We discussed the mission and vision of the co-op, potential locations, and also breaking into committees to work on the various start-up tasks, including business, finance, and membership.
Below is summary of the meeting from Christine Nugent:
We had the first Steering Committee Meeting last night and I really feel like it went great! We are always looking for volunteers and encourage everyone to give what time and talents they can. This is a community project and will be solely owned by its members, so it is a wonderful opportunity to be a part of something very special and a way to take ownership of the project from the very beginning.
I talked about an exciting pilot program that is happening in our city through Houston Department of Health and Human Services. I learned about this program at a Houston Tomorrow Meeting on Houston Food Policy Workgroup. I would HIGHLY recommend looking at attending some of these meetings to learn about all the new exciting things happening in Houston with the local food movement. So, the pilot program, is to integrate Lonestar/EBT at HDHHS Farmer's Markets in Houston. The farmer's markets are Sunnyside MSC (4650 Wilmington; meets 1st Thursday of every month) Lyons Clinic (5602 Lyons Ave.; meets 2nd Tuesday of every month) Magnolia MSC (7037 Capitol St.; meets 4th Friday of every month). Additionally, something called Farm Bucks will be introduced by the non-profit Wholesome Wave with the expectation that the city will get on board and take over the program. Farm Bucks double the value of EBT benefits for recipients when they choose to use them for fresh local food, thus providing a simultaneous benefit to Houstonians in need of food assistance and local farmers. This is something I am looking into and whether Farm Bucks can be used at the co-op for those purchasing local produce, meats, etc. If the answer is "yes", then in my opinion that is a huge boost to the viability of the co-op in our area.
Susan Green is writing a "Vision" for our co-op based on the discussions we had at the Steering Committee Meeting. As I mentioned in a previous email, there will be 3 sub-committees; planning, finance and community outreach. I encourage you to look at the files I am including in this email and see if your talents or interests correspond to one or more of the committees. We have tentatively planned a second Steering Committee Meeting for March 7th at 6:30 pm at Mandola's in Eastwood. I have a meeting tomorrow morning with the president of The Greater East End Management District, Diane Schenke and the Director of Planning, Patrick Ezzell. This meeting will include information about possible buildings for the co-op and feasibility of the co-op in our community. If we were to do our own feasibility study, it would cost a minimum of $10,000. So, having the information from the GEEMD that they have already done, is a huge savings. Once we have this information, I want to have a planning committee meeting next week because it is really important that we come up with a business plan and a more concrete plan for the co-op so the finance committee can start looking at grants and funding and so the membership/community outreach committee can start looking at campaigns to recruit members. If anyone is interested in attending the meeting friday with the GEEMD, please send me an email.
Another topic that was discussed was a name for the co-op. I came up with East End Food Cooperative Grocery Store or just simply East End Food Co-op, because it was simple, to the point and I wanted people to know exactly what we were trying to implement. However, I am very open to the idea of giving the co-op a unique name, so I am also including a file with names that were given to us by a marketing specialist. We are very lucky to have been given these names for free, so I want to at least look at them and get some feedback. The overwhelming opinion of those at the Steering Committee Meeting last night was to keep East End Food Co-op because there is a lot of pride in having something so unique and special in the East End. Please give some feedback and let us know what you think, either through FB or just send an email.
We also have a blog being started about the co-op. I apologize, I cannot remember the name of the woman who agreed to write the blog, but she is already a blog writer so I'm very excited she has taken on this project! Also, we need someone who knows about developing webpages and is willing to volunteer time to develop one for our co-op. If you are interested in volunteering for this, please send me an email.
Last item, I think it is important to make ourselves aware of all the unique projects, organizations and businesses that are promoting local foods in Houston. I would like to compile a list of all of these because I think we should support them and look for their help and mentoring opportunities for our co-op. The more we reach out to these, the better for our co-op. Please send me any information on local foods projects, organizations and businesses that you know of in Houston. On this note, I have a bike ride planned for this weekend to go visit the Last Organic Outpost farm and then to the new restaurant Local Foods in Rice Village. If you are interested in joining me, please let me know. It will be a leisurely ride and I am putting together a "safe" route. The great news is, Houston has VERY little traffic inside the loop on the weekends. Well, with the exception of a few areas, but we won't be in those areas.
No comments:
Post a Comment