July 19 minutes
West Maui Sustainability

Facilitator: Eve Clute
Attendees: Steve, eve, Julia, Amy, Caleb, sanna, Scott, ua

INTRODUCTION

REVIEW OF LAST MEETING (Steve Phillips)

VERMICOMPOSTING
Theo will hopefully be presenting to us an introduction to vermicomposting at the next meeting. Before then we each need to have some sort of solid plasting bin to use as the housing, and worms. Possible sources for worms are Tamara, Megan Webster, and Wefarm@kapalua.

OLD BUSINESS

Composting. It will be some time before a community composting effort gets going in kapalua due to certain laws and restrictions in place. A considerable amount of grant money could help facilitate the process. Eve would like us to move forward with attaining non-profit status so that we can start applying for grants to help with situations such as these.

Caleb has spoken with various restaurants that have expressed interest in giving us their green waste to compost. The only concern on their part was how often the compost would be picked up.

NEW BUSINESS

Board elections:
President - Steve Phillips
Vice President - Eve Clute
Secretary/Treasurer - Sanna Dioso

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Princess Nahi'ena'ena School Garden
James and Janell have gotten ahold of eight bales of straw and other mulching materials that have been laid down to start the garden. We have a bunch more coming from a private donation on Monday. The Westin Engineering department will be donating various materials from flagstone to ceramic pots to plants. Sanna will speak with James about the best time for the group to come in and help with the rest of the foundation, hopefully before the kids go back to school.

On Friday, July 30th there will be a sustainable get together put on by the farmers market in Honokowai. Our group was invited to share in the festivities and possibly have an information table. Unfortunately, no one present at the meeting would be available to staff a table. Hopefully this will be an ongoing event that we can participate in in the future.

Ua will start the Koa seeds that were received by Uncle Job Cabato. Hopefully this can be a joint effort with the rotary club.

Up Country Sustainability is looking to cosponsor an event focusing on sustainable communities, or Eco villages with SMS, SLIM, and our group. No date or location has been set yet but anyone interested helping to coordinate the event should contact Steve ([email protected])

We got the o.k. From the future west Maui hospital to help plan out their garden area. We would like to include not only a food garden but a healing garden and a medicinal herb garden. They are set to break ground in march of 2011.

The Ritz has offered the Ambassadors of the Environment Jean-Michel Coustau building for our meetings educational events. We will hold the second meeting of august and the first meeting of September there.

Currently, there are ongoing meetings about redesigning agriculture on Maui. Mauifoodweb.com has started a forum concerning this topic and you can log on and input your ideas.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Farmers Union Meeting Tuesday July 20 at Tavares center, pukalani

Eve is starting a library of information on various topics concerning sustainability as it applies to Maui. If you have any relevant information please email it to her.
([email protected])

NEXT MEETING is august 2nd in at 6:30