Food Co-oping

[jaqeboy]

I met the delightful founder of INJOY Organics, Carolyn Kelley, at the A Market store in Manchester on Saturday after the MVP meeting. She has a line of high quality foods, beverages and supplements with healthy alternatives to regular salt and sugar. Her operation is in Northfield, N.H. and she's very willing to have the co-op purchase from her. Maybe we could even have her in at some point for demonstrations of her products!

[jaqeboy]

We may move the meeting to Wednesday night, 22April, due to one key member's schedule. Gotta find out if Jim has an open spot that night.

Be sure to write to co-op@AltExpo.org if you want to be added to the invitation list and, after I can confirm the date, we'll send out a first brief invitation. Be sure to make your suggestions, requests, ideas, etc. to the comments section of this page: http://altexpo.org/co-op

[jaqeboy]

OK, there's a  new way to get onto the invitation list. We've created a google group:     http://groups.google.com/group/new-co-op

email announcements will go out from there.

PS: anyone have objections to the use of Google groups? If there are objections, we can do something else - I'm not stuck on them.

[jaqeboy]

OK, I've got 2 nays so far for Google, 

[jaqeboy]

The official invitation email went out last night. The meeting is on for Wednesday night, 6:30 at Liberty Books. We're suggesting people bring snacks, beverages, a box of tea, etc. so we can all munch out and get through the meeting and leave excess tea behind for the next meeting.

It's not too late to get the invitations. Just write to co-op@AltExpo.org and we'll send it out to youl

[jaqeboy]

ugh, apparently there was an email problem and some did not get the invitations, so they went out a second time about an hour ago.

The meeting is on, the response seems pretty good so far. I'll send out an early FAQ tonight along with a proposed agenda late tonight. The FAQ's should go onto the temporary site, as well: http://altexpo.org/co-op.

[jaqeboy]

We had a great meeting earlier tonight with 8 organizers in attendance. We selected a temporary meeting facilitator (pending establishment of by-laws), meeting secretary, membership secretary, United Natural Foods co-ordinator and "computer guy". We anticipate we'll also need a treasurer, a supplier coordinator and an education/programs coordinator.

We resolved to meet again next Wednesday night to continue the organizing process. April 29th, Liberty Books, 6:30 PM. Other details on the temp. site: http://altexpo.org/co-op

[jaqeboy]

Last night, the new membership secretary got set up with email that'll forward to him, so if you want to be added to the "invitation/announcement" list now, please write to him at co-opmemsec@AltExpo.org.

We haven't set up membership and by-laws, etc. yet, so there is no official membership, just the list that the invitations/announcements go to.

[Scott Roth]

Sorry I couldn't make it.  Spent some time at the hospital.  Not as much fun...trust me!

[jaqeboy]

Sorry I couldn't make it.  Spent some time at the hospital.  Not as much fun...trust me!

Yikes! You okay?

Just you wait, we'll include health services in the co-op when we hit 1000 members!

[Raineyrocks]

Sorry I couldn't make it.  Spent some time at the hospital.  Not as much fun...trust me!

Wow, what happened?  I hope your okay too!

[jaqeboy]

Oops, got busy and forgot to announce that we were having another organizers' meeting earlier (Wed. evening).

We had some bad news on a policy change by UNFI, but we also explored the other possible suppliers. We're still looking for someone to help with organizing the info on all the possible local suppliers (farms, etc.)

Ran over the possibilities for how all this information would be shown on our site for our members and how we'd handle member ordering from the various sources.

We also batted around ideas for a name for our co-operative venture. We are not going to stay on our Wednesday night track for meetings. We have to wait for a key member's new work schedule before scheduling our next meeting, so if you want to be on the list to receive the announcement of the next meeting, write to us at co-op@AltExpo.org.

[jaqeboy]

Another organizational meeting of the [no name yet] co-op is planned for Sunday, July 12th at Liberty Books in Concord.

We decided to wait on hooking up with United Natural Foods because of an onerous new policy from them and instead, start out with Frontier Foods. We'll be gathering up order items to place with them.

Frontier is so much easier to get along with and eager to have relations with local co-ops, being a co-op themselves. They have a free membership, a smaller order minimum and a couple of other things that Michelle is on top of (she's the Frontier co-ordinator).

Details to be posted at http://altexpo.org/co-op.

[jaqeboy]

OK, we're re-starting the co-op!

Organizing meeting

Saturday
2 October 2010
2-4 PM

Liberty Books
75 Allison Street
Concord
tel: 223-0335

We have lots of new interest. We've passed around signup sheets at a buncha different meetings and we're calling everyone together. Don't worry if you can't make this meeting because I'm sure we won't have all issues settled at one sitting.

Where we stand:
For a name: "the Shire Co-op" is getting a favorable nod from most - short and sweet. We'd end up with a web address of shire.coop
First suppliers: We are considering Frontier Foods and Associated Buyers and will choose which one we'll go with first and probably place the first orders at the next meeting.
Our goal and mission: Come help us outline that - we've got a lot of ideas that are not yet committed to writing.
temp. web site: http://AltExpo.org/co-op

[jaqeboy]

A little FB group related to the co-op idea: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Associated-Buyers/105650582809192?ref=ts