Happy Spring! Warm weather is finally upon us and new life is sprouting out of the ground! Beets, carrots, peas and more. You know what else is sprouting???? LEADERS!
That's right it's time for a new batch of energetic farm leaders to emerge. Are you interested in education? Do you have visions for fun projects to do at the farm? Do you want to get better at coordinating people, and working with teams? Do you have so much passion and enthusiasm for the farm that you are about to burst? If you answered YES to any of these you might be interested in being a farm leader in the future.
Each farm role has a different set of responsibilities, but all involve facilitating your committee's meetings, attending farm visioning meetings, and in general, coming up with great ideas that will better the farm. Farm leaders are also always looking to share responsibility, share the learning, and get other people involved with taking hold of their own education at the farm, and taking part in the collaborative process of making the farm work!
The different positions and their descriptions can be viewed online at http://students.washington.edu/uwfarm/home/leadership/
If you are interested here are some important dates and deadlines:
May 4th: TOMORROW @ 5pm in the Botany Greenhouse. In lieu of an official all farm meeting, I and other current farm leaders will be at the farm to talk more about the different positions and responsibilites associated with these. We can talk about challenges and great experiences that you might have as a leader. We can talk about the support you will have and the learning you will do. We can talk about the possibility of collaborating with other students and sharing leadership positions. And i can answer any questions you might have the best I can. If you have any other questions and you can't make it tomorrow feel free to email me!
*** Note: there will be a NEW FARMER ORIENTATION and TOUR on Friday May 13th. There will NOT be a tour tomorrow.
May 7th: SATURDAY @ 5 pm. If you are interested in being a farm coordinator we need to hear from you. This is a new process, because these two positions will now be paid thanks to our CSF funding! So we're trying on some new formalities.
Email Paige Irwin, irwinp@uw.edu with your name, the position(s) you are interested in and a blurb, a brief description, of your interests and experience. It will be good to think and write about why you are interested and what you think you will bring to your position.
May 8th: SUNDAY evening those little blurbs will be posted to the farm website, so we can all start to think about the strengths and passions of the folks interested in being farm coordinators, and try to figure how each of them might best be a leader on the farm, and most importantly who will best fill the coordinator positions next year.
May 11th: WEDNESDAY @ 5:30- 7:30 pm in the Botany Greenhouse. ALL ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE Come one and come all. If you have been involved in the farm in any way shape or form over the past year this is the meeting for you! We want your voice, thoughts, and opinions. At this meeting we will...
- break out into small groups to talk about the different committees (green team, compost, chickens, outreach, social media & education) and to hear from the folks interested in coordinating those committees. We will figure out if and how people might want to collaborate in leadership positions.
- We will return to the big group and talk about what folks decided. And ask: Who will be the new committee coordinators? Does everyone feel good about these decisions?
- Then we will hear from the different folks who want to fill the farm coordinator positions. They will have a chance to answer questions and share some of their experiences, passions, and dreams for the spaces they are coordinating.
- Finally we will pass around a ballot box and have an anonymous vote on the farm coordinator positions
- Yay!
FRIDAY May 13th @ 6 pm we will know who our farm coordinators are!
WOWOWOWOW. So yup that's a lot of information. the visioning team worked really hard to try to figure out a way to make this as inclusive, transparent, and user-friendly a process as possible. Here's hoping! I will be sending periodic reminders throughout this process to keep people updated, but we wanted all of you to have sense of the whole thing as we get started.
As usual if you have any questions or concerns let me know: nina@uwfarm.org.
Best!!!!!
Nina
