VVOC.org

Today we met up for a relaxed and delicious lunch at John’s.

Some photos of the yummy fare on offer…

Lunch at Johns….
Gazpacho
Slow Cooker Vegetable Stew
Yellow Split Peas
Cauliflower with Ginger

No doubt the recipe names were far more interesting but I forgot to ask our host! After lots of laughs and with full tummies we attended to some business…

Business
(1) Recent postings – thank you to all for keeping up with monthly postings. Looking forward to Melissa publishing her list of bobby calf friendly dairy farms.
(2) Future dates : 13 April – picnic, 8 June – Sunnybank, 10 August – Wynnum, 12 October – Mu’ooz Moorooka, 14th December – Christmas get together TBA.

Thank you again John for the wonderful food.

Thank you to Melissa and Jacki for hosting today’s get together of VVOC. We enjoyed a lovely warm lunch of Chickpea ‘cutlets’, which we renamed Chickpea Crushlets after the structure didn’t quite live up to expectations – however this in no way impacted on the flavour, Corn and Black-eye pea stew from Kenya, Roast Vegetables and Spinach, and Crispy Roast Potatoes. Dessert was a real treat…….Cherry Cake and Chocolate Mousse! (A special thank you from the birthday girl:-)

1. Thank you to all members for their recent contributions as discussed at our previous meeting. We now have regular postings on the site.

2. A reminder that some postings need a link created in their particular section, e.g. recipes and restaurant reviews need a link created in the ‘About’ tab. Helen to email details of how to do this, as well as how to create Urbanspoon links.

3. Twitter…We discussed the idea of opening a Twitter account for vvoc.org to promote our blog postings. All agreed with the proviso that the account be named vvoc.org and none of our names/details included.

4. Today we also took the opportunity to watch a film together. Previously, Jacki and Melissa had gone to hear a presentation by Sam Childers, founder of Angels of East Africa, when he came to Brisbane. The film titled ‘Machine Gun Preacher’, is the story of his journey. Angels of East Africa is the name of the children’s village Sam founded in Sudan. The film was emotional and moving and highlighted in no uncertain terms the plight of the people of Southern Sudan and the terrors they live with daily under the force of the LRA.

Thank you to John who kindly hosted today’s get together. We were treated to a wonderful lunch including a Tomato Soup with Avocado Salsa for starters with olives and bread, a warm Lentil and Onion dish with sides of Cucumbers dressed in mint, Roasted Capsicum and generous bowls of hummus. All this was followed by Dates with Tahini rolled in Almond Meal. Thank you John!

Minutes

1. Our first agenda item was a thank you to John for his continued efforts with restaurant review postings.
2. Then, an apology for the lack of other content going up!
3. Finally we spent some time reviewing categories each of us would post about on a more regular basis.
So far we have the following…..
John – Restaurant reviews
Jacki – Highlighting Orthodox missionary work
Melissa – Recipes
Helen – Saint feast days
Vasilios – Vege or Orthodox based art and site maintenence
Anastasia – Campaigns and other Orthodox material
Jason – Vegan and vegetarian orthodox saints

The goal is to have each of us posting at least once a month, which should see something new on the site every week. We also hope to create a balance in the content between vegan/vegetarian material and Orthodox material.

All in all, it was a wonderful afternoon with warming food shared amongst friends.

Today’s meeting was hosted by John.  We shared a lovely lunch of Winter Soup and some hearty dips with bread including home made hommus and carrot dip, followed by some fresh fruit.

1. Helen has successfully set up some new links with other vegetarian groups and will continue to look for more.

2. We talked about our current members Jacki andMelissa who are overseas and congratulate them on the good work they did while in Africa. We look forward to seeing them home again safely. We hope to hear about how Jacki and Melissa catered for their vegetarian diets both while on the ship and while travelling.

3. Tasks from previous meeting to be carried over includes updating WordPress, tidying up graphics and collating information about online traffic.

4. Next meeting will be the 1st of october 2011 at Vasilios and Helen’s house.

Mung Bean Fettucine

Thank you to Melissa, who kindly hosted today’s meeting.  Melissa is very talented in the kitchen and prepared a wonderful lunch for us consisting of an Arabian salad (a warm salad of chick peas, spinach, onion, cumin and garlic), dolmades (vine leaves stuffed with rics and herbs), and mung bean fettucine topped with roasted vegetable and tomato sauce.  The mung bean pasta was a relatively new discovery by Melissa and has a lovely texture and a light flavour, a great alternative for those who are gluten intolerant.  The pasta also has a nice appearance (see picture to the right) and looks similar to spinach fettucine.  The piece de resistance was most definately the dessert.  We all sat and watched in awe as Melissa whipped up an apple pie in front of our eyes, vegan, gluten and sugar free to boot!  As we talked over our agenda for the month we could smell the wonderful aroma of the pie being freshly baked.  If only I had taken a camera, it was definately photo worthy!  Oh well, I guess we will just have to get Melissa to make another one in the very near future.

Minutes

1.  Jacki has reported that she is unable to use Skype whilst on the Mercy Ship, so couldn’t participate in today’s meeting.  Melissa and Jacki will both be away for our next meeting – having a lovely break off the coast of Sweeden!  Melissa is looking into setting themselves up so they can participate in out next meeting – our group will be having a simultaneous vege meal in two locations, one having lunch in Sweeden, the other dinner in Brisbane.

2. Our Holy Week trip for 2012 would coincide with work commitments for both Helen and Melissa.  Helen to look into possible leave.

3. Melissa raised that she has become aware of a petition to lobby for the ban on the live export of meat.  Helen to upload this in the news section.

4. Vasilios has decided he would still like to pursue the campaign – “Breaking Eggs With Compassion” for 2012.

5. Vasilios reported that the site is due for some maintenance and upgrades to WordPress.

6. Vasilios has agreed to look into the cost of placing a google ad to increase our traffic.

7. Helen to check that a reciprocal link has been placed for the Vegan/Vegetarian Society of Queensland, and also to continue pursuing other connections.

8. John to research the cost of placing a classified in a publication he subscribes to, “The Vegan.”

9. Items for our next meeting: Vasilios to report on statistics and cost breakdown of google ads. Melissa and Jacki are to report on all the wonderful vege cuisine they have been sampling on their trip- lucky ducks:-)

Thank you to John, who hosted our meeting today and provided a scrumptious lunch.  We shared some delicately flavoured lentils served with bread and salads, one of green beans and one of  cucumber dressed with coconut milk. Lovely, thank you John.

Topics discussed:

(1) We talked about our local Indian restaurants and all agreed that it would be good for each of us to post reviews of these.

(2) Helen raised that there was recent talk that Oprah had challenged her staff to be vegan for a week!  Helen to put up a brief post about this.

(3) Discussed the idea of a VVOC excursion to Melbourne to participate in Holy Week in English at the Good Shepard Australian Orthodox Mission which is based at Monash University. Helen to look into this and gather some info for the group.

(4) Melissa kindly offered to host the next VVOC meeting.

(5) Our August meeting will hopefully be a Skype talk or online chat to include Melissa and Jacki, who will both be working on the Mercy Ship in Africa.

Members Present: Jacki, Melissa, John, Vasilios and Helen

Location: Fundies Whole Foods Cafe Paddington QLD
               219 Given Terrace, Paddington QLD 4064

Today we met for a lovely lunch at Fundies Whole Food Cafe.  Topics discussed were:

1. Helen reported on the progress made so far to increase traffic to our site by organising links on other related websites.  So far three applications have been put in to the following sites: The Vegetarian/Vegan Society of Queensland, The Australian Vegetarian Society and The Australian Vegetarian and Vegan Resource Group.

2. Discussion around developing a campaign of our own for Easter.  The idea would be to encourage Orthodox people who dye eggs red for Easter to use free range eggs.  Idea for the name of the campaign – at this stage would be ‘Breaking Eggs With Compassion.’  Vasilios and Helen are to work on a PDF poster to circulate to parishes and also put on the website.

3. Discussion about becoming a non-profit group.  All agreed to see how the campaigns go and then look into it as this may have other implications too in terms of raising funds which could be done through making the t-shirts and bags or also through donations.  Becoming a non-profit group would give us credibility as well.

4.  Vasilios brought along our website statistics for 2010. In summary, the top three countires generating traffic include Australia, the US and China.  We are averaging 150 unique visitors per month.  Our goal is to double this number over the next twelve months. Vasilios to keep an eye on stats for us and Helen to continue to set up connections/links out of related websites (with reciprocating links on our site.)

5.  Meeting dates for 2011

• 5th of February 2011
• 9th of April 2011
• 4th of June 2011
• 6th of August 2011
• 1st of October 2011
• 3rd of December 2011

Members Present: Jacki, John, Vasilios and Helen

Apologies: Melissa

Today we met at Helen and Vasilios’ place for lunch and a discussion about the film ‘Food Inc’.

1. We started off talking about ‘Food Inc’. For those who are unaware ‘Food Inc’ is a film about the underbelly of the US food production and supply chain.  All agreed there were some truly disturbing instances of where profit is clearly put ahead of people’s health, let alone animal welfare.  Being vegetarian and vegan never felt so good after watching this! For more information about the movie go to the offical website at: http://www.foodincmovie.com/index.php.

2. Afterwards we shared a leisurely lunch including chickpea patties (cooked by Jackie), chickpea roast (cooked by Helen) and salad, olives and chargrilled veges.  John brought along some lovely sweet date and sesame balls to go with fruit for dessert.

Members Present: Jacki, Melissa, John, Vasilios and Helen

Today, we met up at Gopal’s Pure Vegeatarian Restaurant, Sherwood.  Whilst surveying the large array of meals on offer we met up with two fellow Orthodox Christians, subsequently discovering they were also vegetarian!  We were very happy to have Emmanuel and Tamara join us for our take-away picnic at Sherwood Arboretum.

1. We enjoyed a lovely lunch at the arboretum.  It was a beautiful Brisbane winter’s day.

2. Helen brought along some ‘not too tricky’ famous vegetarian trivia questions, which, of course the group blitzed. We also enjoyed a game of Bocce, despite some questionable tactics by some group members!

3. We discussed the possibility of looking into the logistics of travelling to Melbourne to participate in an all EnglishHoly Week and Pascha. (Possibly in two years time)

4. We also discussed the possibility of attending Pascha at the Antiochian parish in Caboolture.

5. A reminder for Helen to post the photos of our t-shirt and bag.  John received a compliment  today for our ‘Want To Save The Planet’ t-shirt.

6. Vasilios is to send a reminder to Melissa about her logon details.

7.  Melissa and Jacki have been using Quinoa in place of cous cous with success.  Melissa is going to post their recipe for Quinoa.

8. Vasilios is going to source copies of ‘Food Inc’ and ‘The Corporation’.

9. Our next meeting will be held at Vasilios’ and Helen’s place with a pot luck lunch and a viewing of ‘Food Inc’.

Members present:

Jacki, Melissa, John, Vasilios and Helen

1. We enjoyed a beautiful lunch prepared by John – Thank You! Dishes included Gazpacho soup; guacamole; carrot dip; tahini dip; chick peas and spinach with potatoes and red onions; green beans with tomatoes, onions and zucchini in olive oil.

2. Thank you to John for all your restaurant reviews.

3. Thank you to Jacki for her latest campaign and the article from Father Themi.

4. Raised the idea of starting another resource section to contain books. This may include reviews or lists of Orthodox books, Vegan/Vegetarian books and children’s stories about animals rights etc.

5. Must follow up on t-shirt and bag photos for website. Need to also follow up on link to Dewey’s website as Jacki has reported that it had disappeared.

6. Discussed pet profiles. Need to create a separate page for this content. Perhaps to include content around the therapeutic nature of pets in people’s lives.

7. Discussion around animals and spirit. Vasilios presented the idea that animals have a spirit which is more of a fringe Orthodox idea. John presented the idea that animals don’t have a spirit in the same way as humans, which is the more traditional Orthodox view.

7. Planning a picnic for our next meeting – Sherwood Arboretum. Emails and updates regarding this to go on website soon.