A chance to gather ecological land managers from across Canada.
A networking opportunity for those experienced with Holistic Management and those wanting to learn about it.
What to Expect:
Each session will start with a Holistic Management practitioner sharing their story and then focusing in on a specific topic. This will be followed by other participants sharing their stories and exploring their questions.
Convergence Facilitator: Tony McQuail, HM Educator
When:
Thursdays, February 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd at 7:00 pm Eastern Standard Time (Convert to your time zone).
Where:
This event will take place online through Zoom. You must register to receive the event link.
Cost:
Flexible Fee. When registering for this event, you will choose how much to pay for it, depending on what feels right to you and your context. We know that this differs across the country and we believe in making this opportunity accessible to everyone. We trust you to choose an amount that is right for you. Your contribution will go towards continued learning opportunities and network engagement.
Conference Program:
Thursday, February 2, 2023 | Stories from Cory Van Groningen Cory and his family have a farm that produces beef, and pastured poultry to sell through Harvest to Gather brands in South-Western Ontario, their family business. Cory has a wealth of experience in the full supply chain and is interested in the opportunities for regenerative outcomes. Cory is a Field Professional in Holistic Management and Hub Verifier for Eastern Canada. Cory has recently founded the Ecosystem Hub in Ontario to bring Holistic Management to land managers and eaters alike in Southern Ontario. |
Thursday, February 9, 2023 | Stories from Daniel Brisebois Dan Brisebois wants market growers to grow some of their own seed, which is why Dan hosts the Seed Growers Podcast and blogs about seed at https://danbrisebois.farm/ Dan is a seed farmer at Tourne-Sol co-operative farm in Les Cèdres, Quebec. Tourne-Sol grows organic seeds for an online seed store and a wholesale rack program; and grows vegetables for 500 weekly veggie baskets. Dan also runs the Farmer Spreadsheet Academy to help farmers learn tools and tricks to be better farm managers. |
Thursday, February 16, 2023 | Stories from Fran McQuail Fran McQuail and her husband, Tony, have run a small diversified certified organic farm ( Meeting Place Organic Farm) near Lucknow, Ontario for 40 years. The farm evolved over the years from a small homestead style livestock operation to a commercial enterprise but with a wide diversity of livestock. After turning the business over to their daughter Katrina, they still live on the farm and continue to be actively involved with it. Fran and Tony took the Holistic Management course in 1995 and identified their weak areas of management which they then used HM to address. One of the areas was financial management. They adopted the HM financial planning model and credit it with improving their financial performance the very next year. Another HM practice that helped was HM planned rotational grazing. This experience and other benefits that HM decision making made in their quality of life over the next few years made them decide to take the HM educator training to be able to share it with others. They team taught HM for over twenty years. Fran has also been on the Board of the Ecological Farmers of Ontario. She enjoys weaving and gardening in her spare time. |
Thursday, February 23, 2023 | Stories from Paul Slomp Grazing Days is owned and operated by Paul Slomp and Josée Cyr-Charlebois. Paul has loved working with cattle and soils since his early days on his family’s farm first in the Netherlands, and then in Rimbey, Alberta. His love mathematics and science led him to study civil engineering. The diverse puzzles found on ecological farms brought him to work with diverse smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and later in the local food sovereignty movement back in Canada. When he isn’t with the herd moving fences or engineering a new winch system for feeding whey to the pigs, you can find Paul planning new play structures with two very excited young farm kids. |