Course:LFS350/Projects/2014W1/T17/Proposal

Version Control

Version	Author	Role	Changes	Date
0.1	Ning	Project Writer	Draft-in-progress	Sept. 17
0.2	Meagan	Communications Liason	Changed 'Project Purpose' and 'Research Methods'	Sept. 21
1.0	Ning	Project Writer	Draft complete; pending editing	Sept. 24
1.1	Derrick	Edits & Revisions	Edits of draft #1 complete	Sept. 30
2.0	Meagan	Communications Liason	Scope Change	Oct. 4
2.1	Dora	Team Member	References added, Methods modified, Stakeholder Summary modified.	Oct. 4
2.2	Derrick	Edits & Revisions	edits of methods, project background and proposal and research question	Oct. 4
3.0	Meagan	Communications Liason	Version 3 created in light of the transition to a perception study	Oct. 11

Project Background (__ / 10)

The mandate of the Gordon Neighbourhood House (GNH) is to “support their community by providing relevant programs, fostering leadership, social inclusion and meaningful opportunities for inter-cultural learning, community dialogue and education” (Gordon Neighbourhood House, 2014). Similar to other community organizations, GNH aims to provide food to those in need within their community. The GNH Herb Garden, in particular, seeks to provide “a free, openly accessible place for members of our community to plant, grow and eat fresh herbs" (Gordon Neighbourhood House, 2014).

Community gardens are a sustainable means of improving food security in an area. “Community gardens are potentially very inclusive spaces and open to a range of social backgrounds. Food, in particular, has a unifying role in these community contexts” (Firth et al., 2011). In this capacity, community gardens can help to bring members of the community together and increase food access in a way which is environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. Community development is another potential output of community gardens as the result of increased education, skills and training. More specifically, in many community garden models, garden participants (staff and community members) are given the supplies and training needed to grow fresh vegetables and herbs and are responsible in part for maintaining the gardens themselves (McCullum et al., 2005). In this way, food access as well as localization are also achieved, as community members are provided access to fresh, locally grown produce.

The Gordon Neighbourhood House herb model differs from the standard ‘community garden’ model in a variety of ways which make it extremely unique in regards to its role within the community. In this model, social interaction is not a component which is necessarily promoted – instead, community members are encouraged to take herbs freely from the garden at their own convenience, without feeling pressured to engage in any obligatory social interaction (Paul Taylor, Personal Communication). Food literacy is therefore a major overarching concept of this current model, as it is the intention for community members to incorporate the herbs into their recipes at home allowing for the possibility of a shift in food behaviour (Paul Taylor, Personal Communication). Sustainable food access remains to be a theme in this model as well, as community members are given free access to fresh produce, grown locally. Although social interaction and training of community members are not components of this model, community development is also a potential outcome as the result of stimulating awareness and communication around the topic of food access. Through this community dialogue, and through the expansion of herb gardens throughout communities, it is reasonable to assume that the normalization of this type of charitable model may be achieved, thus alleviating common stigmatizations (Paul Taylor, Personal Communication).

The Gordon Neighbourhood House aims to better understand the role of their herb garden within the community. Obtaining perspectives from a variety of different stakeholders and community members (and evaluating the correlation between these perspectives) will allow us to identify existing community values as well as what their expectations of herb gardens are, and subsequently clarify the role of the herb garden in a community context. These findings will allow GNH to tailor their current model to ensure it is meeting the needs of the community and upholding their mandate. Recommendations generated from our research will be incorporated into a community herb garden developmental toolkit. The purpose of the toolkit is to empower, support and facilitate the creation of additional herb gardens throughout the GNH and neighboring communities. This in turn creates partnerships and support for other organizations, upholding the Gordon Neighborhood House mandate by increasing efforts to combat food insecurity.

Stakeholder Summary (__ /5)

Name, Role, & Organization	Responsibilities
UBC Student Team Members	UBC Student Team Members are reponsible as a whole for general project development through data collection and analysis, timely communication with community partners, and the construction of the toolkit. Additional roles are listed below
Dora Cheng	Herb Garden maintenance and engagement research
Emily Huang	Faciliation of team organization and coordination
Richard Siu	Herb Garden construction and deployment research
Elliott To	Interactive map design
Donna Kong	Note-taking and general team organization
Derrick Pawlowski	Copy editing and formatting
*Meagan Vurzinger	Communications liason and team scheduling
Ning Yan	Weekly blog updates and agenda setting
Gordon Neighborhood House--Community Partner
Andrew Christie- Community Food Advocate	Guidance and approval in developing the scope, budget and schedule of the project Reviewing, providing feedback and approval of changes in the project plan Notifying the student project team of new or changed information relevant to research Provide access to key contacts in relations to and information about the herb garden
Susanna Millar- Lead Farmer	Provide information on the herb garden operations Notify project team of opportunities for service and learning such as volunteering
Paul Taylor- Executive Director	Identify key partners with the GNH Provide information on the policy and finance of the GNH
Gordon Nelson Inc.--Landowner
*Stephanie Nelson- Property Manager at Gordon Nelson Properties	Provide information on the Gordon Nelson Inc.'s vision for establishing the herb garden Be available for an interview and/or email communication

Purpose and Research Question (__ / 20)

Research question:

• What is the perceived role of the herb garden to various stakeholders and participants in this study?

Purpose: Through this research question we plan to direct our project as a perception study assessing stakeholder and participant views of the role of the community herb garden. We are going to examine the role through three subtopics: community engagement, food access, and food literacy. These subtopics were chosen based on characteristics found in community gardens identified in previous research and the goals of the Herb Farm project identified by our community partner.

We will consider the following sub-questions in our research in order to organize our findings:

• What is the role of the herb farm in terms of community engagement, food access and food literacy?

• What kind of involvement¹ and participation² do people think they should have?

• What are the perceptions of the impact³ of the Herb Garden?

¹We define ‘involvement’ as ongoing interaction with the operations and maintenance of the Herb Garden which results in a change to the garden’s success in the community (i.e weeding, promotion, etc)

²We define ‘participation’ as interaction with the herb garden in a purely consumerist basis (i.e taking some herbs).

³We define impact as changes in behaviour, knowledge, and access.

Methods (__ / 20)

Data Collection

We will employ a qualitative approach with regards to our data collection. Due to the developing nature of the herb garden we are not yet able to assess impacts of the project and additionally, there may not be enough participants to accurately conduct a quantitative study (Creswell, 2003). Our community partner recommended less invasive methodological approaches with regards to interacting with members of the public. We will conduct interviews with stakeholders and participants to identify common perceptions, expectations, values and themes. These interviews will also offer insights to the systems and processes of the GNH Herb Garden model and also aid in the creation of the Herb Garden toolkit.

Who: Stakeholders: Paul, Stephanie, Susanna, Andrew

How: Interviews with stakeholders will be scheduled at their convenience and will be audio-taped with a recording device. Team members will also be taking notes at the interviews. Team members will then transcribe the interviews for relevant information. To interview members of the community, we will place a sign requesting interviews (asking after permission from Stephanie) from residents of 1078 Burnaby Street. We will inform and provide interviewees with the use and consent forms before holding interviews. As well, we will perform brief, casual interviews with participants at the potluck, tallying codes but we will not be audio-taping interviewees or recording notes.

At least 2 team members will be participating as available in each interview, asking the following list of questions:

• Do you use the herb garden and/or collect herbs from the garden?
• What is the purpose of the herb garden to you? / What does it mean to you?
• Would you like to get involved with the herb garden and why? / Have you wanted to work in the garden but didn't know how to get involved?
• How did you feel when the garden was first built?
• What kind of garden do you want to see in the next couple of years?
• Do you have any recommendations for further improving the herb garden? If so, what would you like to see in the next couple of years?

Interviewers will allow the conversation to develop organically, asking questions for contextual detail as necessary.

Perception Study

Who to interview:

Names	Organization	Role
Susanna	From GNH	Lead Farmer: responsible for overseeing/maintaining the herb garden and urban farms at GNH
Andrew Christie	From GNH	Community Food Advocate: member of the Food Access Team, responsible for executing the mandate
Paul Taylor	From GNH	Executive Director: responsible for overseeing entire organization and executing mandate
Stephanie Nelson	From Gordon Nelson Inc.	Property Manager: as the landowner, her values include: beautifying the space, improving/maintaining a good reputation, and improving the area for residents
The GNH community	From the community	Participate in programs GNH has to offer, and make use of the urban and herb farms
Chris Reid	From Shifting Growth	Executive Director for Shifting Growth: set up the herb and urban farms at GNH, not an employee of GNH

Data collection:

We plan to collect qualitative data via interviews. Interviewees will be comprised of key stakeholders of this project as well as participating community members. Interviews with stakeholders are scheduled via email. In addition, we also plan to post a sign to solicit interviews with community members within a span of two weeks. We will classify this as convenience sampling, as the interviews will be held at a time which is convenient to us, and our interviewees will self-select themselves based on their availability and convenience. Secondary research on food perception and community gardens will also be used to provide a standard for ranking the values held by community members and stakeholders.

Data Analysis:

We plan to code interviews and identify themes.

Data analysis will be accomplished in a few steps:

First, data will be coded with preliminary codes after listening to the audio transcripts. Secondly, the coded data will be re-examined for emergent themes and new codes. This will provide us with the perspectives of select members of the community and stakeholders. Due to the limited sample size and the fact that only one interview was performed, these perspectives are not intended to be representative of larger groups (Creswell, 2003).

Themes will be developed from codes and emergent ideas. We will cross reference information from GNH and participants and identify expectation perception gaps. From there, recommendations will be developed.

The following is a list of preliminary codes we have developed for analyzing each interview:

• Community engagement--promotion/increase knowledge
• Food access
• Learning
• Food learning
• Intercultural learning
• Communication
• Food quality
• Urban farming
• Food equality
• Social equality
• Bringing people together
• Sustainability
• Environmental friendliness
• Economics
• Affordability
• Community health

Advantages & Disadvantages to interviews with stakeholders and community members:

Advantages:

• It is not costly and requires minimal resources.
• People can give responses subjectively, which allows us to further understand their opinions more concretely.
• Able to obtain specific information that we want and value since we are asking the questions not invasive, convenient for researchers and participants (Creswell, 2003).

Disadvantages:

• The data may not be representative or significant due to small sample sizes; therefore, the data we collect is not generalizable.
• Subject to bias since we, as researchers, are interpreting the information and translating it into something meaningful for our results (Creswell, 2003).

Deliverables (__ / 5)

• An herb garden toolkit to serve as a starters guideline for other organizations, communities, or for individual interest. This toolkit will also address expectations of an herb garden found through research in the participant community and organization, as well through academic research. Thus, the toolkit will also integrate recommendations to improve and maintain a community engaging herb garden. In addition, this toolkit will provide schedules, a garden template, recommended herbs, and growing guides.

• An interactive map via Google mapping existing herb garden enlistment's and additionally prospective GNH Herb Farms. In addition, this map will include a list of contacts, open hours, and diversity of herbs found in the garden. This interactive map will both increase awareness of the herb garden projects as well as provide a visualization of the garden's geographic boundaries within the community.

• An Herb Garden legend that will be placed amongst the garden. It will include pictures, names, uses, and medicinal properties of each herb. Each herb in the legend will be colour coded with the herb in the garden, allowing quick identification. The legend will serve to inform participating community members and address food literacy.

• A final report that will include: qualitative data from conducted interviews, a data analysis in which we extract key perceptions from interviews, an integration of these findings forming recommendations for the enhancement of community involvement, and a systems model diagram of the current GNH Herb Farm.

Success Factors/Criteria (__ / 10)

We will determine our success according to feedbacks from stakeholders. We will provide a comprehensive, easy-to-use development toolkit and a detailed report with recommendations. Additionally, we hope to determine the success of our research through the impact of our deliverables, such as possible implementation of new community herb gardens in the area, or novel strategies employed by GNH in light of our findings.

Possible criteria for success evaluation could include:

• Does GNH feel that we answered our research question?
• Are our findings accurate and comprehensive?
• Does the toolkit accurately reflect the operations of the current Herb Farm and can it be used to create more?
• Does the data and analyses we have provide allow GNH to evaluate its current strategies?
• Can the recommendations we make be used to create new strategies?

Scope Change

Scope changes requested by any stakeholder of the project must be agreed upon, approved and signed by all stakeholders. The agreed format is to revise this charter with version controls. Because this is critical to keep track of, the version control is displayed at the beginning of the charter.

Communication Plan (__ / 5)

Action Item	Deliverable	Dates	Accountable
Bi-weekly Updates	Progress Report (bullet points)	Second and fourth Wednesday of every month	Student team will provide a report of work accomplished twice monthly, either sent via email or published on the team blog (http://blogs.ubc.ca/lfs350team17gnhherbgarden/). Stakeholders wishing to be updated via email may contact Meagan Vurzinger (communications liaison) to be added to the email contact list (can be contacted at megvurzinger@shaw.ca).
Technical Meeting Attendance (in person where possible)	Open dialogue about project	As needed	Student team and stakeholders will meet as needed (or available) to discuss problems or progress. Interviews will be scheduled with Meagan Vurzinger via email.
Information sharing as it becomes available	Vital Information	Ongoing	All stakeholders to provide any vital/important information as soon as possible via email through Meagan Vurzinger.

Milestones (__ / 5)

Milestone	Event or Deliverable	Target Date	Responsibility
Milestone 1	Draft Charter and Systems Model Presentation	Wednesday, October 1	Charter and Model drafted and presented to class (as well as Andrew)
Milestone 2	Research Method Development and Finalization	Wednesday, Oct. 15	Research methods and procedures developed and ready for collection
Milestone 3	Revised Charter and Systems Model	Wednesday, Nov. 1	Data collection in progress, charter revised for scope
Milestone 4	Project drafting	Wednesday, Nov.15	Finished data collection, begin developing toolkit and report
Milestone 5	Final Report	Wednesday, Nov. 26	Report and toolkit finished
Final Milestone	Final Presentation	Wednesday, Dec. 3	Presentation of results

Approvals (__ / 5)

The following individuals hereby approve this Project Charter:

Role or Title	Name and Signature	Date
Project Writer	Ning Yan	Sept.24
Copy Editor	Derrick Pawlowski	Sep.30
Notetaker	Donna Kong	Sep.30
Team Member	Emily Huang	Oct.1
Team Member	Richard Siu	Oct.1
Team Member	Elliot To	Oct.1
Team Member	Dora Cheng	Oct.1
Communications Liason	Meagan Vurzinger	Oct.1
Project Writer	Ning Yan	Nov.1
Copy Editor	Derrick Pawlowski	Nov.1
Notetaker	Donna Kong	Nov.1
Team Member	Emily Huang	Nov.1
Team Member	Richard Siu	Nov.1
Team Member	Elliot To	Nov.1
Team Member	Dora Cheng	Nov.1
Communications Liason	Meagan Vurzinger	Nov.1
Community Partner	Andrew Christie
TA	Lucy Rodina

References (__ / 5)

• Christie, A. (Community Food Advocate). Sept. 20, 2014. Personal Communication.
• Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches. California, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
• Firth, C., Maye, D. & Pearson, D. (2011). Developing "Community" in Community Gardens. Local Environment, 16(6), 555 –568
• Food Philosophy. (2014). Retrieved from http://gordonhouse.org/about/foodphilosophy
• Kingsley, J. & Townsend, M. (2006). ‘Dig In’ to Social Capital: Community Gardens as Mechanisms for Growing Urban Social Connectedness. Urban Policy and Research 24 (4), 525-537
• Kodish, S., & Gittelsohn, J. (2011). Systematic Data Analysis in Qualitative Health Research: Building Credible and Clear Findings. Sight and Life, 25(2), 52–56.
• McCullum, C., Desjardins, E., Kraak, V., Ladipo, P. & Costello, H. (2005). Evidence-based strategies to build community food security. Journal of the American Dietetic Association.105.2: 278-283
• Mission. (2014). Retrieved from http://gordonhouse.org/about/mission
• Taylor, P. (Executive Director at GNH). Oct. 24, 2014. Personal Communication.

Writing Quality (__ / 10)

For a proposal report to receive full writing quality marks, it should be well organized and easy to read. It should address all of the topics articulated in the assignment details above, and it should be free of grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes.