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Between weeks 1 through 3, our team has begun the initial planning of our research. During Week 2, we finalized our members as Nelly Leo, Donna Liu, Alison Fung and Julia Wakeling.

The tasks we completed during these weeks include: 

• We were assigned to work with the Alex Fraser Research Forest
• Half of the group members visited the False Creek Flats and did a walking tour; collectively, we wrote a reflection on the experience and interpreted our findings in relation to the Eastern Core Statement of Significance document 
• During Week 2, we made contact with Cathy Koot from the Alex Fraser Research Forest
• On Friday, January 15th, we had our first Skype with Cathy
  • We discussed the Alex Fraser Research Forest as an organization, Cathy’s role, and Ken Day’s role
  • Cathy introduced to the smaller organizations we will be working with and more details of the two potential project ideas
  • We decided that we will be focusing our research with the Williams Lake Community Forest and more specifically, in the Flat Rock Block area 
  • We discussed our potential roles as the collective designers of the Access Management Plan
  • We decided that we will need to conduct interviews and have conversations with the stakeholders and the steering committee of the community at Flat Rock 
  • Cathy explained the importance of understanding the values and objectives of the Williams Lake community at the outset 
• We set up our blog and began to write up our individual reflections
• We started composing a variety organizational tools such as: a calendar, a task sheet and documents keeping track of our preliminary research
• We made a plan to meet with Cathy Koot in person on Friday, January 22nd
• Most importantly, we have begun to research about the different stakeholders involved in the Williams Lake Community Forest and how their different values can be prioritized in the access plan. 
• We discussed that going forward into the next week, we will create visual map of the different stakeholders and community members; this will help us to clearly organize the different values inherent in the community and see where conflicts may occur

We are all very excited about working on an access management plan for the Williams Lake Community Forest with the different stakeholders in the community. Our group gets along very well which makes it easy to discuss and collaborate on ideas. It is also very exciting to get to go to Williams Lake at the end of the term, and meet different community partners we will be interacting with.

We have been working mostly on preparation work, such as researching about the Williams Lake Community Forest, as well as community forests in general.  So far, we have decided to work with the Alex Fraser Research Forest on an access management plan for the Williams Lake Community Forest. We are hoping after our meeting with Cathy, on Friday, we will have a clearer outline and schedule of our tasks and role in this process.

As a team this term, we aim to learn from each other and our community partners to contribute towards the sustainability of the Williams Lake Community Forest.  While we will be focusing on the community forest as our main project, we would also like to be at least introduced to the Climate Change and San Jose project. Additionally, it would be ideal to visit the Community Forest during our site visit if time allows.

Potential research proposal:
Which groups want access to the community forest, and how much access are they looking for? What values of the community forest need to be taken into consideration? Which stakeholders need to be consulted? How can we think about prioritizing the different values and stakeholders in the fairest and most sustainable way for Williams Lake? Which interests conflict or work together? (ie., logging vs conservation). How can creating maps help communicate and make decisions for the access plan to the Williams Lake Community Forest?

As a team, we have also created a team agreement and compiled list of our strengths and skills.