2010 OSBBC Annual General Meeting

This year’s AGM date has been set for Sunday, March 28. We are really hoping that you will be able to come out, renew your membership, and have a voice in the direction of the OSBBC. The AGM will be hosted this year at the new Camp Kawartha Environment Centre just north of Peterborough, built by last year’s Sir Sandford Fleming Sustainable Construction & Design students. It is a beautiful building, featuring various wall systems, including panel bale walls, hempcrete, and a bottle wall. The earthen floor with the mosaic in the middle really adds a beautiful touch to the interior. Location: 2505 Pioneer Road, Peterborough, Ontario. Directions: http://www.campkawartha.ca/about/directions.htm Latitude: 44.352528 Longitude: -78.287802

You need not be a member to attend, but if you do come to hear the talks we ask that you join the OSBBC.

Important note about food at the centre: Please bring your own lunch (and hopefully your own mug) to the AGM. Due to the fact that this is a public building with school groups coming through, there is a strict nut-free policy with food. Please respect this important rule, and bring a nut-free lunch. Snacks, juices, tea & coffee will be provided.

Schedule - AGM Sunday March 28th, 2010, 8:30am-4:00 pm

8:30-9:00 Registration, Coffee, Tea, Muffins, Chat

9:00-9:45 Builders’ Round Table

9:45-10:30 Presentation by Stephen Collette: Current sustainable, healthy products and systems

10:40-11:10 Building from the owner/builder perspective: Ian & Ainslie Thomson from Galetta share their building experience, as do Linda Taylor and Mark Richardson, of Pakenham

11:15-12:15 Slide show (See note below regarding submitting slides for the show)

12:15 – 1:00  Bring your own lunch (nut-free, remember!)

1:00 – 3:00- AGM

4:00 Close doors, bid adieu, and hope for many more exciting builds for 2010!

Slide show

This year, we would like to celebrate the fabulous variety of straw bale homes that have been built here in Ontario. One way to celebrate this diversity is through a slide show, of photos of these wonderful homes. Some of the simplest, and some of the most exotic structures, have been built in our province.  It would be incredible to have a complete showing of most of the homes in Ontario.

Frank Tettemer is collecting photos of straw bale homes, to be presented in this slide show. If you have one to half-dozen photos of a home that you live in, or that you’ve built, or designed, or simply helped work on, please consider sending them to Frank to be included in the show. You may wish to say a brief comment on your slides, or you may wish to remain anonymous, and simply sit and enjoy the photos that will be presented.  They will be compiled, and shown, to all our members and guests attending, showing time between 10:30AM and lunch time.  Here’s a chance to see all those homes that you’ve heard so much about.

Photos can be emailed to Frank, at this email address: [email protected], or paper copies & CD-Roms can be mailed to Frank before March 15 (He will return paper prints to you at the AGM).

Frank Tettemer, 480 Doyle Mountain Road, RR#4, Killaloe, ON K0J 2A0

Other News:

Coming soon: Online membership registration & renewals

As a volunteer organization, one of the most time-consuming and error-prone tasks is managing membership renewals and keeping contact information up to date. Wild Apricot is a Toronto-based complete membership management software service that allows members to join and pay online with automatic renewal notices, access member-only information and more. This will be in place prior to the AGM, but don’t wait for it if you want to renew today! Mail-in memberships will always be accepted.

Website changes, gallery update The long-awaited building registry/gallery is almost finished. A team of our board members, under the direction of our webmaster, have been working on reformatting our gallery pages so that owners can update house profiles and provide location and directions for visitors on the annual house tour, also ready for the AGM.

Keep your eyes peeled on our website at www.osbbc.ca for the new updates as they become released. The website looks fabulous, and we apologize for any disruptions while the work has been ongoing.

We really hope to see you at this year’s AGM, where we will talk about the direction of the OSBBC, have committee reports on work such as apprenticeship programs in straw bale building. You can have a voice in what happens, and even a vote if you have been a member for a year.

Please remember to bring along a mug if possible, and to keep your lunch nut-free. If you would care to bring along an instrument, there may be opportunities to create some straw bale jam.

Looking forward to seeing you very soon!

Regards,

OSBBC Directors