Awareness raising: the farmer's market kiosk

[John Fleming]

At the meetup tonight someone(?) suggested setting up a booth at farmer's markets around town, and that resonated with me. Farmers markets would concentrate many of the green-minded community members that would be easiest to recruit in an extremely transition-relevant setting.

The Wychwood barns (an example near me) has a thriving farmers market and there must be others like it scattered around the city. Evergreen at the Don Valley Brickworks too?

If I can get my hands on some collateral, some sort of signage and one of those nifty T-shirts, I'm willing to give that a try, especially if someone is willing to partner?

[Martina Rowley]

Fabulous idea and thanks, John, for picking up on this. In the Beaches-East York area there are several markets also suitable for that kind of outreach/marketing, e.g. East Lynn Farmers Market (which Mary-Margaret is involved with), East York Farmers Market at the Civic Centre on Coxwell, Withrow Park, and so on.
Did you all see that fabulous TTo banner Anne hand-painted?? Wicked! If she is willing to lend it out - looks like we do need to start a "Resources library & stockpile" - then the appropriate work groups could help put together some good flyers to handout. And this is also something the work groups & steering committee could discuss to come up with a bit of a strategy and focus. Looks like a good focus for the upcoming spring & summer outdoor marketing!
And yes, you should put up your hand for a bulk order of T-shirts, so the next print-run will make them a little cheaper.

[Stephanie MacNeil]

I think it's a great idea! Is there a Transition Miss/Oak/Burlington? There are tones of farms out this way and lots of local markets. I would be willing to partner with someone in the West End.

[Martina Rowley]

YES, there is a Transition Oakville! See www.transitionoakville.ca/


Stephanie MacNeil said:

I think it's a great idea! Is there a Transition Miss/Oak/Burlington? There are tones of farms out this way and lots of local markets. I would be willing to partner with someone in the West End.

[John Fleming]

Thanks Martina! This places me in the awareness-raiser category then? Yes, fantastic banner, I'll admit that crossed my mind.

[John Fleming]

Food for thought sample transition brochure examples:

http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/who_we_are_low.pdf
http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/transitiontownflyer...
http://transitionmedia.memberlodge.com/Resources/Documents/BROCHURE...

[John Fleming]

We finally got down to the Wychwood Barns this morning, I'd expected maybe a lonely asparagus vendor, but the place was packed with vendors and we came away with some nice salad ingredients. Nice to see that location really exploding.

The greenhouse at that site is affiliated with The Stop (http://thestop.org) which has this mission: "The Stop Community Food Centre strives to increase access to healthy food in a manner that maintains dignity, builds community and challenges inequality."

So... obviously favourable alignment there, and they'd probably be a good target for any garden surpluses. Talked to one person for a little while to get some information and also contact for the market organizer. I wanted to be standing in a kiosk there!

[Jennys_Food_Ink]

Hey John,
I also frequent farmer's markets and I am all for promoting Transition Toronto. Perhaps we should just get some Transition Toronto information cards with the website, maybe a one-liner of what we do and who and how to contact us.

[John Fleming]

Yay! I'll cook up some card prototypes and then put them up for review/editing asap.

[John Fleming]

I'm finding it difficult to put together a concise one-liner; I actually like the one from Karl Schmidt's recent event - Jenny I think you posted that event? Is this your text? ...Can we use it?

Karl Schmidt event text:
"Transition is a global grassroots movement for local resilience taking hold in neighborhoods, towns and cities around the world. This movement is about finding local solutions to the significant global changes that will take place in the near future due to the peaking of oil, climate change, and faltering economic systems.
Transition Toronto formed in 2009, and there are already several neighborhoods active in the city. "

I think this is the common transition definition, but I find it a bit long and roundabout
A Transition Initiative is a community working together to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and address this BIG question:
"for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?"
If we collectively plan and act early enough there's every likelihood that we can create a way of living that's significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.

The latter does have the second part which gets into the vision which is nice, maybe that is preferable after all?

...Thoughts? Anyone have a better two sentence definition of "Transition"?

[Jennys_Food_Ink]

It isn't my text, no.
To me, a one liner should be something encouraging, upbeat and captivating.....

Transition Toronto is about bringing communities together to work together to make our environment a healthier place. .

...or something maybe a better word than healthy, which can encompass so much...

Transition Toronto makes low carbon living easy by bringing people together and empowering communities with the knowledge, resources and drive they need to make positive changes.

...or something along those lines...

... along those lines....

John Fleming said:

I'm finding it difficult to put together a concise one-liner; I actually like the one from Karl Schmidt's recent event - Jenny I think you posted that event? Is this your text? ...Can we use it?

Karl Schmidt event text:
"Transition is a global grassroots movement for local resilience taking hold in neighborhoods, towns and cities around the world. This movement is about finding local solutions to the significant global changes that will take place in the near future due to the peaking of oil, climate change, and faltering economic systems.
Transition Toronto formed in 2009, and there are already several neighborhoods active in the city. "

I think this is the common transition definition, but I find it a bit long and roundabout
A Transition Initiative is a community working together to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and address this BIG question:
"for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?"
If we collectively plan and act early enough there's every likelihood that we can create a way of living that's significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.

The latter does have the second part which gets into the vision which is nice, maybe that is preferable after all?

...Thoughts? Anyone have a better two sentence definition of "Transition"?

[John Fleming]

Update: Mary-Margaret and Martina have actually set up a date to try this - Thursday, September 23 at the East Lynn Market - thank you both!

I'm really keen to run this experiment and see what the interest level of the general public. I hope we can build on this as one avenue for getting the message out to a wider audience.

[John Fleming]

Hey, so Jennifer, Martina and I gave this a shot this morning at the Withrow Park farmer's market (special thanks to Riverdale Food Working Group & Roberta S. for her warm hospitality), and it went quite well. We spoke to at least a couple dozen people and got a pretty good reaction; I hope we'll see some of them out at a TTO info night or cafe soon.

Also an opportunity for us to learn a few things about other great groups/activities/etc. going on in Toronto; a few links of interest:
http://www.sharingbackyards.com/browse/Toronto,%20ON
http://growingforgreen.wordpress.com/
http://www.notfarfromthetree.org/
http://www.greendrinks.org/ON/Toronto