About
The Food Security Roundtable
We are organizing farmer and community meetings where people can discuss their work and the needs of their communities. The purpose of these meetings is to introduce famers and other people who are concerned about the food system to each other and facilitate discussion about the kind of collaborative projects they would like to collectively undertake. We want to be part of developing a cooperative network that can support and develop food sovereignty through collaboration, sharing resources, and hearing perspectives from as broad a range of people as we can reach.
We hold meetings for smaller local areas to help build more specific projects and daily relationships, and hold regional meetings to bring in a broader perspective, strategy, and to connect to the material, political, and social resources for our food security movement.
Though the projects we have underway are just beginning for us, we think the process of convening farmers, food justice activists, and community members in both the regional and local context is important. We are discussing and helping realize their ideas about building more stable food systems, and connecting them with other people doing the same thing. We think this work is fundamental to buidling a stable grassroots food movement and food system.
What We’re Working On
Here it is, the overview of our work from the meeting of organizers from VT, NY, and MA earlier this month at Melissa’s house in the Hudson Valley. I don’t have the complete list of all the folks who were there, so please forward this to anyone you notice is missing.
I would like to send most of this out as part of an update to our support list soon, so let me know about any changes you want to make.
The meeting was hard work, i think it was worth it.
Here you will find:
- the new decision making structure for the Food Security Roundtable
- the working group descriptions, the people in each group, and contacts for each working group member as well as for the local and regional coordinators.
If you’re in a working group you can get ahold of your people and get the ball rolling.
Sweet.
Agenda
Organization Structure & Decision Making
We talked about this for quite a while, and we came up with enough to go on for now. It goes like this:
We have Local and Regional Coordinators. These coordinators act as delegates with no decision making power beyond the consensus of the whole group.
- The local coordinators will convene their local groups regularly or get in touch with each member individually to get proposals from their members for their local or for the regional Roundtable and make decisions about these proposals. They will make decisions with their local about proposals from their local or from the network.
- The regional coordinators are responsible for relaying the decisions that need to be made to and from the local coordinators/groups. They will track the progress of decisions and what groups think about things or want to know in order to move forward.
We have a decision making structure. Members can move to alter this structure and later versions of it for the their locals and the regional Roundtable.
- To be actively working in the Food Security Roundtable you have to be working through one of the local groups.
- Anyone who wants to can be in a local group.
- Anyone can make a proposal through their working group or their local group (more on what those are below) if their group OK’s it.
- If a proposal is the kind of business that the whole regional organization needs to decide on then each local group will vote on it.
- Regional decisions are made by consensus, but local decisions can be made however that group sees fit.
- Local groups will determine how long their group will wait for every member to weigh in on a decision before a decision will be considered final
- New local groups can be created by proposing to the whole network
Please feel free to write with any suggestions or other interpretations of what was decided in regard to this important and complex topic. In the meantime we have enough to move on some work together! Good job everybody, and special thanks to Lauren for putting in the work writing this proposal, Ben and Aaron for facilitating, and to Melissa for bringing us all to a working conclusion.
Working Groups, Local Groups, & Point People
Each local organization has a point person for answering questions and coordinating with the other groups and the regional coordinator. The working groups are responsible for knowing where each project is at, how people can get plugged in, and for moving forward on that project. Here’s a description of each of the current working group projects, and a list of each of the local group point people. The contact info for all the point people is at the end of this message.
Mission/Vision Statement: Aaron St. Jean, Dafina Jacobs, Amy Frost, Arthemio, Gina Giazoni & Lauren Giambrone
This group is responsible for mission statement revisions, and bringing together the draft mission put together in southern vt / western massachusetts earlier this year and principles of Food Sovereignty. They will also be pulling a draft vision statement together from the vision exercises the group participated in at the organizers’ meeting.
Winter Forum: Erin McKelvy, Betsey McCall, Henry Harris
The Winter Forum will be a chance for a larger group of farmers, community organizers, and so on to get together, talk, get to know what each other needs and has to offer before farmers start getting too busy in the fields again. The forum is currently being planned for some time in February, the exact dates will be coming out soon. We will need to get a bunch more people together to coordinate the logistics and the structure of the forum. Please get in touch with us if you can help and stay tuned for upcoming planning sessions and calls to get the forum together.
Finances: Jen Datka, Henry Harris (provisional ’til we get another person)
Fiscal Sponsorship: Kristen Pedersen
Not much finances. There’s a bank account at Sovereign Bank set up for us, it’s got $775 in it. Lauren and Jen D. are crunching the figures and making an accounting. They’ll be getting back to us soon. Call us with any questions. Kristen will get in touch about her work looking into fiscal sponsorship.
Bed/Stuy Farm Share: Oba, Dafina, Amy Frost, Melissa, Slug & Sam.
Some of the southern VT farmers who have been working with us are working to begin farming for the Bed/Stuy Farm Share, a CSA in Bed/Stuy. This may create opportunities for more food distribution options for our farmers and opportunities for country and city people to catch rides back and forth and hang out with each other.
Sustainable Agriculture Business Plan Development: Henry, Chris, Nicholas, Lauren
There is interest in building agricultural projects similar to Growing Power from a few of our ally organizations and members. This working group will be assembling a business plan template for helping piece together many different kinds of agricultural production models, from fish and bees to compost and sprouts, and consulting with groups who are interested in getting this kind of work going.
Urban Rural Exchange:
Southern VT/Western Mass Point People – Ana Hendrix, Amy Frost
Hudson Valley Point – Betsey McCall
We are putting together a survey to ask farms and organizations if they can host community groups from urban areas and other groups we’re working with at their projects and farms. We are figuring out what kinds of things they would be interested in participating in or presenting to their guests, what they do, what they can teach, and other elements to help build good shared learning experiences across our network. This survey may be expanded to assess other resources and interests as it develops.
Communication & Structure: Ben Schwartz, Henry, Melissa, and Gina
This group is charged with coming up with a more complete inter-chapter communication and decision making structure. They will address the questions that came out of the regional meeting and and look for loose ends in the current agreement to establish a functioning system. They will also be writing a public request for applicants to work as regional coordinators and establishing a structure for reviewing these applicants and making recommendations to the regional Roundtable.
Regional Coordinator(s):
Henry Harris
The regional coordinator is responsible for the ongoing maintenance and outreach of the organization, give regular updates to the working groups and the listserve of supporters, and whatever other general organizing and coordinating work they and the rest of the roundtable come up with for them to do. Including finding another regional coordinator.
Local Coordinator:
NYC – Kristen Pedersen
Vermont – Chris Lievense
Hudson Valley – Eileen Waldeman
Philadelphia (new recruits!) – Gina Giazoni
These folks are going back to their respective communities to convene the next meeting and discuss the decisions and questions from the regional organizers meeting and choose a longer term coordinator(s), as well as talking about other work each local group is interested in doing.
Contact People / Ally Organizations:
This is a list of folks who are are acting as links to other organizations we have connections to or are interested in connecting with.
Growing Food and Justice for All Initiative – Melissa
The FSR has a spot on the membership committee if we want it. They want our input in establishing a clear statement about what rights and responsibilities are implied in GFJI membership – training, consulting, other resources
Mothers on the Move – Henry, Ben Schwartz
* Henry will be meeting with several staff from Mothers on the Move in January to get going on the ins and outs of getting a compost project and other urban ag. projects started with them in the south bronx.
* MOM is asking about the current availability of produce donations to offer to their membership meetings and other events.
* Mothers on the Move is also offering an Outreach Training for anyone in the Food Security Roundtable, all we have to do is pick out the dates.
* Lastly they are interested to know if anyone would be willing to host a youth group in the coming months on a farm.
Vermont Action for Political Prisoners – Chris Lievense
A couple VAPP people are interested in working with us. There seems to be a lot of interest in food justice in the political prisoner support community…
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement – Rockia
MXGM has been holding Food Justice meetings in Brooklyn. Rockia, Arthemio, and Jalal have been working with this and/or other MXGM groups. We have put the word out that we are interested in opportunities to collaborate with them.
There are a couple groups that we’ve been in touch with that aren’t listed here. We just have to figure out how we’re staying in touch with them. It’s growing.
