The Training Process

Michael Cowan, an organic landscaper and arborist, was the Good Fruit trainer. He provided participants with a thorough and engaging hands-on set of workshops on organic fruit tree care and maintenance. His role included building a relationship with each community, conducting a walk-about and sites assessment with each one, and developing and presenting a workshop series with topics and information deemed necessary for communities to know in their role as fruit tree caretakers. He is an enthusiastic speaker who answered all questions thoroughly and remained open to providing advice and questions outside of workshops. He is extremely knowledgeable and GFNG is grateful for his enthusiastic participation.

Michael Cowan, our Good Fruit Trainer, at a workshop at Tsartlip. Over the course of the project, Michael presented 5 workshops. Each workshop was presented twice, once to the Victoria community groups and once to the Tsartlip 1st Nation, due to greater geographic proximity of the Victoria groups and widespread lack of transportation in the Tsartlip community. The workshops were received favourably by those who attended. The Tsartlip community filmed and edited demonstrations by Michael on proper fruit tree planting and has made an excellent short DVD on this topic available to all communities.