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Please add your thoughts and suggestions to this document in advance of the meeting. We will use your responses to guide the meeting. Please also add your name, initials, or an anonymous reference to your responses.
[Rachel Beckett says] I don’t think it will work if we think of it as a crisis service. We need to find an ongoing role that helps make food more sustainable in our area. Then, in a crisis, we shall already be there with a system and volunteers already in place.
The thing that I would most like to tackle is the lack of availability of, and waste of, fresh fruit and vegetables, grown or growing in the Stroud Valleys. I see three sources of this:
This would be quite seasonal work, so we would want volunteers to do marketing and preparation out of season, and to do picking and distributing in season.
[Rachel Beckett says] Build communication networks.
Once it was up and running:
[Julie Wickham says]
I would avoid being a charity at all costs if you could help it and I worked for a great charity that got loads done over many years. I understand that it may mean you can apply for grants and I do hear that Stroudco organisers need to be paid in order to make it continue to work and grow. A charity has trustees who are usually voluntary and I believe this is an outdated model. You can spend as much time finding funds, applying for them and responding to funding bids as you are doing the work that you wanted to do.
Suma is a very successful model.
[Rachel Beckett says] See above.
[Rachel Beckett says] I would help with some of the marketing and some of the harvesting tasks, but we would need at least a dozen regular volunteers to make it viable and not too much pressure on a few people. I would not have loads of time to commit.
[Julie Wickham says]
- what Rachel says is vital. If people are working they will not have much time. Burnout is very real.
[Rachel Beckett says] Nothing until we have a plan.
[Julie Wickham says]
I think the transition movement had it right when it said think of ‘Lets’ rather than ‘someone should’. That said, I have limited capacity but appreciate being able to contribute on here.
Please add any more thoughts or suggestions below - ideally with your name please
[Rachel Beckett says] Let’s think about people we could invite to join us who are dynamic and could help us plan this and get it up and running.
Thoughts:
[Oli Rodker says] This all sounds good, but maybe sounds like a lot of admin and volunteer time for what is an unclear amount of surplus fruit and veg.. Do we have any idea how much surplus allotments have produced in the past..?
It certainly makes sense to not just wait for the crisis to hit harder, but start enacting a future response now… I think this would work well with widening out the remit of the group to be also about land work more generally - helping out on local market gardens, maybe connecting the various volunteer groups that are already around, tree planting… I think there are also some existing excess orchard/apple gathering groups already?
The point is to have an active knowledgeable network that can scale up or scale down its work as appropriate, and this sounds like a good plan if the admin load can be kept low to start..
[David Lambert says] Happy to be involved - I help out with NoSH at Oakbrook and I wonder how you see Stroudco dovetailing with them: they are already sourcing and distributing ‘waste’ and surplus food and have recently expanded their volunteer network. That is only one part of what you outline above so I don’t think duplication would be a problem?
[Karen Crooks says]
- my thoughts lately have been focusing also on protein crops and carbohydrate crops. I am relatively new to Stroud (4 years) so have not been part of StroudCo before, so it may not come within our remit. But, especially with the worryingly high temperatures, there is a need, and perhaps an increased opportunity for e.g. allotment holders, but possibly also Community Farms, to think about protein crops - beans for drying, maybe lentils (although I understand these are laborious to harvest). Has anyone researched growing chick peas or peanuts in UK? More walnut (or hazelnut?) trees maybe… Potatoes are, I think,the only easy carbohydrate crops but is there something that could be done at a community level to increase our local ability to grow and process cereal crops? Apologies if I am wide of the mark.
(Jane Brown says)
1/ What is the scale of the crisis? If extreme, then folk will be panicking and stealing (from allotments etc). Fruit & Veg is very seasonal if immediate food is needed.
2/ Could StroudCo play a role of Calm Awareness through use of newspaper and social media? eg
Don’t Panic! There is a plan. You will be able to feed your children/self. Get involved and share. A bit idealistic perhaps. Tim Lang was very much about ground roots sharing.
3/ I always saw Transition as ‘Plan B’ when Plan A (life as usual) began to collapse. Can we prepare with outlining a Plan B?
4/ Plan B! Liaise with parks and councils to dig up areas for growing food as quick as possible. ‘Dig for Victory’ style. DIY instead of steal. Helping the local growers (Oli) = good idea.
4/ If Hot temps, ALL growers will be struggling, so allotments will not have surplus (NoSH tried this but it was not very successful).
5/ I am part of 5Valleys Seedsavers and we distribute locally saved seeds to public for donations. Seeds will be affected by heat and are vital for our food system.
6/ Micro veg in every home!
Sorry, lots of ideas, but need lots of help too. PS.Chickpeas are not viable in Uk yet. Carlin Peas are being promoted as UK alternative, I love them! Yes to dried proteins for out of season, see Hodmedods) We need to eat differently for what UK can grow, Lentils are being trialled, I believe. Many thanks for setting up this meeting, very important!