Notes from St. Jamestown Community Coop
Agenda
1) Report on OASIS and general update
2) Committee Overview
3) Board Elections
4) CREW presentation by Lydia
5) OASIS Design Pilot Project Sharrae’s video
7) UPLIFT Timebank discussion

Josephine gave a report on the Co-ops activities in 2017 and progress on the OASIS project including the City Grant for developing a design for OASIS involving St James Town residents. Darryl DSouza was introduced as the project manager for the design project. Josephine and Roxy outlined the basic functions of the board as well as brief profiles of the board members who were standing for re-election. An invitation to join was the board was offered, Darryl said he would think about it.

Fred moved to elect the board as it currently stood and adding Samantha Chow who has been volunteering with the co-op for two years.

Roxy seconded the motion.

All ten present members of the coop voted to pass the motion. There were no dissenters.

A discussion of TCHC and the City plan followed, during which Josephine and Roxy outlined how the city plan is claiming the idea of using shipping containers as their own and is now “inviting” us to the table with Community Corner and Community Matters.

Lydia then gave an outline of the work CREW is doing in the neighborhood
She discussed the Lighthouse Project and its goals of creating resiliency hubs
It uses funding from Trilium

The four main points of the Lighthouse Project are:

Mapping Physical Facilities (usable spaces and resources)
Mapping residences’ skill-sets (an opportunity to promote and develop the Timebank)
Mapping Community Organizations
Mapping Community programs and services

Also included was a discussion of strategies to find community leaders and find positions for them. This would involve resident to resident training in order to build capacity. Each complex would have 8-20 community champions who would report to a Core Group of 10-20 residences.
They would hold workshops on emergency preparedness for any weather.

Using surveys and other outreach tools, CREW has determined that Food Security is a central concern for the residences of St. Jamestown. It serves to unite people in the community. Nutritious food is unaffordable and it is difficult to stock food on a low income. Josephine discussed the utility of dehydrating food for later use.

Lydia outlined how the next steps would be to create a Steering Committee and on April 9th the Lighthouse Project will establish a working group.

Amal shared her story of experiencing racism and Islamophobia from people working for community corner

Roxy then outlined the basics of our Timebank, including how timebanks operate in 50 different countries. Turning people’s time/service into credits which they can exchange for other services. The Timebank allows us to show potential funders how much value (in terms of pay per hour). This system eliminates debt, in fact one’s needs generate wealth for others.

Fred and Gord then shared concerns about how alternative economies like timebanks have existed in the past and that they have always failed. Josephine responded that blockchain technology is key to the global successes of timebanks. Roxy explained how the basics of blockchain software allows data to be processed and disseminated through a decentralized system of nodes rather than a single institution.

Sharrae then showed the video she has been working on for the OASIS Pilot project and it was met with applause!

Petra worked tirelessly in the kitchen along with Sirron to make an incredible meal for us.

Thanks to everyone for a successful AGM.