General Meeting Agenda

OVF General Meeting

June 13, 2026

96 members attended

President:  Shirley called the meeting to order at 1:06 p.m.

She announced that we are celebrating 50 years of OVF and she welcomed 7 new members of the garden who were in the crowd. She reminded members to check their hours on the OVF website since everyone needs to have clocked in at least 6 hours by the end of the month. She also reminded members to not pick fruit from fruiting trees. 

• Announced that seeds were available from Talia, who was giving some away and said OVF is planning an area for seed donation and give away 

• She sent the sign-in sheet around

Education Chair:  Shirley passed the mic to Debra, who announced that she is very open to ideas for articles. Also, there is a massive amount of photos that need to be organized and whomever wants to take this project on will get hours for their help.

Garden Master:  Debra passed the mic to Les who announced that 87 people signed in to work on this Work Day, the largest work group in the last 5 years!

He presented different types of wheel barrows to see which one the members prefer. The red and green examples were most popular. He invited everyone to greet people around them to help build a sense of community.

He recognized some of the many improvements made recently to OVF:

• The first new porta-potty in 20 years (thank you, Shirley)

• Eagle scouts installed first aid kiosks

• Xerces Society awarded OVF new habitat kits

• (Something about 120 new native plants?)

• We are installing Hügelkulture beds in the pollinator gardens

• There is a new rest area in bottom of 1 lower

• New renovated bins in phase 4

• New supplier of private manure (plus something? about old public supplier)

• Cleaned out the plumbing shed revealed a kitchen sink. Asked whether we should install it next to the porta-potty.

• Gourmet compost area is being rebuilt

• We are building pollinator gardens

• Thanks to workday people and all work done

President - additional comments:  Les passed the mic back to Shirley, who reminded us that all trash should go in the dumpster just outside the garden as we have no “internal” trash collection.

• Encouraged those interested in native gardens to join the Native Plant Group Meetup on the first Sunday of the month from 1-3pm. 

• In general, we are working to get more natives into the garden. Said that native plants could go into vacant IPs. A member reminded Shirley that this use of native plants didn’t follow IP rules and Shirley acknowledged her error and apologized, walking back her comment.

• We are working on a new program to host an open house for non-members - ask her for more info and ask her if anyone wants to be a garden docent

• Reminded us to review rules and regulations

Public comments:  A member announced that the Culver City garden club will host a garden show June 21st at the Vet memorial complex in Culver City. She recommended the “Bolting to Seed” book by Christy Wilhelmi since it’s a whodunnit that takes place in a community garden.

Another member then came forward and grabbed the mic away from the member who was speaking (she was not given the floor by either Shirley or Les) and proceeded to present a rant about the IPs that turned loud and aggressive. Les took the mic back and continued to speak to the group in a calm and informative way, but this member continued yelling and began acting increasingly unhinged. This scene was upsetting to many people and created a sad ending to an otherwise glorious day and well-run meeting. 

The meeting was adjourned at 1:50 pm. 

Meeting notes taken by Catherine Hess for DeDe Cooley, Secretary

Ocean View Farms 2026 Budget