The next meting will be on Jan. 29th, at which time we will place orders, among other things. The orders will go in Feb.1st and be delivered Feb. 8th.
We have a new member, Ann Edwards. She can’t make meetings, but she can do deliveries.
Adaline has been checking on where to open an account for Organic Buddies. BankOne will give us free checking, etc. for the first year only. She’s still checking on Superior Credit Union.
Adaline reports that she can’t get hold of the organic farmer in Bluffton. Another organic farmer, Jay, is interested in working with us and would like to speak to us. Also a farmer in Adaline’s area may want to speak to us.
Adaline would like to have speakers at each meeting of our group to give talks for 15 minutes or so.
Adaline sent out a mailing and emails to UU church members. Rae Neal and Alan Diorio indicated that they’re interested but are way too busy right now. Connie Hornung indicated she would like to join.
United Foods says "Organic Buddies Buying Club" is too long for their computers, so we took a vote to re-name ourselves just "Organic Buddies".
Adaline is still looking into what we need to do to let people use food stamps.
We will eventually need a constitution and by-laws.
Old business–We were to be thinking about under what circumstances would we kick someone out. After some discussion, we decided we would kick someone out for blatantly breaking the rules, so we should have a set of written rules first. So we should write up the constitution and by-laws, and have the "kicking out" be part of the constitution, perhaps the last part. Ann and Adaline will bring constitutions of other food co-ops to the next meeting, and that will be THE topic of discussion.
So the topic of the next meeting will be "Come Help Us Establish the Rules", and the speaker will be Jay. We will be able to order from United and Frontier. Each of us will get a new catalog from United every month. We will get things from United’s Iowa warehouse. [Note the warehouse origin in the catalog. Some of United’s products are only available from one of their warehouses.] The $25 membership fee is due at the next meeting.
February’s meeting will be on the 26th.
Adaline would like to have a room upstairs for a mini-store, not open to the public, where we could sell our overflow to church members. After some discussion, this seemed to be a little complicated, and the idea of a mini-store was tabled. The request for a room upstairs, however, is good. MD and I volunteered to represent Organic Buddies at the UU Church’s next Executive Committee meeting tomorrow and put in the request, since Adaline has to work Sunday. We were to present the idea of a mini-store and meeting room and ask about restrictions. (Can we put up posters? Can we put nails in the walls?) Organic Buddies will move out the stuff that’s in there, and paint the walls and fix it up.
I did present the idea to the UU Church’s Executive Committee, and it was decided that Organic Buddies can have that room. The church doesn’t foresee any need for that room, but if they were to need it, they would want to be able to. They would also want to give us plenty of notice that they will need it. So every year they will take a vote to allow us to continue to use the room. If they decide at some point that they need the room, we get to use it until the end of the church year, and they would vote "no" at that time. [Knowing our church, this is a very remote possibility. Their first thought was, Sure. Why not? We won’t be needing it!] No nails, because the walls are old lathe-and-plaster. Posters are fine. Any paint is fine. [I think we should use latex, though, for easier clean-up, and let’s not be too garish.] We can use the room for meetings, or a mini-store, or any other needs. Don questions whether we want to have a mini-store for church members. Wouldn’t we rather they join Organic Buddies? But if we want a mini-store, that’s fine.
Adaline will ask for free (or at least reduced price) mismatched paint at home improvement centers. Also she put a request for equipment we might need (cash register, scale, etc.) on a website called freecycle.org. It’s a website on which people trade and give away things. Ask Adaline if you want to know more about it.
Adaline says there’s a round table discussion group at OSU on the first and third Tuesdays of each month with open discussion of issues like the No Child Left Behind Act. She will find out the building and room number and time for anyone who is interested.
Respectfully submitted,
Barbara Wilson
[words in brackets are my own]