Evans – out one weekend in June, out for another wkend in August

TFO out for another year or so

1. Discuss tree team counts, rebuilding year, set targets,
a. First few years, 100/year, 200/year, then 300/year, highest is 430/year
b. Sierra Club Tree Team has 1600 funded by homeowners, councilmembers, local
businesses
c. TFO has 200 indisputable trees
d. 500 gray area trees – funded by grant, but was collaborative effort, Sierra Club
provided tactical support for 500 years.
e. For purpose of fundraising and publicity, let’s just say SCTT has planted 1600
trees.
f. This season ~230 combined (200 by TFO, 31 by SC).
g. Target for next season: November 2018 – June 2019
i. 300 -400 for TFO, more if Civicorps will help plant
ii. Break during summer, and land
iii. 15 events, 1 event / month, will only plant trees when there are 2-3 in
the neighborhood,
iv. Need leader for each team, need more leaders on same day, as opposed
to 1-2 leaders per week.
v. Adopt a spot shovels rental.
vi. We could do every 2 weeks, would push to plant more trees. But I think
we want to avoid burnout. If you miss one, feels insurmountable. If we
could get more people, would do every 2 weeks, if just 3 of us then once
every 3-4 weeks.
vii. One big event per month vs every 2 wks?
viii. Derek - Before this year, we planted every weekend, meant getting a
delivery of trees every Friday, Arthur being there every Friday receiving
trees, getting them all out. This year, TFO tried to do every other week
this year, but for various reasons, only putting up what we could in 2
weeks what we used to do every week last year. Might be moot to
discuss number of trees until we know what kind of support we can get.
ix. Arthur – 5 trees, 3 hours, 3 people.
x. Derek – 2-3 locations per team, 3 ppl/team.
xi. Through June - 8 events – 10 trees, 80 trees
xii. Through June - 15 events – 10 trees, 150 trees
2. Can we develop a sliding scale? Thought Sierra Club board member would be here,
pressing Luis, NACG, and chapter folks to follow-through on official staff and fundraising
support.
a. Amy went to home that was within grant zone, had wires, only could do small
tree, if neighbors across the street get tree,
b. TFO region can plant trees for free, we should match it with our SC funds
c. TFO says we can provide tree, but if you can pay anything for it we will prioritize.
d. Or we can round out what TFO is doing and if they are in a neighborhood that
TFO is planting in we can get anyone who can’t
 e. Will pitch it to SC, if they don’t confirm, then we will cover max 1 tree/event,
more like 1 per 2 events, max $150
f. SC Fundraising more. Send brief email to Luis and asking where he stands in
chapter fundraising, employee.
g. Get on an agenda.
3. Volunteer Groups
a. Separate meetup group? b/c not everyone on SC meetup.
b. Expect half of people to show up on meetup if they haven’t come before
c. Yodeler
d. Start earlier from April onwards
e. Motivate by Offering breakfast? T-shirts, for planting leaders, come 5x and you
get a t-shirt. Two shifts.
4. Recognize Epic Charter School has provided a lot of support, about $500-600/month,
Education for Change. Haesin Thomas, is the spokesperson for EfC. Latitude High School
will be moving into the school. Derek has talked to Sandra Barios who is new site
manager for Epic, wants to get more trees on Epic campus, within TFO grant area.
5. Do we have policy of planting trees in people’s yards
a. Amy - Don’t do it. We’re not contractors, landscapers
b. Arthur – disagree bc some places where city has widened street so there is no
sidewalk. If your planting strip is < 2 ft wide, then we can plant within 1st 10 ft of
property.
c. Derek – curb to sidewalk is city property, but gray area for tending to any open
soil in front of your property. Open planting strip, open well, city’s property, if
there’s a tree there and meets city criteria, city will accept responsibility.
d. Contract for unofficial tree, saying they take full responsibility.
e. If tree is planted away from wires on private property, and it grows into it, PGE
will just have to deal with it.
6. How do we wrap up for the planting season? / For next 3 months, Arthur will be around
until September and then gone for 3 weeks
a. Amy - Don’t want to do anything over the summer, backlog has already been
finished, only wants to do 1 Belfast tree, and then get stuff set up for end of
October - November
b. Derek – have summer off, regrouping, close books on season, scouting out new
sites for the fall.
c. Evans – relatively indifferent, I’m around, can help out for a few weekends for
the rest of the summer. I’m also still learning. Going to be not completely idle,
and preparing for new season, having some time to think about it.
d. Other tasks – stake removal, tree maintenance, get more planting sites, develop
leaflet, fix epic, catch up on other TRFs, group events,
e. Plant seedlings in parks and wilderness areas, found out about TFO and SC and
wanted to send volunteers to group events.
f. SC Tree Team hasn’t done fruit tree plantings, bc public works don’t want fruit
trees in parks, growing together, is about fruit trees. Mostly at schools.
 g. Stake Removal – supply is ok, but bc we haven’t put a lot of trees in the ground,
Kent retrieves some stakes, need to cut metal stakes that weren’t put 1 foot –
16” away from tree.
h. Some trees that were put in by city are too close and physically impossible to
take out.
i. Hacksaw or torch to get top 7’ out of ground of stake. Can weld new screw tip on
that and get new shorter stake.
j. 15 trees that are in tree wells that are too small, if someone wants to get a
concrete saw.
k. Port of Oakland, should put trees at airport, AC Transit cut down trees on East
14th for bus rapid treatment. Urban Releaf has put some trees in near 14th st, but
tree wells were too small may have been unofficial, not permitted.
7. Group sites?
a. Start identifying places, have Derek identify where to put trees. Or there are
some landscape architects who are eager to do pro bono work for parks. Jungle
Hill. Derek has contacts who are willing to volunteer and help with landscape
architect work.
8. Recruit more sites, recruit more volunteers, identify parks.
9. Outreach – need to recruit more volunteers, recruit more sites, find people who are
enthusiastic and spread word of mouth, 36th ave, Delaware ave, san Antonio park, had
someone mobilize. come up with some incentive to get people to be ambassador of
trees for their neighborhood. Amy will start doing that, continue to get sites ready,
organizing, I will add to initial outreach once I’ve talked to the person, likelihood is if we
can plant 5 trees on this block.
10. Volunteer should call someone among us, i.e. tree on Shattuck, all trees put up were
shriveled up, if I plant a tree some trees do go through transplant shock, should have
emails for most of people and addresses, TFO are about to go do tree inspection of all
trees over last couple of years, last 2-3 years worth of trees 300-500 start with one
neighborhood. Identifying trees that are there and problematic, and then July 14 th meet
for couple of hours, go to one neighborhood, look at 5-10 trees, come up with db and
checklist, and then divide and conquer, 700 trees. Record maintenance on stake, mulch,
knock on doors. Then will write letter to homeowner.
11. Had bad experience with mayor summer jobs program bc couldn’t get small group of
people, would want to take group of kids and do things i.e. litter pickup. Planting,
pruning, maintenance, that we can teach them. Did some tree pruning, but having 20
teens is big group.
12. When worked for West Oakland 500 trees that have wooden stakes.
13. What to do with wooden stakes. Free stuff. July 14th.
14.