[CANUFNET] Community Tree Nursery Modelling Tool: Looking for Beta Testers

[Amber Cantell]

Good afternoon everyone,


Over the last couple of years, ReForest London has been investigating
examples of what we call “community tree nurseries” – tree nurseries with a
strong emphasis on community engagement and volunteerism, and which grow
trees primarily for use in local planting programs or initiatives.


Our work has been particularly focused on exploring Wellington County’s
highly successful “Green Legacy” program model, in which thousands of
elementary schools visit Wellington County’s two municipal nurseries each
year to help seed and grow trees with program staff. The trees they grow
are then distributed, for free, to both individual residents as well as to
the local townships, conservation authorities, schools, and more. (See:
https://www.wellington.ca/en/discover/greenlegacyprogramme.aspx )



As a part of this initiative, we’ve been working to develop an Excel-based
modeling tool that would allow interested municipalities, conservation
authorities, or community groups like ours to explore what a growing
program could look like in their community. The tool is designed to
calculate a number of different key metrics, such as the amount of growing
space required, supplies needed, operating costs, the potential for revenue
generation, and more.

The project is now moving onto the beta testing stage, and we are hoping to
find a few volunteers from other organizations with an interest in tree
growing programs who would be willing to help test out the tool and make
suggestions for improvement. If you would be interested in potentially
participating in the beta test and learning more about the community tree
nursery modeling tool, please send our Community Tree Nursery Business Case
Developer, Tom Tao, an e-mail at tom at reforestlondon.ca by Wednesday, August
17th. Similarly, if you are already operating a community tree nursery of
your own, we’d love to hear from you to learn about your experiences!


Once finalized, the modeling tool will be made available for free for
anyone to use on the ReForest London website (reforestlondon.ca), and we
look forward to sending an update through CanufNet once it goes live.


We would love and greatly appreciate any support from members
of CanufNet to help finalize the Community Tree Nursery Modelling Tool so
that it can be distributed to support communities across Canada.


Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing from you!

Amber & Tom

-- 

Amber Cantell

Director of Operations, ReForest London

519-936-9548 x224
reforestlondon.ca
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