Schedule change! Our Next Meeting: Tue Feb 9, 6:30-8:00, Ecumenical Church

We've been meeting pretty consistently every other week for the last few months, and it's great to feel our group settling in to this rhythm.

To keep this rhythm going, we'll continue meeting every other week at the Ecumenical Church as long as this continues to work for us - but we're going to tweak our schedule a tiny bit.

First, starting in February we're going to meet on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month, rather than the 1st and 3rd. Hopefully this will stop the overlap with Vegetarian Society potlucks, Slow Money and other events.

Second, we're going to start the meeting at 6:30 instead of 6:00.
This will hopefully make it easier for people to have time after work to grab dinner, check in at home, etc. before the meeting. And - it will compel us to start getting more efficient with our time. :)

See you on Tuesday, February 9th at 6:30!

:)

J

We're looking more official - new website and outreach materials

Thanks to Jen Zarnoch, Carlan Wray, Corey Wright, Gary Koch and the Consumer Members Working Group, we've got some great new resources for reaching out to the Ellensburg community.

1. We've got a new website.
Ellensburgfoodcoop.org, is in the process of becoming our new virtual "home base", where we'll be able to share information in a much more organized fashion than with this blog. We can work together to build out the content for its pages.

2. We have new local contact information.
Our phone number is 509-210-7417, and our email address is info@ellensburgfoodcoop.org. For now, both the number and the email forward to me so I can respond directly to inquiries about our work.

3. We have outreach materials.
For now, we want to keep our materials as simple and clean as possible because we while our informal identity is definitely growing, we are a ways off from creating our brand - so no logos, no complex color palettes, no tag line.

Big thanks to all the people who had a hand in creating the copy and light design for our:

website:

postcards:

and flyer:

...and super-big thanks to the folks who are printing these materials - they're committing time and resources, and we'd be lost without them.

:)

J

Great potluck! Next organizing meeting is TUESDAY.

The potluck was fantastic - so many people showed, we ran out of chairs. There were several new faces as well, which was exciting to see.

Thanks to everyone who came; it was really inspiring to see the energy for our co-op project continuing to grow.

And special thanks to:
-Dean DeCrease and Raw Space, for the donated venue, and
-Cloudview Eco Farm for the potatoes and garlic


Now, it's time to start moving forward again.
Our next organizing meeting is scheduled for
NEXT TUESDAY, January 19, 6:00 - 8:00pm, at the Ecumenical Church
400 N Anderson, 1/2 block behind Safeway

A couple suggestions for ground we could cover:


1. Make any final small revisions to the Community Survey, and collectively sign off on it so we can move on to creating a distribution strategy and preparing for the e3 Winter Fair.

Hopefully, we can get the near-final version of the survey out in time for you to review it before the meeting...stay tuned.


and

2. Starting a timeline of action steps for getting us from here...................................to open for business!

If you can make time, consider doing a little preparatory research for this meeting so we'll be even more effective. Some suggested resources:

-review the notes from our Nov 17 meeting, where we brainstormed on different activities for each working group. The notes are posted to the blog (click here for a direct link)

-Go deeper on a particular topic or focus area by reading a relevant section of CGIN's "How to Start a Food Co-op"

 

-read this interesting report on indicators of success for rural food co-op startups

-dig into other information resources for topics of interest, related to our project, such as:

Cooperative Grocer, a great online publication - here's a link to their Index of Topics

Thanks all - looking forward to seeing you on Tue!

REMINDER: co-op Potluck TONIGHT.

Looking forward to seeing everyone tonight...

Co-op Potluck
6:00 - 8:00pm
at Raw Space, 119 Fourth Ave

-we'll each buy our own drinks from Bertine's next door. If you haven't been there yet, they have amazing coffee, teas, beer and wine.

-If you can, please bring a dish to share (and don't forget the serving utensils)

If your last name begins with: Please bring:
A - H...........................................................Main Dish
I - P.............................................................Salad or Side
Q - T............................................................Bread&Cheese or Chip&Dip
U - Z.............................................................Dessert

Jan 12th event at Raw Space: it's a POTLUCK!

Just figured out some of the details with Dean today, and here's how our little party will go down:

Tuesday, January 12th
6:00 - 8:00pm
at Raw Space, 119 Fourth Ave

-we'll each buy our own drinks from Bertine's next door. If you haven't been there yet, they have amazing coffee, teas, beer and wine.

-It will be a potluck! So, if you can, please bring a dish to share (and don't forget the serving utensils)

If your last name begins with: Please bring:
A - H...........................................................Main Dish
I - P.............................................................Salad or Side
Q - T............................................................Bread&Cheese or Chip&Dip
U - Z.............................................................Dessert

Please invite anyone you know who might be interested in learning about the co-op project - we always want to make new friends, and Raw Space has plenty of room. :)

See you soon~

Let's reconnect! Jan 12 get-together at Raw Space, 6pm

Hi everyone - happy 2010!

At our last organizing meeting back in December (almost a month ago!), we decided the best way to reconnect in the New Year would be to take a break from our work and have some fun.

SO....let's get together with some great food, celebrate our accomplishments thus far, and get to know each other better.

Get-together for Friends and Organizers of...A Food Co-op for Ellensburg
-everyone welcome-
Tuesday, January 12
6:00 - 8:00pm
@ Raw Space, 119 E Fourth Ave

Friend, foodie and entrepreneur extraordinaire Dean DeCrease is donating Raw Space to us, so be sure to thank him in some way next time you see him...or next time you visit Bertine's for the BEST coffee in town. :)

We'd like everyone to contribute in some way, but we're still working out the details so please stay tuned. We'll send another message out later this week to tell you what to bring. Regardless, be sure to put on your party face!

Cheers,

Jessie