Next Board Meeting and Update on future plans

Hello everyone,

I believe Lorna will be back on the 23rd so can we all check our schedules and see when we're free to meet from June 24-29? I would like to meet before the church board meeting on June 30th as it will be the last time they meet until they resume in September. I will be attending because I need them to allocate a drop-off site for mulch that will be coming in July. As the raspberry patch now extends all the way along the back, I also plan to ask them to give us a better definition of what land is specifically allocated for the community garden. This is important to know since we'll be building new plots and I want to be sure the church is ok with them going where they're going.

In case I have forgotten to tell everyone, Home Depot has been successful in obtaining permission from head office to donate the lumber for the new plots. They're working on rounding up volunteers from their stores to help us build them some time at the second half of July. They are also looking into whether they can get us some soil donated as well.

I've ordered up 24 cubic yards of mulch from the City. They will be doing a drop-off some time in July. This will be enough mulch to top up all our flower beds and the raspberry bed. This is high quality mulch for beds so it's not for in-between plots. If we have left overs, it would be worth our while to stash it in the back corner and use it to mulch our beds for winter. Mulching helps keep the soil in good condition and keeps the weeds from getting an early start in spring. It also saves you from having to dig up the bed. It keeps the soil nice and moist and loose so when you're ready to plant, you just rake aside the mulch and plant without digging.

I mailed off the letter today that Jeanette (church board chairperson) signed that gives us permission to use McClure in our society's name. Hopefully that will be the last hurdle and we'll be incorporated soon. Next on the list after we get our incorporation documents is to set up our bank accounts and to meet with the Parks Foundation so we can set up a trust account so we can give out receipts for donations and be able to apply for grants on our own.

Maeve, can you please supply Joan with the following info from the membership agreements so she can create a register of members:
- names
- addresses
- email
- phone
- date they joined

Joan, you will also need to add a column for the date they ceased to be a member. Can you please forward this list to Alma when done so she can invite them to the blog?

Items up for discussion:
- who will be signing authorities for banking and Parks Foundation
- location of new plots (mark them)
- planning for fence building (we need to serve lunch and refreshments)
- logo
- what to do with excess money from Neighbour Grant if any
- events list for July (work bees, Calgary Attendance, Y-Map youth, Child and Youth Friendly Calgary, corporate volunteers, garden competition, etc.)
- any other stuff I can't remember and you want to bring up

P.S. A wrinkle in our catnip growing project. Due to a mix-up at the nursery that grew the plants for greengate, the plants we ended up with are catmint, not catnip. John at greengate has pulled a rabbit out of a hat and managed to get us some catnip seedlings to replace the catmint. At this late in the season, that's nothing short of a miracle. They are expected to come in next Monday. I'm really, really hoping they are catnip. The catmint that's been planted way at the end of the raspberry bed can stay. Nothing else seems to be able to grow there. Catmint is a beautiful perennial that's drought tolerant and attracts beneficial insects. Doesn't attract many cats, but it's a wonderful groundcover.

There is still room at the Leisure Centre to plant them, but the challenge with that space is that they have about a foot of woodchips that's excrutiatingly difficult to plant through. We will be planting them into containers and then setting the containers into the mulch.

Alex