Green Oasis Children's meeting
FIRST MEETING! Sunday, May 18th, 10 a.m.
Attendance: Cale, Darby, Leighton, Marlon, Martha, Milo, Samuel, Vinzenz, Wilder
Chaired by Sarah, Minutes by Corinna
Grown-up (G-U) question: What do you prefer in the garden to the park?
Answers: We like to build stuff and use materials. We like making
forts, holes, digging of any kind, building altogether, making mud,
using the sandbox, ...we love the rubble pile and leftover materials
like pvc pipes…
All agreed that any structures are having a temporary nature and should
not be built on paths leaving them for others to move. If these structures are changed or destroyed through further play or construction that's okay.
G-U question: Is there anything you think is missing in order for you
to do what you like to do best in the garden?
Answers: Yes, like: serious kids-sized tools (shovels, rakes, buckets),
a climbing structure (since tree climbing is “illegal” and yet most
wanted), string or tape to attach things to each other
All agreed to respect grown-up tools since they can hurt someone when
used improperly, anything wanted out of the shed has to be asked for
and approved by a grown-up in advance
G-U question: What kind of project would you like to participate in the
garden?
Answers: path fixing, water catchment, carving wood, making mosaics
(last both suggested by Jan for workshops this summer), climbing
structure (see answers before), bottle floor (to use bottles up-side
down as a path surface)
All agreed that it is nice to have projects to work on. To resolve any
potential excessive use of water, the hose has also to be approved by a
grown-up and used with 'brains'. The kids came up with the idea of
designing and building a water catchment system, with the idea that
they only use the water they catch! Bottle surface to be tried out as
an experiment, we will collect 50 bottles in the back of garden and
test it out.
Overall conclusion:
We will help our friends and guests to understand our rules. The kids
at the meeting voluntarily brought up the rules throughout the meeting.
If member kid or visiting kids resist following the garden rules and if
the kids are too shy to talk to them directly when they break a rule
they should speak to a grown-up in the garden.
This will help the nature in our garden, plants, animals and
friendships, because our rules make sense.
Walk through results: the shed in the kids area is needed to store
materials/future tools more neatly for the kids, the shelves in the
shed have to go, organic type swings wanted! Suggested plants for
children's garden so far: tiny and humongous tomatoes, corn and
strawberries, all have to be very sweet and plentiful.
The meeting adjourned after 50(!) minutes. All future regular garden
meetings will begin with a 15-20 minute kid's meeting. This idea is
experimental to see if it is effective.