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2013 Annual Report

The Compost Education Centre (CEC) is a project of the Victoria Compost and Conservation Education Society, a not-for-profit, chari-table organization. It is located in Victoria at 1216 North Park Street.

Started in 1992 by the Fernwood Community Association, the CEC

provides composting and conservation education to Capital Regional District (CRD) residents with the goal of reducing waste and improv-ing local soils through the use of compost. The CEC promotes organ-

ic gardening as a means of reducing the health and environmental effects of chemical gardening practices as well as promoting the

health, environmental and social benefits of local food production.

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2013 Highlights

Rebranding, Name Change and New Website

2013 saw the Compost Education Centre getting an exciting

makeover! We changed our name from The Greater Victo-

ria Compost Education Centre to the Compost Education,

Centre which not only makes our name a little easier to say

and remember, but reflects the fact that we serve as a re-

source to people beyond the Greater Victoria area. Next,

we decided to replace our existing Dr. Wriggles logo with a

new logo that would appeal to both adults and children and

reflect that we are about more than just compost. Simeon

Goa designed our bold, modern new logo to reflect our em-

phasis on gardening, urban agriculture, conservation, and of

course, compost! Our final change was a brand new web-

site with more interactive features for workshop registra-

tion and membership renewal, as well as a clean modern

design that is easy to navigate and complements our new

logo.

Subsidized Green Cone Sales

In June of 2013, we were able to offer two subsidized sales on green

cone food waste digesters in partnership with the CRD. The CRD pur-

chased 300 green cones to be sold at wholesale prices, allowing us to

offer them for $95 rather than the usual retail price of $165. The

green cones were intended for rural area residents without municipal

garbage programs as a way to help them keep their kitchen scraps out

of the landfill. We also offered an educational campaign alongside

the subsidized sale to promote on-site organic waste management.

Over 600 CRD residents came out over the 2 days of the sales event to

learn more about the benefits of the green cone and to access this

fantastic opportunity!

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2013 Highlights (cont’d)

Community Events

2013 was an exciting year for community events! Our an-

nual spring and fall organic plant sales were action packed

days of plant shopping, snacks, live music and general com-

post goodness. We also hosted an inspiring evening talk

and full day workshop by Jenny Pell, designer of Seattle’s

seven acre food forest. In the fall, we celebrated national

Plant a Tree day by staging our own Plant a Fruit Tree Day

in partnership with the Fernwood NRG. Plant a Fruit Tree

Day participants helped install Fernwood’s new community

orchard, attended free workshops, talked to local fruit tree

experts and bought plants for their own home orchards.

Our annual Pumpkin Smash was a smashing success, with

many participants old and young enjoying the experience of

giving their jack o’lanterns a proper burial.

New Workshops

Besides our usual line-up of fantastic workshops in

the Sustainable Home and Garden series, 2013 saw

us adding two new workshop series. Our intensive

workshops are an hour longer than the standard

workshops and all include a hands-on component.

They’re a great way to dig a little deeper into exciting

topics such as aquaponics, canning your harvest and

making herbal teas and tinctures.

The other addition to our workshop series is a new

line of Saturday children’s workshops for kids aged 6-

11. These workshops are designed for small groups to

promote inquiry-based learning and lots of garden

exploration. Topics included Herbal First Aid (a chance to get to know gentle healing herbs in the garden and learn

how to use them), Incredible Edibles (an examination of where our food comes from), and Compost Critters (a

chance to get up close and personal with creepy crawly inhabitants of the compost pile).

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Education Programs

In 2013 we continued to teach thousands of children

and adults about composting, soil, and growing food.

We offered a roster of nine different in-school workshops , a

week-long environmentally focused summer camp, a new children’s

workshop series on weekends, green birthday parties, a garden-based workshop series for home schooled children,

and many more special events.

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What teachers are saying about our programs:

“It's exciting and important to connect our youth to all aspects of the food cycle.

Having a worm bin to take care of gives our group

the opportunity to learn about this first hand. They

are stoked!”

“The kids loved being able to smell and taste the

different plants and herbs. They all learned some-

thing new, as did I!“

“Terrific workshop-- really easy to understand and

hands on … plus we got lots of work on our school

garden compost accomplished at same time!”

Education Programs (cont’d)

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Revenue 2013

Capital Revenue District $93,189

Compost Shop $35,960

Gaming Funds $25,000

Project Income $17,005

Victoria Foundation $15,650

City of Victoria $13,730

Wage Recovery $9,646

Memberships $4,248

Fundraising & Donations $1,929

Interest and Other Income $1,294

Total Revenue in 2013 $217,651

Expenses 2013

Wages and Benefits $160,610

Cost of Goods $23,695

Administration Costs $20,900

Project Expenses $16,596

Demonstration Site Costs $2,059

Amortization $2,029

Volunteer Program $1,997

Staff Professional Development $657

Total Expenses in 2013 $228,543

2013 Financials

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Fundraising and Donor Recognition In addition to funds received from the Capital Regional District and the City of Victoria, the fol-lowing sources of funding were obtained in 2013:

We gratefully acknowledge the great financial support from our funders, community partners, and compost

club members who help us to deliver high quality educational programming within our Capital Regional Dis-

trict.

Summary of Programs and Services

In 2013, the Compost Education Centre (CEC) delivered 101 school presentations to over 2,300 children from

Pre-school to Grade 12, and facilitated 64 community workshops on topics from Grow Your Own Food 101, to

Soil Building and Backyard Beekeeping. Over 15,000 CRD residents visited the CEC’s demonstration site or

participated in one of its 40 educational community events and compost demonstrations.

The CEC hosted five core community events in 2013, including a Spring and Fall Organic Plant Sale, the 10th

anniversary of our popular Pumpkin Smash in November and two Green Cone Food Waste Digester Subsi-

dized Sale and Educational days in June in partnership with the CRD. The CEC reached a total of 124,632 resi-

dents in 2013 through all avenues of our educational mandate, an increase of 112% from 2011! Since 1992,

the GVCEC has made over 581,681 contacts with CRD residents.

Funders

Capital Regional District City of Victoria Province of British Columbia BC Hydro Community Investment United Way Greater Victoria 1% For The Planet Foundation Horne Coupar Law TD Friends of the Enviroment Vancity enviroFund Victoria Foundation HRDCS (Canada Student Summer

Jobs Program)

Additional Revenue

Organic Plant Sale Sales of composting and

organic gardening items School programs Community workshops Pumpkin Smash Memberships Donations

Individual Donors Grace Seabrook Laurie Kelly & Scott Poole Daniel Miller Laurie Lawson Rob & Sharon Miller Nelda Turner Susan McGillivary Shauna Johnson Wendy Bowkett Richard Weatherill Marlene Lovell

Cash and In-kind Donations Fernwood NRG Chek TV Black Press Monday Magazine Big Barn Garden Centre Borden Mercantile Ellice Recycle Danica Nursery Dig This Fernwood Coffee Fernwood Community Association Garden Works Little Elf Garden Centre Meadow Oak Nursery Soap Exchange Thrifty Foods Mason Street City Farm

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Message from the Executive

Director

Message from the Executive Director

The Compost Education Centre has experi-

enced some exciting changes over the past

year. We shortened our name and rebrand-

ed to encompass our full range of work-

shops and programs with urban food pro-

duction, soil conservation and on-site com-

posting as our focal points. Together with

our dedicated staff, Board of Directors and

fabulous volunteers, we reached over

124,600 CRD residents with our educational

mandate and practical solutions to living

more sustainably.

We’ve developed some exciting new Soil Sci-

ence and Grow Your Own Food workshops,

and we completed our 4th year of our food

sharing program ‘Grow a Row’, collecting

over 1,600 kgs of healthy, fresh produce to

be distributed to food box programs, food

banks, transition centre's and schools.

We believe that we can grow the seeds of

community through accessible and valuable

education programs, empowering people to

become more self-sufficient and lower their

carbon footprint by composting, growing

their own food and teaching children to be

stewards of our beautiful and diverse natural

resources. We look forward to another

fruitful year and welcome everyone to our

beautiful urban oasis in the heart of Fern-

wood in Victoria BC.

Staff

Executive Director: Nadine Collison

Operations Manager: Marika Smith

Site Manager: Hannah Roessler (Jan-Feb 2013) Alysha Punnett (Mar-Dec 2013)

Education Coordinator: Sonya Rokosh (Jan 2013) Clare Pepper (Feb-Dec 2013)

Outreach Coordinator: Anne Spice

Board of Directors

Chair: Nik Hill

Vice Chair: Marion Wylie

Treasurer: David Neate

Secretary: Janet Hockin

Member at large: Tamara Chirovsky

Capital Regional District Representative: Wendy Dunn

Fernwood Community Association Representative: Bill McKechnie