“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”   – Socrates

Weekly Objectives and Achievements

View of the ocean standing on Gambier Island

Each week throughout this project our group has made sure to communicate with each other on our progress. As week six was a holiday our main objective’s for week seven and eight were to one, meet with Dr. McArthur in order to learn what to look for in a scion and two, to actually make our trip to Gambier Island. During week seven our group met with Dr. McArthur and he taught us some valuable information in regards to apple tree grafting that we would need to know before embarking on our trip to the Island. On the weekend of February 27th our group met with our community partners David and Rosalie and from there we began our adventure to Gambier Island. We caught a little boat named the “Bowen Arrow” early Saturday morning and made a couple stops along the way until we reached Gambier Island. The whole ferry ride to the Island took approximately thirty-five minutes.

View of Gambier Island when docking the boat

Once arriving on the Island we could immediately feel their great sense of community as the head of the Gambier Island Sea Ranch Farm greeted us with big smiles and took our supplies in a tractor to our final destination. This kind courtesy allowed us to enjoy our walk on the Island without carrying heavy bags. We were then took on a tour of the Island and learned a lot about their history. We were also able to meet other residents on the Island get a good understanding of how their community is run. Our main goal of our trip, to collect scions from the Gambier Island historical apple orchard, was completed in the afternoon. Our team worked together very efficiently. Some of us climbed the huge ladder to snip off the scions and some of us labeled the trees and specimens and prepared them to be taken back to UBC for storage. We were able to take 5 – 7 scions from seven different trees. The first four trees were the trees our community partners specifically wanted us to preserve and the others were taken from tress that seemed to have healthy scions. Our trip was a great success and we are all excited to begin the grafting process once the root stocks arrive. In the mean time our group is continuing to develop an information package on how to care for the apple orchard and new trees that we will be sending to our community partners. Additionally, we are each working on our own individual assignment.

Reflection of our Group’s Moment of Significant Change Workshop from Session 9

Meghan enjoying the farm on Gambier Island

WHAT?

During session nine’s tutorial our group participated in a workshop that allowed us to identify our feelings and emotions throughout our project and acknowledge our moments of significant change. We then summarized what we discussed in our group into a graphical presentation which is shown below. In our feeling vs. time graph each different colour represents each individual group members feelings (excited, neutral or discouraged) throughout our project thus far and shows where we are hoping to end up once the project is complete. It is interesting to note that our lines were slightly different, however the overall pattern for each of us was very similar. Moreover, we all have a common goal for our final destination shown on the graph. We all hope to finish this project with positive feelings and have a sense that our work was a success in terms of student learning, as well as our community partners happiness. Ultimately, we all would feel great content and success to be able to help preserve this great community’s historic apple orchard.

Gambier Island apple orchard trees that are in need of a little love!

SO WHAT?

This workshop was significant as it allowed us to identify our significant moments during the project, express our feelings and make goals for the end point of our project. One of our significant moments of change displayed on our graph was identified to be our most discouraging moment. This was during the time when we received feedback for our project proposal report. We all worked on the report very hard and wrote multiple drafts for it. When we received our mark and got our feedback it was not what we were expecting. We did not do as well as we hoped and our initial goals needed to be altered. Although we were all feeling discouraged and confused on how to please our community partners, teaching staff and ourselves, we were able to bounce back and become excited for the project once again. We re-wrote our proposal report taking all aspects into consideration and were happy with our changes (see our proposal report in our previous blog post). Our whole mind set continued to increase for the better through our other significant moment of change when we actually visited Gambier Island. Our community partners were great and gave us a fantastic tour of the island and taught us a lot about their community and the history behind everything on the Island. A specific moment of significance during our trip was seeing the apple orchard that we are collaboratively trying to preserve. The trees looked more sick and unhealthy then we had expected, it was surprising that some of them were still standing up. Having this visual really helped to increase our motivation as we all really want our tree grafts to be a success in order to regenerate these amazing historical apple trees. Overall, our group as a whole had a very positive experience during our day long adventure to Gambier Island and our motivation level and excited feelings increased greatly.

NOW WHAT?

Currently, our positive feelings are slightly decreasing as we are feeling the time pressure to complete all of our goals, but we are all optimistic of a positive and exciting finish. Now that we had the opportunity to come together as a group and discuss how we are feeling about our CBEL project we can better identify what we need to do in order to have a strong finish to this project. We all believe that if we keep up our good team work skills and put in the hard work that we will finish the project off excited and satisfied with our outcomes.

Group 24’s graph of significant change throughout our CBEL project.

Strategy for Successful Project Completion – The Graceful Dismount

While there have been fluctuating up’s and down’s throughout the semester, our group has maintained a steady commitment to achieve the best possible outcome, and ultimate success of our final project report. Success can be defined in many different ways to many different people. For this project, our group as a whole measures success based upon student learning of the Gambier Island Sea Ranch community and techniques involved in apple tree grafting. In addition to student learning, it is imperative for our group to maintain a respectful relationship with our community partners. And finally, our group believes that ultimate success in this project will be measured on the successful growth of the apple trees. To achieve this success our group plans to fulfill the following objectives:

Objectives:

• Continuing to meet and collaborate with our team members each week to ensure our success factors are being met.
• Maintaining a bi-weekly interaction with our community partners to ensure their expectations are being met.
• Expressing our individual concerns and problems in our community Facebook page and finding appropriate solutions.
• Working collaboratively with Dr. McArthur to ensure the apple tree grafts are growing successfully.

In order to ensure our group finishes strong we have reviewed academic literature on the characteristics of effective writing. This will ultimately provide the utmost high quality final report (Karg et. al 2015, and Fallick & Henderson 2009)

Photo Gallery from our Trip to Gambier Island

References:

Karg, Akoto-Dansi, & Dreshel, 2015. Examining Food Source sin the City of Tamale, Ghana.

Mullinix, Fallick, & Henderson, 2009. Beyond Food Security: Urban agriculture as a form of resilience in Vancouver, Canada.

In the future, if 100 year old you was able to cut off an arm and grow a completely new, young and rejuvenated you to roam the Earth for another 100 years would you choose to do it? I know I would! Unfortunately, human somatic cells do not have the inherent ability to de-differentiate and re-differentiate in order to produce a whole new human being. However, most plants can undergo this process and an entirely new plant can be grown from just a small fraction of its predecessor. The propagated plant would hold the same genetic makeup, be an exact clone of the original, and retain all of its original heritable traits! In this context, a plant could technically live forever given the right conditions and management.

Gambier Island, a beautiful off the grid island just shy of the B.C. coast is home to several 100 year old heritage apple trees that were once part of a healthy, fruitful, and functioning apple orchard. The apple orchard dates back to the early 1800’s when apples were grown by farmers for commercial use, contributing to food security for the residents of the island by offering a source of food and income (Sea Ranch History, n.d.). Today, most inhabitants on the island are seasonal, part-time residents with the 330-acre apple orchard having been partitioned among 66 lots. Of these lots, 300 acres are shared among the Gambier Island Sea Ranch (GISR), a Strata community situated on an ocean-front acreage consisting of shared orchards, gardens, and livestock. In collaboration with members of the GISR and the Land and Food Systems faculty, five students in LFS 350 have the pleasure to engage in a Community Based Experiential Learning (CBEL) project with a focus on Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) and play a part in helping to rejuvenate this historical apple orchard. Our aim, as a collaborative team, is to propagate and graft the already existing apple tree scions (young branches) onto a healthy rootstock and plant these grafted seedlings in designated spots throughout the island. We will also document the grafting and planting process, making it available to all residents of the island as a means to offer knowledge for them to perform the tasks themselves in the near or distant future. Information as to the maintenance of the apple seedlings (fertilization, watering, weed and deer control) will be researched and also provided to residents to ensure well-rounded information is available in order to maintain a successful and sustainable apple orchard. If we are successful in grafting the seedlings and with the continued involvement of the GISR community, the heritage apple trees will continue to thrive and produce apples for many more years to come!

Rosalie Boulter and David Darvill are members of the GISR with a vision to enhance this multigenerational island community and are dedicated to preserving the heritage orchard. We LFS 350 students share this vision and, with the aid of both Rosalie and David, we aim to help develop and rejuvenate the apple orchard by offering our collective skills and knowledge as students from UBC with a focus on building upon what assets the island and its community already possess. Working alongside members of this community we aim to shadow their values of thoughtful stewardship while at the same time respecting their cultural diversity and being accountable and responsible for our own actions.

In a Ted Talk titled “Shut Up & Listen,” Ernesto Sirolli speaks of certain successes and failures throughout his ongoing career as a stakeholder in many NGO projects aimed to help communities around the globe. He states that the main factor that distinguished success strategies from failure was simply listening to the people who were a part of the community and not simply trying to implement change. It is the members of the GISR community that know what’s best and by taking an Asset Based Community Development approach we will thrive to focus on what they already know, build on what they already have by developing on their assets. By following these guidelines we aim for this project to be a success!

Rosalie and David already have a vision to enhance the beautiful apple orchard on Gambier Island and we are very pleased to offer our collaborative skills to help build upon what this passionate, dedicated, and culturally diverse community has envisioned for themselves. By the end of this project, our team of LFS 350 students will have gained great knowledge in the science behind grafting apple trees with the help of UBC professor Dr. McArthur, a talented horticulturalist and wine connoisseur. We also aim to have increased food literacy among the GISR community members by passing on this knowledge for future generations. This will allow them to perform the same tasks and be able to maintain a healthy apple orchard further enhancing their food security.

We have only just passed the starting line of this project, but after doing some research about the GISR and talking with both Rosalie and David we are all very excited and look forward to working within the community and engaging in this community based experiential learning project! Please join us on our journey and keep an eye out for our next blog post coming out February 12, 2016.

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References

Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2003). From clients to citizens: Asset-based Community Development as a strategy for community-driven development. Development in Practice, 13(5), 474–486.

Sirolli, E. (2012) Ted Talk: Shut Up and Listen. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/chXsLtHqfdM

Sea Ranch history: About. (n.d.). Retrieved from Gambier Island Sea Ranch website: http://searanch.ca/about/