The 2018 Annual General Meeting of the Leighton Dillman Park Oven, Garden & Orchard Association will be held Monday, July 16th at 7pm. The location will be the Alderney Library in Dartmouth Nova Scotia.
Recently, pupils and staff from the Nova Scotia Community College’s Baking & Pastry Arts program held a bake sale in support of the Park Avenue Community Oven.
We were fortunate enough to be invited to visit those students and faculty at Fresh Twenty One (a student-led restaurant classroom) to enjoy some delicious food, and receive a cheque for $800 in proceeds from the bake sale! Continue reading
WARNING, the following video will probably make you hungry! The footage was recorded in Autumn 2015, during the last time the original Park Oven was used before being rebuilt. The video highlights our amazing volunteers as well as the versatility of the oven. Watch as our volunteers prepare pizzas, bake hand-pressed tortillas, cook in cast iron pans and roast meat directly on the coals!
AGMs are a very important annual event for any society or association. They offer an opportunity for interested members, citizens, and other stakeholders to receive an update on the overall health of the organization.
It is very important that all volunteers (volunteers are association members) attend the AGM and play an active role in governing the direction of the association. Any member of the community is welcome to attend the AGM as well. However, only those who have a garden plot or who have volunteered with us within the last year of the AGM are eligible to attend as voting members.
2017 Annual General Meeting Details:
Date: Saturday, June 24th
Time: 3:15 PM
Location: Starr Room, Alderney Gate Public Library (located on the 2nd floor)
The 2016 season is quickly coming to and end and while we don’t have the exact numbers yet, it has been a very busy year for visitors to the park. To keep things running and improving, the Park Oven is fortunate to receive a lot of support from people and businesses in the community. Special thanks this year belongs to:
There is lots happening in and around the Leighton Dillman Park these days and this post should get you caught up to speed.
We are pleased to announce the completion of 5 new barrier-free, accessible garden beds in our community garden area. These plots will enable seniors and disabled persons to enjoy the simple pleasure of getting outside and staying active through gardening. Gardening is known to have many benefits for overall physical and mental health such as improving mobility and flexibility as well as reducing stress levels and allowing the person to relax.
We could not have accomplished this project without the grant from the Dartmouth Community Health Board that paid for the timber and supplies. We were also extremely fortunate to have Sean Murray from Work of Artz and Mick Doran‘s team from Kildare Construction donate their expertise to help design and construct the new gardens. Sean, Mick, and the team showed up on a Saturday at 9:00 AM and worked straight through to 6:30 PM to complete the project in time for planting season. They even donated some additional supplies that were required.
As we announced last summer, we were the fortunate recipients of a $25,000 grant from TD Friends of the Environment Foundation. These funds allowed us to complete the rebuilding of the Park Avenue Community Oven through a series of community cob-building workshops. It will also allow us to expand our urban orchard with the planting of new trees and bushes happening in the Spring and Fall of 2016.
With the rebuild now complete, we are excited to have our soft opening scheduled for Saturday, June 4th and our Grand Re-opening and AGM slated for Saturday, June 25th. As always, the oven will be open every Saturday at noon starting with our soft opening. We also would like to extend an invite to any interested members of our community to attend our AGM which will be held onsite at the Park Avenue Community Oven from 10:30 AM-12:00 PM following by our Grand Re-opening at noon. Bring food to cook!
Our volunteers are amazing! They help bring the Dartmouth Common to life by enabling our unique venue to be utilized by thousands of visitors each year. Last year alone, we hosted 39 event bookings and 26 Open Ovens, with this year promising to be even busier.
For persons looking to get involved in one of the most happening community development projects in the province, now is the time! We are hosting a volunteer orientation and training session on Sunday, June 5th from 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM at the park oven. For more information and to RSVP, please email Owen at paco@dartmouth-oven.com.
Well, that’s the story, folks. Glad we could get together.
Spring ‘s here! With the warmer weather upon us (almost) we’re gearing up for our 4th full season of baking in the park. Given the necessary rebuild of the oven last fall though we’ll be launching a month later than usual in order to complete the final stages of work on the oven.
We’ve scheduled a work-day for May 7th with participants in the first phase workshop around demolition and building to be on hand as we complete the outer layer of the oven. Affording time for the materials to cure/dry, we’re hoping for a soft launch and our first open oven of the season by June. As we ramp up for the season the volunteers are working to plan an official season launch for early July.
Among other work underway is planning for the urban orchard, reservations of garden plots, construction of accessible garden beds and the development of a new and improved website. Stay tuned for more information in the coming month.
On Saturday, May 2nd PACO will host our first Open Oven of the season. After a long (lonnnnnng) winter we’re excited to kick off another season of baking in the park. During a recent inspection of the oven Tim confirmed what many of us suspected – our crack has grown. While it’s been around since the beginning, the little crack has grown into a bit of a structural problem. Together with/because of the shifting brick archway, it’s looking more and more like we’ll have to do some repair/rebuilding work this season. Likely a rebuild of the dome portion of the oven. Given that this work requires warmer, drier weather, we’re tentatively planning for an early-June start to this work. Until then we plan to host our weekly burns and accommodate any booking requests we receive. Watch for more information about June’s schedule and an update on the dome work. The oven should be ready for baking by noon this Saturday. As usual, we welcome everyone interested in baking to come out between 12 and 3. See you in the park!
On Sunday October 20th, Slow Food members, Craig Flinn, Brady Muller, and Peter Jackson, will host a cooking demo on the many different ways to use a wood fired oven to cook wonderful food other than PIZZA!
Brady Muller, one of the caretakers of this community oven, will give a brief history of the oven as well as prepare a dish. Peter and Craig will chime in with some dishes of their own. Since October is Slow Fish month in Nova Scotia and the rest of Canada, expect something marine in the overall mix of Good, Clean, and Fair food. The demo will be interactive and casual, so bring lots of questions as well as your appetite. You can check out the oven at www.dartmouth-oven.com.
Following the demo, anyone wishing to cook something they bring from home can give it a try as well. As Brady has stated, once the oven is lit it stays hot for a long time…shame to waste the heat!
Details and Housekeeping:
The Park Avenue Community Oven is located in the Leighton Dillman Park on the Dartmouth Commons. The Dartmouth Common Community Gardens and Oven are directly inside the gate off Park Avenue.
Sunday October 20th 12 noon to approximately 3:00 pm
Please bring a plate and cutlery (camper style) as well as a portable chair
There are NO WASHROOMS ON SITE…please be aware of this fact before arriving
Non-alcoholic beverages only (this is a public park)…water will be supplied by organizers
Cost is $25 per member; $30 per non-member, cash only
See this post and registration information at Slow Food Nova Scotia
Planning to attend Harvest Fest on Saturday, September 14th? Here’s what we have scheduled:
12:00p
12:30p
1:00p
1:30p
2:00p
2:30p
3:00p
3:30p
4:00p
4:30p
5:00p
5:30p
6:00p