Vamos A Sembrar Community Garden
198 Ave B, New York, NY 10009 (between 12th & 13th St)

Steering Committee Tasks & Responsibilities

Based on and following the garden bylaws: https://vamosasembrar.org/garden-bylaws/

Updated: 7/27/20, 9/8/20

Immediate items:

• Next monthly (required) general garden meeting (open to all): When?
• The Annual Meeting date: When?
• The GreenThumb License w/Signing Statement and Registration packet: signed and submitted?
  Copies need to be made available to garden members who may request it.

• Volunteer Garden Hours Log Sheet (Each person fills out a sheet, or more than 1 sheet, if necessary)
• Garden Meeting Attendance Sign-in Sheet
• New Membership Sign-Up Sheet

Reminder of Our Mission. The purpose of the Vamos A Sembrar community garden is to provide a green, restful, beautiful and safe space for gardening. This space is for the community to enjoy. The garden will be open as often as possible and will be made available to serve as a public space for neighborhood meetings, social gatherings and other activities.

Some simple ways to determine if the community garden is on mission or not:

1. Ask yourself, “Is the garden feeding my personal energy, or is it depleting it?”
2. Is the Steering Committee, as a whole, functional or dysfunctional? (Bylaws, article V., third paragraph.)

Table of Contents

• The Positions
• Steering Committee (SC)
• Garden Liaisons — Primary Contact & Secondary Contact
• Membership Tasks
• New Members
• Existing members
• Steering Committee members
• Meeting Tasks
• Regular garden meetings
• The Annual Meeting
• SC Meetings
• Volunteers (Non-Members)
• Planting Signage
• Reporting to GreenThumb and/or 311
• Off-Season Maintenance Requirements

The Positions

Steering Committee (SC)

The SC is comprised of up to 8 garden members; is responsible for the overall governance of the community garden. Non-SC garden members may take care of some of the responsibilities, but with knowledge of the SC.

• Garden Chair (chairperson): is responsible for chairing garden meetings, facilitating and guiding the meetings through the agenda.
• Garden Secretary: is responsible for maintaining all of the garden documents and records, including meeting agendas, meeting notes, bylaws and guidelines, etc.

The SC needs to set

• the monthly regular garden meetings (see Meetings Tasks below)
• and the meeting agenda.

Garden Liaisons — Primary Contact & Secondary Contact

They are liaisons between the garden and GreenThumb: One garden member per position; they do not have to be on the SC; they either volunteer or can be voted into the position by the general garden membership; their very specific responsibilities, according to GreenThumb, are as follows:
(See GreenThumb > Garden Liaison: https://greenthumb.nycgovparks.org/role_of_contact_people.html, as well as,
the GreenThumb Gardener's Handbook 2019, page 64, Role of Garden Contacts: English | Español)

• Filling out required paperwork, such as license agreement, registration packet and providing GreenThumb with an annual up-to-date list of garden members, complete with addresses and telephone numbers.
• Bringing new members into the garden group and including answering membership inquiries from the public. Contact people should also orient new members into the garden, and inform them about garden rules, meetings, bylaws and procedures.
• Ensuring that someone from your garden is attending GreenThumb workshops, which are the access point for all supplies, including soil deliveries. Don't forget to take your turn, but any member can represent the garden.

• GreenThumb requires each garden to select a primary and a secondary contact person. Contacts do not necessarily hold decision making power, nor are they the garden group president, but rather they simply act as a liaison between GreenThumb and the garden group.
• GreenThumb suggests that members rotate the responsibility on a regular basis, such as every year, and be elected democratically by the garden group. When contacts change, be sure to have both the previous contact and new contact people notify GreenThumb. Both contacts must reside in New York City and at least one contact must reside in the community board where that garden is located.

The Garden Liaisons are not responsible to oversee most of the tasks below unless they also happen to be on the SC. However, they are responsible (as part of their liaison role above) as follows:

• Whenever they receive notices and announcements from GreenThumb, they are to forward it to the rest of the garden members.
• Notices/announcements may also come from other city agencies, including DEP for the hydrant permit, and DSNY (Sanitation) for free compost deliveries (since they're listed as the garden liaison contacts) — see Off-Season Maintenance Requirements, #6 below (the timeliness of submitting the application for compost delivery within two weeks of DSNY's announcement, which usually happens in January).
• If GreenThumb cannot reach the Primary Contact, then that's where the Secondary Contact becomes important, for example, to coordinate someone being at the garden to receive the soil/mulch/compost delivery.
• The Primary and Secondary Contacts are the two people to sign the garden license with GreenThumb.

Membership Tasks

New Members

Requirements to become a member: 30 hours and 3 garden meetings.
Initial contact by interested new person:

• If in-person at a garden meeting, they sign in to both:
• attendance sign-in sheet (printout attendance sheet)
• new membership sign-up sheet (printout new member sign-up sheet).
• If outside the garden or by phone or email, either they attend a garden meeting in person, or they submit their contact information:
• Name, address, email, phone, and language.
• Managing the contact information is done by the SC.
• The SC will ask and assign a garden member with key to contact the new potential member and establish a schedule with the new person so they can fulfill their 30 hours of volunteer garden work.
• Hours will be tracked using a printout spreadsheet (1 sheet per person).
• Has the new member signed an agreement to abide by the garden's Bylaws and Guidelines?

Volunteer Garden Hours That Count

Existing members

• 10 hours and 3 garden meetings per year.

Steering Committee members

• Meets at least once a month, and also in advance of the general garden meetings.
• Steering committee members cannot miss more than 3 steering committee meetings per year.
• And follows the responsibilities listed in the bylaws and the tasks & responsibilities further detailed on this page.

Meeting Tasks

For each meeting, the SC needs to determine the following:

• What is the meeting agenda?
• Who will take the meeting notes (meeting minutes)?
• Who will be responsible for the attendance sheet?
• Who will be responsible for the new member sign-up sheet?
• What's the membership status?
• How many new potential members?
• How many hours have they already done (calculate from the Hours Log Sheets)?
• How many meetings have they attended?
• Does anyone qualify for membership and a garden key?
• Are there any proxy votes for this meeting?
• What are the list of issues that need to be brought up and discussed in the meeting?

Regular garden meetings

Held monthly (required), April-October; off-season also monthly, not required, but strongly suggested (see Off-Season Maintenance Requirements below).

• At least 7 days (prefer 2 weeks) advanced notice by posting on the gate, by email, and by the website.
• May alternate between a weekend and a weekday night.
• Open to all, members and non-members.
• Voting requires 50%+1 of members to be present.
• 2020 season:
• July: ?
• August: ?
• September: ?
• October: ?
• November (off-season): ?
• December (off-season): ?
• For 2021, reset this list from January through December.

The Annual Meeting

Annual Meeting date?

• Date determined by the SC.
• Once a year, every year.
• When new SC members are voted on.
  An SC member is elected for two years, and can be re-elected up to two more terms (3 total). Since the SC can have up to 8 members and members come and go, resign or move away, therefore, positions on the SC may be available every year.
• When any amendments to the bylaws and guidelines are voted on; amendments (changes) to the bylaws require a 2/3rd vote to pass.

SC Meetings

• The SC meets at least once a month, but whenever necessary to complete all these tasks.
• Meet in advance of, or before each general garden meeting to prepare for the meeting (agenda, attendance sheets, new member sign-up sheets, and any other items).
• An SC member cannot miss more than 3 SC meetings per year, otherwise they'll be subject to removal from the SC.

Volunteers (Non-Members)

• Who is keeping tabs on the non-member volunteers and volunteer groups who want to participate in our community garden?
• Who is coordinating with volunteers and volunteer groups?

Planting Signage

To avoid miscommunications and mistakes, such as, planting in the wrong place or someone else's area, over-watering or miss-watering.
Signages should be made with safe materials that will fit the garden environment (such as using wood boards, wood tongue depressors, etc.)

• Planting areas, raised beds, and planters that are assigned to someone should be clearly indicated (do not assume that everyone will know or remember).
• Common areas should also be indicated with signage including the main contact person (only first name and last initial).

Reporting to GreenThumb and/or 311

The following should be reported to either GreenThumb and/or 311:

• If people leave garbage (especially large amounts of garbage, debris, furniture, etc.) either in front of the garden or near the garden, such as, by the corner trash can.
• Whenever the rat problem gets really bad (we are responsible to make sure that the rats cannot easily hide anywhere in our garden).
• If there's vandalism to the garden, including damage to the fence, graffiti within the garden walls, etc. (take photos).

Off-Season Maintenance Requirements

Off-season: November 1 - March 31.

1. Monthly meetings should be held through the off-season in order to make sure all, or at least most, of the following are being done, and especially to continue to allow new potential members to be able to fulfill their requirements.
2. Liter/garbage picking, weekly or the more often, the better.
3. Rat management, 2-3 times weekly.
4. Fall leaves management, Oct-Dec.
5. Mulching and other soil preparations and plant and tree winter protection, if necessary.
6. Getting Free Garden Materials (mulch, soil, compost).
   The SC must be on top of applying for certain necessary garden materials as soon as it is announced. Such materials may include mulch (wood chips), compost, and soil. These materials are provided for free in bulk (dump truck delivery) or in bags (usually 40-lb bags) by either the Parks Dept or DSNY (Sanitation). It is on a first-come-first-serve basis and they usually ‘sold out' within two weeks of the announcement (usually in January). The Primary and Secondary Contacts are usually the ones that receive such announcements, but their only responsibility is to pass the announcements to the steering committee and/or general members email list. It is then the responsibility of the steering committee on who will submit the application form and to coordinate when the delivery is made to the garden.
7. Seeds harvesting from certain dried out plants, and have a place for all seeds for the garden members to share from.
8. Tools maintenance (cleaning, fixing) and inventory (security, wishlist).
9. Snow and ice sidewalk clearing.
10. Late Winter / Pre-Spring Preparations: getting free or buying seeds and bulbs; nursery trays and seedlings growing medium preparations; facilitating having and maintaining a small temporary hoophouse for germinating seeds; determining the tools we may need before spring arrives.
11. Attending GreenThumb workshops and free supplies pickup (one in the winter, and one in the spring)—getting free supplies requires one or more garden members to attend one or more GreenThumb workshops.
12. Bylaws and Guidelines review and updates based on garden members complaints and issues. Bylaws and Guidelines can be amended once a year and during the Annual Meeting. The off-season may provide the steering committee the time to review and research the proper wording if and for any amending that may need to be done before the next Annual Meeting.
13. Relicensing with GreenThumb occurs every four years and is renewed by December of the fourth year (current license is from 1/1/2019-12/31/2022). The SC must review and prepare the license, the registration forms, have the latest membership list, and the latest Garden Bylaws. The garden members should be able to see and review these documents (on paper and/or online) before they are submitted to GreenThumb.




---

Homepage | To Top