conference for?•revisiting, process of decision making (email vs. in person)•revisiting, methods and structure for outreach•do we want a diversity/communication training?•creating a year-at-view schedule for meetings, and which topics will be discussed at which meetings
I'm attaching the notes from the last meeting. please review and bring ideas & responses
___________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________ It was suggested that we need to have an official intro to everyone on the operational team at the actual conference. Workshop idea: issues of eating meat. Workshop idea: Options for different diets, including how to have balanced nutrition in a vegan and vegetarian diet. Dietary options were not covered this year… important way to bring more people in. Explain why some people want to include meat in diet, some people don’t. Address issues of soy. Sustainability in diets… not sustainable to be vegan if you’re getting tofu from different country. If we cover this, we have to cover speceism (ethical/political concerns of diet options) Animal rights as part of food justice. How will the committee for next year be formed? This year it was open to all. We should invite people we know to be leaders to represent more groups. Suggestion that this year’s leaders step back and open the table for people to step into leadershop roles. But we need personnel consistency to keep the history of the event in tact and so that we can mentor new people at the planning table. Should we have a cut-off date for involvement in planning committee? Hard when people come late in the game and suggest we redo things we had already decided on. One month prior to event, planning meetings shut to public, but if people want to help they can volunteer? No, it’s important to involve people at any level at any step in the game. People may come in with ideas we hadn’t thought of. This was tabled to be figured out at future debriefs. We talked extensively about tension and defense within the planning committee. Some people felt that we did not provide a welcoming environment for people to share ideas or to challenge ideas. Too much tip-toeing. That was because we didn’t know each other enough to establish trust. We should not need to be qualified by resumés or other papers to be able to be at the table. Some people felt this was the case this year. Too much stigma around people representing food groups. Want to foster community effort, doesn’t matter if a person is from a group or not. Need to pay close attention to new people, make them feel wanted. We should establish a glossary of terms that we use because a lot of people don’t know all the terms we use. Suggestion that we have a training session on some very important issues (i.e. deconstucting race and class within social justice goals) so that we can be on the same page and come to the table with appropriate knowledges so that we can then be more effective in our communications to and with the public, and each other. Also, we have to remember that this is volunteer-based. Some can give a lot of time and energy, some can give a little. All is good, we can’t expect people to be able to commit to the same level of involvement but we should welcome and respect everyone’s contributions. We agreed that the conference planning should be year-long, with once-a-month or so gatherings during the summer to foster relationships, and then more frequent meetings as we enter the fall.
Who is this conference for? The concept had been brought up and swept over many times throughout the planning sessions. This is not a charity. Kept hearing people say that we are doing this for low-income sectors of San Diego. This is to empower and uplift all people to create change within their neighborhoods, etc. We need to have everyone there, not just under-priveleged. We need over-priveleged there too so that they can see that they have more opportunity than others and to get involved with resoring equality. Some felt that because it was at SDSU that it was an SDSU conference. SDSU is close to City Heights but didn’t feel that many people from City Heights were there. We need to reach out to have more diversity. Diversity at planning table needs more. Diversity of people attending was great! But could be better. Suggestion that we group in teams of three and each group has a neighborhood to reach out to. Should the mission statement stay the same or change each year? The movement is dynamic, our goals should be adaptable. Voting structure: consensus vs. vote. Consensus is ideal but very difficult in some situations. Suggestion that for some decisions we come to two/thirds vote rather than 50% vote or consensus. But consensus is the essence of planning committee. We also talked extensively about making decisions on email versus in person. Strong group consensus that all major decisions need to be made at meetings, not email. Some people can’t go to meetings. Suggestion that we hold meetings on alternate days so that more people can come. Meeting minutes need to be published promptly so that people can be included and help make decisions. If a person can’t come to meetings they can relay their vote/opinion through a person who will be present at meetings. Need to have stronger working groups that meet at different times than all-group meetings, that could help with people being able to attend. Keynote speakers. Why was Raj brought and who made decisions? This was one big decision that was made via email. People felt upset about it because some feel that we should be looking to local heroes rather than celebrities. Raj was brought because of his pull, to get people hooked in. But there are many people who could speak specifically to our regional concerns. Raj couldn’t answer questions about our community because he doesn’t know about it. But he offers a global perspective. But there are people in San Diego who could also do that. Also, $2000 seemed too high to pay for speaker. Introduction needs to have more restraint, only one person introducing. Less experts, more local heroes. Raj was speaking an a highly educated level, many people may not have known his terms or what he was talking about all the time. He was very entertaining but didn’t appeal to local issues as much. Suggestion that everyone makes contact with 5 people who don’t know about food justice, and invite them. It was suggested that we come up with a schedule of what topic will be covered on what date. That could help some people who can’t get very involved still feel welcome to join, if they know that they want to voice opinion on particular topics (as an example, Mission Statement scheduled for Jan 14 (not real, just example). We need a tentative timeline of conference as a yearlong conversation that can be published so people know where they fit in and what they want to do.
We need to start planning earlier because important things we left until too late. Food and workshops, specifically. Those should be ready and planned well before a month out from the event.
When and where should next year’s conference be? Everyone is encouraged to put their ideas in writing, including workshop ideas.


 

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