Save the date! Last Sustain Ontario network meetings before Bring Food Home
Posted: September 6, 2017
Categories: GoodFoodBites / Growing Good Food Ideas / News from Sustain Ontario / Opportunities
At Cultivating Our Capacity a network meeting held by Sustain Ontario in October 2016
Sustain Ontario’s networks will be meeting virtually in September 2017. This will be the last time the networks (view the different networks below) meet virtually before Bring Food Home 2017, where they will meet in person to work with the student researches to finish each network’s policy position paper. This is a very exciting time for the Sustain Ontario community and we hope that you can all participate in the September network meetings!
Here is a brief recap on the network meetings for the past 8 months:
The networks, old and new, met in December 2016 to start envisioning what each network represented and what initiatives and action items they would like to focus on for the next coming years. In February the meeting began with discussing and organizing sessions people would like to see at Bring Food Home, as well as planning what initiatives to focus on in the next coming years. In the April meetings, the networks began to work on their chosen initiatives with the idea of creating policy position papers for each network. Also, in the April meeting we introduced the student researchers, to help craft the policy position papers. In June’s meeting’s we finished planning the public facing sessions for Bring Food Home and narrowed in on the policy position papers. The next meetings in September will focus on the policy position paper. The theme for Bring Food Home is Upstream Collaboration, the policy position papers echos the theme by having the voices of many working together to create change. So please, think about attending the September meetings and adding your voice to the conversation! Old and new members are welcomed to join!
Network Meetings:
Farming and Farmland Network– Monday, September 18th at 10:00 am
The farming and farmland network will work on the following two initiatives for their policy position paper:
- New and Young Farmers
- Farmland Preservation and Protection
Municipal Food Policy Network – Wednesday, September 13th at 10:00 am
The municipal food policy network will work on the following two initiatives for their policy position paper:
- Learning from food policy councils advocating for policy change
- Working on specific policy topics (ex, permanent core funding for FPC, strategy or charter groups, where are they housed)
Community Growing Network – Thursday, September 21st at 10:00 am
The community growing network will work on the following two initiatives for their policy position paper:
- Strategies for leveraging community resource
- Building capacity through diversity
Food Justice Network – Friday, September 22nd at 10:00 am
The food justice network will work on the following initiative for their policy position paper:
- How to be a good ally to marginalized folks
Sustainable Food Enterprise Network – Thursday, September 14th at 10:00 am
The sustainable food enterprise network will work on the following two initiatives for their policy position paper:
- Innovative financing
- Sustainable food procurement- Getting more locally grown food into food service contract pipelines at institutions
Please be sure to register online before the meeting to receive the link for the virtual meeting using Go To Meeting.