I have had a frustratingly crook week, but there you go.
I have been imagining the YamDaisy idea as a trickle of water I have found coming out of the ground, and I want it to get all the way down to the sea. And just at the moment I can see it isn't all disappearing into the sand, it is trickling along, but there is a long way between here and the sea!

New Facebook Group

Thank goodness I have a teenage daughter! She helped me start on Facebook when I wanted a presence there for YamDaisy. I began a YamDaisy Group but couldn't see how I would use it, so I changed to a YamDaisy Cafe Page, as well the Comfort Food '09 Page. I have been trotting along with them, and especially the Comfort Food Page is going well. But now I am hoping for more intereaction, I have resurrected the YamDaisy Group. There are all sorts of things that might happen there, but I have begun with the Menu Planning invitation, and I have put Comfort Food there too, where people can not only post their comfort food, but also add the recipe!
Check it out http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=8644&uid=199765375108#/group.php?gid=199765375108

Menu Planning

I came up with my idea of a simple menu that would make it easy for the chef to know what she/he was doing, and easy for the customers to work out when they would choose to visit the YamDaisy cafe.
Not having any experience in this sort of thing I might have it completely wrong! But if I start with my idea, hopefully I will get feedback
Also, I am hoping that people who delight in making menus will give it a try - both novices and experienced chefs.
By writing a weekly menu for a specific month, all the ingredients of the YamDaisy Cafe are addressed: Seasonal ingredients, delicious every day meals, suitable for the local community, practical for the chef to cook in a small kitchen.
Vegetarians could provide a meatfree menu, gluten intolerant people could compose one that they could eat. Peolpe could write one that suits their cultural heritage. It could be great fun and I could add some of the menus to my website.
Maybe I could find someone to judge them from a chefs point of view?
Check out my sample menu at http://home.vicnet.net.au/~yamdaisy/menu.htm

MonteRosso

MonteRosso is a lovely Italian focused Restaurant in Doncaster, and proprietors Rosie and Tony invited me to talk to them on Tuesday about YamDaisy so they could consider if there was a way for their restaurant to particpate, particularly by providing delicious affordable meals to those who are struggling.
There are so many possibilities! They are pondering now, what they might do.
We discussed the Comfort Food Project, and MonteRosso are interested in participating in a local school based project! The next step is up to me to get the lesson plans and outline complete! And then see if I can find a local school to take part.

Slow Community Development

Community Development is about supporting a community making changes. It tends to be one of those high stress, high burn out professions. One reason is that a lot of communities have such complex difficulties, and a lot of community development workers are badly paid and have jobs that take up many more hours than they are paid for.
I have worked in a Women's Refuge, in a Young Women's Emergency Housing Service, with Emergency Relief, coordinating Volunteers, running Community Health programs as well as holding teaching positions that had community development components.
When chronic illness pushed me out of the workforce I thought I would never be involved in Community Development again. But when I began a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome support project I called it 'The Tortoise Project' to remind me to go very slowly.
To my delight, by considering each step in light of my health and the needs of the project, I found I was amazingly productive. When I read about the Slow Food Movement (set up to counteract fast food proliferation) I realised that what I was doing was Slow Community Development. I am committed to it, not only becuse of my illness, but because it is the best way to do Community Development.

Tortoise Pace

I planned to put the May News Sheet out this week, to coincide with Span (Neighbourhood House) being in their new site, and wanting to get regular publication and really begin putting together local community food news. However, I have had the exciting phonecall from Rosie (more about that later!) which means I want to put all my energy into getting the School Project organised, and think about some nice little action researching.
On the other hand, none of the organisations I have asked about community food news have responded - understandable, but it means I need to follow up all avenues myself, a lot of extra work.
As well as that, my News Sheet has been taken down three times from the Community Noticeboard at Fairfield. Maybe they think I am a commercial organisation? Maybe it is just someone that wants the space: but I want to follow that up too. So it is wise to give all that a longer running time, a put out the NewsSheet every second month.
Aah, decision made. Good.
It is so easy, wanting this project to grow, to keep putting more on my plate. But the limitations of illness mean that I can only work at tortoise pace. I can get a lot done at Tortoise pace, but not everything! (Mixed metaphor! maybe I can only eat the things on my plate at Tortoise pace!)

Comfort Food School Project

I am writing up the Comfort Food School Project lessons.
I am really excited about it as a way to get the community tapping into its passion for delicious nourishing food.
It is based around a school, a cafe and my Comfort Food '09.
Sliding Door Cafe is unable to be involved at this time, but I have a local cafe, another community food cafe and a restaurant that may be interested.
I am writing up the program so it is really easy for a busy school and a busy restaurant to be involved with very little hassle.