New Board Member Positions are Open!

Want to get more involved with the oven? Consider serving as a board member!

Our current board members include:

• Outgoing Co-chair/Facilitator – Eleanora Ebata
• Member at Large – Caroline Beddoe
• Member at Large – Brennan Fitzgerald
• Outgoing Treasurer – Shobhit Wadwha
• Working with our Executive Director, Duncan Ebata.

 Join the Board

The Wolfville Front Street Oven Society is inviting expressions of interest to join our Board of Directors. Founded in 2019, the Wolfville Front Street Oven Society is a not-for-profit social enterprise that operates a wood-fired community oven in Robie Tufts Nature Park in Downtown Wolfville. With a mission to re-imagine how we connect to each other and the land, the Front Street Oven hosts free  co-cooking programming where people of all backgrounds connect over the shared activity of cooking and eating together over fire – in a safe, welcoming, intentionally facilitated space. Connecting to each other and the land in this way allows us to address complex social issues in a nourishing and transformative way – notably food security, preventative health, mental health and isolation, diversity and anti-racism, belonging and community engagement, and people finding what they need and offering what they can in deep connection.

Through facilitating safer spaces where people connect over shared activities, our hosted spaces  address an increasingly keen need and are designed to:

• Reduce isolation & loneliness and improve overall mental health and wellbeing
• Build and transform relationships
• Create a culture shift towards peace and unity, celebrating diversity, creating experiential learning spaces, and in turn reducing discrimination and racism and supporting reconciliation;
• Reduce marginalization and shift inequalities, especially for people affected by poverty, food insecurity, racism, and gender-based stigma
• Provide access to local, healthy, culturally diverse food in a dignified way
• Create a thriving, well-connected, welcoming community

The Oven is a community hub for physical and emotional nourishment, centered around the

unifying and universal concept of baking and breaking bread together.

At the Front Street Community Oven, community members always find a warm meal, an opportunity to connect, and a place to belong. Together, we create a thriving, welcoming community.

We’re on track to host over 6000 people to to cook, eat, share stories, and connect this year.

Our Calling

In 2023, we did deep community engagement to understand how we were seeing what seemed like unbelievable impacts and ripple affects from our work, out of this came us naming our calling:

We are called to respond to the epidemic of loneliness, isolation, othering and injustice – to enable a world that has more cohesion and care, more healing and reconciliation, and more creativity in responding to the problems and potential of these times.

We believe that, if we create a gathering space with food, fire, land and an ever-deepening practice of radical welcome, then – like alchemy – a generous, generative community will emerge from that space, shaping a world that is more inclusive, caring and just.

We co-create this generative field of community together with a vibrant ecology of “careholders” – volunteers and staff, new and old friends who join us at the Oven, funders and partners, Indigenous neighbours, and the land itself. We invite you to read the full Cooking Up Community: Understanding the Magic of the Front St Community Oven here

About the Board

The roles and responsibilities of all board members include attending in-person or virtual monthly board meetings, with participation in board subcommittees as required. We desire a 1-year commitment from Board members, with an expectation of 5-10 hours of time per month (inclusive of meeting times), depending on ongoing projects and specific tasks. positions. As a member of the Board, a Director acts in a position of trust and is responsible for the effective governance and financial affairs of the organization. We warmly welcome your passions, ideas, diverse perspectives, & thoughtfulness to our Board.

We are recruiting for the following board positions:

• Co-Chairs
  
• Treasurer
  
• Fundraising & Sponsorship
• Community Impact & Inclusion
• Member-at-Large

Please see the images on this page for more detail on each position.

The oven was conceived as a place for community to come together to cook and share food. We are governed by four defining values: Community, Inclusion & Diversity, Accountability, and Lifelong Learning.

Our board uses a Dynamic Governance model to facilitate meetings. Dynamic governance is a system of governance which seeks to create harmonious social environments and productive organizations. It is distinguished by the use of consent, rather than majority voting, in decision-making.

A board member is expected to be committed for one full year, starting as soon as possible. If you are interested in one of the above positions, please don’t hesitate to reach out and send your letter of intent expressing your skills, interests and what you seek to bring to the oven to board@frontstreetoven.ca. Please include any relevant experience and a description of why you would like to volunteer with us. We are pleased to talk with you!

Contact frontstreetoven@gmail.com with any additional questions.