Things have been getting busier here at the choko tree but it is now October and so we decided to have our directors meeting today (20th October). Linda and I have these annually to discuss where we are going with the Choko Tree Farm and how we are going to get there, to analyse successes and failures and come up with new ideas for the next twelve months.
So today we reviewed the documentation we have in place on how we run the farm –
Mission Statement – still works well but I wanted to add in something about keeping up the amenity of our home, so that it still remains functional for us as well as attractive. Thus the mission statement is to be amended to read – “To improve our resilience, reduce our environmental impact and teach others from our experience while still maintaining a beautiful and functional home.”
Vision statement - Bearing in mind the change to the mission statement we reviewed the vision statement to see if alterations were required, but also to see if any more updating was needed. This resulted in three minor additions –
- To take into account our discovery of (and move towards) the concept of zero waste we added - We will work to minimise the waste we generate while outside the choko tree farm.
- I have been getting a bit of work so to take this into account we added - Any paid work off site shall be in line with our ethics.
- Some of the existing vision statement already referenced the new addition to the mission statement but we also added - We shall set aside areas for play and family time. – to round things out.
Goals – To take into account the new ideas we had come across, and the changes to both the vision and mission statements, the following additions were made –
- The Food goal was re-written - "Our food will be produced on the Choko tree farm organically sufficient to contribute to two meals a day for the two of us, foods unable to be produced will sourced organically"
- The Waste goal had “and we shall aspire to a ‘Zero Waste’ lifestyle” added
- And we added a new goal titled “Amenity” was drafted - We shall continue to develop the property to make it more liveable.
Strategy – During the year I was able to conduct a comprehensive review of the strategies we are using. And want to use, to achieve our goals. A discussion of how I did that is available here. During the discussion around the previous documentation, we did identify some potential strategies for implementation –
Food Strategies –
Fruit and Veg – growing food Indoors, Growing food vertically, review vegetable growing plan and Review techniques of fertility maintenance.
Protein Sources – Move towards a vegetarian diet.
Waste – Other Waste – Move towards a zero waste lifestyle
And a new section called “Amenity” is to be included and a review of strategies to achieve it is to be conducted.
This Year has been busy between the requirements of Permaculture Sydney West, Family, Earning some cash and developing the choko tree but we were able to –
- Install a 5,000 litre water tank (with another 3000l tank in planning)
- Run a very successful and fun “No-Buy July”, more about that here, which we shall certainly be also running in 2019,
- Develop and publish almost 30 YouTube videos, with more planned.
- Conduct a complete review of our Choko Tree Farm strategies.
- Add at least one article a week to the underthechokotree website.
- Have a number of articles published in Earth Garden and other magazines
- Attend two Speed-date-a-sustainability-expert events as an ‘expert’
- a whole stack of smaller things!
What’s next?
The documents we reviewed have to be updated and re-loaded to the website, the “to do” list on the website is to be totally revised in line with the results of the strategy review and we have to develop an implementation plan for the strategies which are still ongoing.
It seems that 2019 is going to be another big year!
The reviewed and updated To-Do list is available in its usual place
The other updated Choko Tree documents (Including updated Strategy Review) can be downloaded from here
