April 7th Meeting Minutes

The April 7th meeting started out with minutes from the March 3rd meeting.

We then had updates from our committees. The garden committee is coming along well. Keys have been distributed to members who want to help out. There's been cleaning and planting going on lately. The fence between the garden and 211 Madison was taken down during construction but not replaced, so something needs to be done about that. The bulb-selling fundraiser went great! The garden needs to be secure, accessible and debris-free to stay a garden. It needs to be open to the public at least 10 hours a week between April 1st and October 31st. We'll need a sign that lists the open hours. That's required by the city.

The Block Party Committee went next. Keisha sent out letters to the American Legion, McDonalds, and other businesses looking for sponsors. We asked to use the church parking lot, but there are too many insurance issues. We're thinking of a car wash or a fish fry to raise funds. The date of the block party will be July 14th, with a rain date of July 21st.

Next was the Public Safety Committee. We thought about using the place between Gil's house and the apartment building as a playground, but there's probably too many insurance issues there. Keisha did a great job putting together a list of summer activities for kids in the neighborhood, and distributed them around the block. There's several Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops in the neighborhood as well. Someone brought up the idea of a track club for the neighborhood kids.

We talked briefly about the upcoming visit of the head of the 79th precinct. We're also looking to have a meet & greet for the block residents in May and a youth event in May as well.

There was a lot of discussion about the youth event. There was some confusion about it being a one-time summit or an after-school event. The general feeling was that we need both. The summit would be a good opportunity to open up communication, and the after-school activities would be a chance to help the kids in general. Christian talked about setting a time where some of the men on the block could get together and talk to the neighborhood kids as a group. Tamilla suggested that we could invite the kids to the garden. Gil suggested reaching the kids through their parents. Mike suggested a talent show, and Kisha suggested a dance contest, but Christian said that those sorts of competitions could cause a lot of trouble among the kids. Someone said that the American Legion once held races and competitions and gave out medals. Another suggestion was a pizza party, with a raffle for a video game or a bike. There was also discussion on if we should just combine the youth event with the block party, with the problem being we'd have to wait two and a half months.

Andrew then gave us an update on the finances. We've been collecting member contributions. We've also raised quite a bit with our flower sale.

We then talked about what kinds of workshops we could have. We'd like to get involved in the "Greenest Block in Brooklyn" competition. We'd like to have a block cleanup sometime soon. We'd like to have the Red Cross give a disaster preparedness workshop. Andrew talked about making flowerboxes and selling them to the block members.

We also talked about setting up a Block Committee to deal with youth issues.