Gardening and Reading...Sounds More Like A Hobby

This week started off with something fun on Sunday.  My husband and I went to work in the Community Garden on East Rockaway Road.  I have to be honest…I would get involved with the garden even if I wasn’t on the Board…but they did invite me to come as a Board Member, so I am not cheating by talking about it here.  I don’t know where to begin though!  This garden is so very exciting to me in so many different ways!  I think I will start with the people.  There were students of all ages, many parents, a Great Aunt of a student who lives in the city so doesn’t get a chance to garden, a teacher and his spouse, a district employee that works at WEC, the gentleman from Cornell Cooperative…it was amazing to have so many people working side by side.  The value to the kids to be a part of this intergenerational and diverse group is just incredible…and hey…I can’t overlook the value to the grownups as well!  This particular day the volunteers worked hard harvesting some of the beds.  Some crops harvested were swiss chard, onions, lettuce greens, garlic, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, celery, and I mustn’t forget the carrots!  You should have seen the looks on the kids’ faces when they pulled up the carrots!  Some of the carrots looked like Siamese Twins.  Others were real Bugs Bunny style and some were not as big. They loved pulling each one up to see what they might look like, they were each so different.  We also turned over some of the beds and got them ready for the kids to plant the next crops.  They worked beautifully together to plant the seeds, cover them over with dirt, and water them.  The area got cleaned up and the veggies were packed up to be delivered to The Inn…everyone can feel much pride in the work that is going on at that garden and all the good that stems from it!  Get it?  “Stems”?  Ok…maybe not so punny…

Moving on…Tuesday at 5PM, you already know where I was…at a Board Work Meeting.  FYI:  Every Friday your Board Members anticipate getting a weekly packet.  Some weeks it is very light and if there is no meeting we may not get anything at all.  We ALWAYS have a packet before a meeting in order to prepare and they range in size.  There have been times when we have had almost 600 pages to read in the small time frame of Friday to Wednesday!  Not complaining here…just letting you know!!!  Anyway, this week was very light in comparison and was only 117 pages…not bad. We had from Friday to Tuesday this time and it didn’t take me too long to read and I arrived at the meeting prepared.   I am not going to go through the details of the meeting because the agenda is on the District Website and also, I would like it so much better if you had been there and you saw for yourself!  However, I will say that we spent a considerable amount of time discussing this year’s District Goals and Objectives.  We did need an Executive Session at some point.  We didn’t break our record but we didn’t adjourn until shortly before midnight.  Just so you know, I am very much the night owl so I could have kept on going.  No need though because we had an extremely productive session…which is good…they all should be!!   Besides, there needs to be some consideration for our Board Members who work and need to get up early in the morning, not to mention the Administrators who first had to drive home and then return for work in the morning!

This wasn’t it for the week for some of us though!  On Wednesday we had another Communications Committee Meeting.  Once again, we were hard at work on two new policies that we are recommending that the Board adopt…but there will be more on that to come.  I am hoping to get back to the garden this week…we told them we would give them some of our horseradish from our garden.  And this Tuesday is our monthly Regular Meeting at WEC…hopefully we will see you there!  Looks like I am headed for another busy week…I am also going to a Leadership Conference on Friday…that was the one I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to.  Yes…you will hear all about it…