REMINDER: Less than one week to go on our Rancho Vignola order!!

Posted on September 19, 2011 by David Parkinson

Hello again,

Don’t forget that the deadline for ordering nuts, dried fruits, and related products from Rancho Vignola is Monday September 26. If you are interested but have questions or concerns, please contact me soon rather than at the last minute.

Here are the basic facts:

  • Rancho Vignola makes their product list available only once per year, when the nuts and fruit are at their freshest;
  • The deadline for our order to go in is September 28;
  • They will ship to us in November;
  • We need to make a minimum order of $500;
  • Shipping is free;
  • Skookum will be adding 11.11% to each member’s order, so that of each dollar spent, 5¢ goes to the coordinator (that’s me), 2.5¢ to Skookum, and another 2.5¢ to the benefit of the community.

What you need to do:

  • Take a look at Rancho Vignola’s price list.
  • If you want more information on Rancho Vignola’s products, you can find a downloadable PDF here.
  • If you have questions, please contact David as soon as possible at skookum@skookumfood.ca.
  • Otherwise, print out the order form, mark the products you wish to order, and calculate the total price. Don’t forget to add 11.11% at the very end.
  • (If you prefer, you may simply email me with the list of products you want and a final tally. I’ll verify the total amount and get back to you.)
  • Get the order form and payment (cash or cheque only) to Kingfisher Books at 4468 Marine Ave. in Powell River no later than 12:00 noon on Monday September 26. No money means no order!
  • If we get enough people interested, we might be able to find a way to manage splits. For example, I would like to order some of their dried tart cherries, but I might not want the whole ten pounds. Maybe someone else would want to split that amount? Let me know if you’re interested in splitting items and we’ll see if we can deal with that. No promises, though, since time is tight.

Any questions? please get in touch with me ASAP at this email address.

Thanks!
David

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Skookum Needs Your Apples (and Help) at the Fall Fair

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Gianni

Skookum Cooperative needs local apples to press for the Fall Fair Skookum booth (Sept 24-25,2011). Learn how to press apples, make and sell cider!

Let us know if you can donate local apples (let us know how much and which day you can deliver them to the Fair(mornings only if you need to get a vehicle on the grounds) and we’ll press ‘em! It’s a fundraiser for Skookum Gleaners, y’all!

Help with the Skookum Fall Fair Table RAIN OR SHINE! Sign up for:

  • Saturday September 24 from 10:30 am-1 pm and/or 1 pm-5 pm

and/or 

  • Sunday Sept 25 11 am-1 pm and/or 1 am-5 pm
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Bulk ordering nuts, dried fruit, and more

Posted on September 12, 2011 by David Parkinson

Hello Skookum member!

Last year we tried to put together an order of nuts and dried fruit from Rancho Vignola, but didn’t have enough interest to make the minimum order of $500. We have more members this year, so here’s hoping that we can make this work.

Here are the basic facts:

  • Rancho Vignola makes their product list available only once per year, when the nuts and fruit are at their freshest;
  • The deadline for our order to go in is September 28;
  • They will ship to us in November;
  • We need to make a minimum order of $500;
  • Shipping is free;
  • Skookum will be adding 11.11% to each member’s order, so that of each dollar spent, 5¢ goes to the coordinator (that’s me), 2.5¢ to Skookum, and another 2.5¢ to the benefit of the community.

What you need to do:

  • Take a look at Rancho Vignola’s price list.
  • If you want more information on Rancho Vignola’s products, you can find a downloadable PDF here.
  • If you have questions, please contact David as soon as possible at skookum@skookumfood.ca.
  • Otherwise, print out the order form, mark the products you wish to order, and calculate the total price. Don’t forget to add 11.11% at the very end.
  • (If you prefer, you may simply email me with the list of products you want and a final tally. I’ll verify the total amount and get back to you.)
  • Get the order form and payment (cash or cheque only) to Kingfisher Books at 4468 Marine Ave. in Powell River no later than 12:00 noon on Monday September 26. No money means no order!
  • If we get enough people interested, we might be able to find a way to manage splits. For example, I would like to order some of their dried tart cherries, but I might not want the whole ten pounds. Maybe someone else would want to split that amount? Let me know if you’re interested in splitting items and we’ll see if we can deal with that. No promises, though, since time is tight.

Any questions? please get in touch with me ASAP at this email address.

Thanks!
David

Posted in bulk-food buying, Rancho Vignola | 1 Comment

Update from the Chair

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Gianni

The path bears fruit.

Hello members,

Here we are at the end of August already with the harvest upon us.  I thought it high time to share what has been happening over the last months at our fledgling co-operative.

The new board has met twice since the annual general meeting and will continue to do so once a month on the first Tuesday. The meetings are at once focused, informative, jovial and delicious as we go through each meetings agenda attending to the business of the co-op. About half way through each meeting we break to enjoy scrumptious potluck food to carry us through the rest of the evening. Members are welcome to attend these meetings (please contact  us to ensure enough seating), the minutes of which are posted on our website.

One of the new Skookum projects is the “Abundant Pantry Bulk Buying Club”. Wendy Pelton, the project coordinator, and Barry Bookout have been working hard to bring this into existence and I am thankful for their dedication. Their volunteered progress is very encouraging and appreciated as they build a solid framework with which we, as members, can engage in. Many hours have been spent setting up an on-line ordering system and engaging in meetings aimed at fitting the BBC into our community in a way which will enhance local businesses rather than compete with them. The on-line ordering system we’ll soon be able to test with a trial “guinea pig” run involving just a few people, the aim here being to iron out as many bugs as possible before inviting all Skookum members to begin filling their pantries. Once the trial run has happened and the system is ready to go I’ll keenly share the news.

There are some outstanding challenges to be resolved with regard to the BBC and I AM NOW APPEALING TO YOU, THE MEMBERSHIP FOR ASSISTANCE. Is there a member who is versed in accounting principles, or at least good with numbers, who would undertake overseeing the accounting for the BBC, and with whom Wendy can ask for advice on financial issues. Also, while negotiations for supply are ongoing, there might be a need to transport our order from the delivery site to our distribution site. Are there members with a van or truck who would undertake this task which initially would happen every two months. Please remember that the more we can do for ourselves the better off we’ll be.

Skookum Gleaners, formerly ‘The Fruit Tree Project’, is up and running again. There is a small and dedicated group of volunteers meeting every two weeks organizing and doing their best to overcome the many obstacles to making this a successful undertaking. My thanks to those folks for their ongoing efforts. Although this is again not a great fruit year, there are some places where fruit has set with abundance. If you see a fruit tree bearing fruit, please ask the owner if he or she knows about Skookum Gleaners and direct them here if they are interested (phone (604) 485-4366 or email gleaners@skookumfood.ca. Also, we have made an application to the City of Powell River’s ‘Grants In Aid’ program for funds towards this project and hopefully this application will bear fruit this year.

It’s harvest time, with ripening tomatoes, beans, peas, beets, potatoes, carrots and more. Much of this food needs to be stored for the winter either canned, pickled, or dried. Perhaps in a root cellar and certainly some form of pantry. Last year, there was a canning event and an apple pressing event which Skookum members were invited to attend. I would like to encourage any member with interest and willingness to share these skills to undertake an event while there is food to preserve. These events have always been enjoyable and provide participants with knowledge and nutrition while enhancing friendships. We, the board, are here to assist you in making your event a success. Please contact us with your ideas and let’s make it happen.

Remember that the Skookum cider press sits awaiting a call for use. Visit our project page for details at: http://blog.skookumfood.ca/our-projects/skookum-cider-press/.

The vitality of our co-op depends on you.  If you have ideas, projects, skills and knowledge to share, please do so.

I wish you abundance this harvest season.

Yours,
Pete Tebbutt
Chair, Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative

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Skookum’s New(ish) Board of Directors

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Gianni

Bursting with new energy and ideas!

Well, it’s been several weeks since Skookum’s most recent Annual General Meeting and it’s time we announce the directors of the of the Society for this year!

First, though, Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative owes a big thank-you to out-going directors Nola Poirier and Julie Thorne, for all their hard work and great ideas throughout the past year. Julie is continuing on as part of the steering committee for Skookum Gleaners, and on Transition Town Powell River, while Nola reigns as Spoken Word Director for CJMP: Powell River Community Radio and myriad other projects.

(l-r) Jan, Sharon, and Pete

Our new elected board members are:

The rest of the board elected on June 22, 2011,  is made up of returning directors David Parkinson (now Treasurer), Jonathan van Wiltenburg (returning as Vice-President), Jan Burnikell (returning as Secretary), Sharon Deane, and Giovanni Spezzacatena.

But let’s not forget that cooperatives are about the members. As always, we encourage all members to participate as project coordinators and as blazers on the local food trail any way you can. Propose a project, participate in our upcoming events, accept our open invitation to our monthly board meetings, help organize and fund-raise for Skookum, spread the word, etc. Keep reading this blog for the latest news and opportunities.

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Announcing our new bulk-buying club! We need YOUR input…

Posted on July 3, 2011 by David Parkinson

(This post brought to you by Wendy Pelton, the coordinator of Skookum’s soon-to-be-launched bulk-food buying project. Please read it carefully and help us out by responding to the online survey. We want your input!)

Great News! Thanks to Skookum, the opportunity to participate in a Bulk-food Buying Club (BBC) is returning to the Upper Sunshine Coast. Or, more accurately, it soon will be with your help.

What’s special about this new BBC? Ours may be a little more high-tech and easier to use than prior clubs, thanks to online ordering. Over time, this club will be able to directly connect its members with local farmers’ products online, making buying and selling locally easier than ever.

Why does Skookum want to organize a BBC? Well, through the availability of bulk food orders, we hope to increase people’s individual and household food security by encouraging and facilitating food storage.  We want good food to be more affordable to all.  We seek to increase the food independence of our local community by establishing our own systems of procurement and by increasing our involvement with local producers.  We anticipate bringing members together as a community, as we work together and celebrate together in the management of the BBC. Lastly, we believe a local BBC will provide economic support to our community through employment, increased local farm production, and contributions to local charities and other valuable community projects.

Why might you want to participate in a BBC? Well, when used regularly, a BBC makes organic and healthy food more affordable, encourages healthier eating, promotes cooking from scratch, and lets us spend our money more wisely. Regular use results in an automatically full pantry year round, which can prevent a minor panic at dinner time or a major panic during a strike or natural disaster. Vegetarians, vegans, non-dairy & gluten-free folks will thrill to the extensive choices available to them. A full pantry means fewer trips to town, less gasoline consumed, and cleaner air. What’s not to like?!?

We hope to begin ordering by the end of July. However, first, we need solutions to some important questions, which you can help us answer. We want this BBC designed to work best for you, our members, so we need to know:

  1. What do we call it?
  2. What should be our slogan?
  3. What should we use for a logo?
  4. Should we offer only organic items?
  5. Should we offer refrigerated or frozen foods?
  6. Should we offer non-food items?
  7. How often do we want to order?
  8. Whom do we want to use as suppliers?
  9. Who will volunteer to be on our steering committee?
  10. Who would like to be part of our advisory group?

Please help us race toward a launch, by first learning more about these issues on our webpage, then sharing your answers to these questions at our super-simple online survey.

Have ideas that didn’t fit on the survey? Please send them to me at wendy.pelton <at> shaw dot ca. I have a list of what I would like to have seen changed at my old food coop — maybe you have one, too, that could help us now.

Looking forward to re-building my own abundant pantry, alongside you,
Wendy

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Another year, another AGM

Posted on June 23, 2011 by David Parkinson

On June 22, 2011, Skookum held its second Annual General Meeting to report on the accomplishments of the past year, let members know where we stand financially, and elect a new board of directors.

Thank you to everyone who came out on a sunny summer evening, and special thanks to those who brought food and refreshments…

... like this delicious buttery bad boy, contributed by Jonathan van Wiltenburg: an authentic Dutch boterkoek. Yum!

Treasurer Sharon Deane presented the financial report, which showed that although we’re just over one year old, we’re doing pretty well so far. It is the board’s hope and expectation that our membership will help develop more ongoing sources of revenue for the cooperative, permitting us to take on larger projects and purchase common equipment. The first year was a solid foundation on which to build.

As you can see from the Report from the Directors, the year from June 2010 to June 2011 was a remarkably busy one: we took on management of Skookum Gleaners and ran a number of smaller projects; did some successful publicity and outreach into the community; raised a respectable amount of money; and signed up a good number of new members. The overall message is that we got a lot done, and that we can get a lot more done, but only with help from our membership. The board has been working on procedures for taking new projects from idea to plan to results, and we need members to start proposing ideas that they would be willing to spearhead — with board assistance, of course!

As outgoing President, I want to sincerely thank my fellow directors Jan Burnikell, Sharon Deane, Nola Poirier, Giovanni Spezzacatena, Julie Thorne, and Jonathan van Wiltenburg for their hard work and all the delicious food they have brought to our board meetings. This board has accomplished a huge amount and done some important work behind the scenes to define policies and procedures so that we can start to manage member-driven projects and ensure that they generate value for members, for project coordinators, for the broader community, and for Skookum. It has been a pleasure to meet with this group every month (and then some!) to do the hard work of defining goals, vision, values, and principles; and to take on the responsibility of being accountable to a membership of 84.

Julie and Nola decided to step down from the board to focus on other projects and we will miss them. However, we have two new board members: Jacqueline Huddleston and Pete Tebbutt. We’ll post something soon to introduce these new directors to the membership.

The new board of directors will meet shortly to determine which directors will hold which offices (President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary); as a result of the term limits which our Rules impose, Sharon Deane will step down from the office of Treasurer and I (David Parkinson) will step down from the office of President, as both of us have held those respective offices since our incorporation (two terms, which is the limit for a director to hold a particular office).

After we got through the election of the new board, we had a roundtable conversation about two Skookum projects; one in its second year and another very much in the planning stages. First, Giovanni Spezzacatena talked a bit about Skookum Gleaners, formerly the Powell River Fruit Tree Project, and what went on last year. Gleaners volunteer Gayle Morton talked about some of the exciting plans for this year. The fruit-picking season will soon be upon us, so the Gleaners Team is busy getting the word out, creating posters, flyers, and notices to go into people’s mailboxes. This year we hope to gather much more fruit than in previous years and preserve as much of it as we can.

Then Wendy Pelton presented Skookum’s very early plans for a bulk-buying project. Stay tuned for plenty more about that, since we need to find a couple more people to sit on the advisory committee, and we need to sort out some questions about how the bulk-buying project will operate.

The theme for the coming year will be more member involvement, so watch out for that!

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Skookum Gleaners up and running for 2011… join us!

Posted on June 9, 2011 by David Parkinson

Very young apples... a long wait, but worth it!

Skookum Gleaners (formerly known as The Powell River Fruit Tree Project) is ramping up the planning cycle as the fruit is visibly forming on the trees. Who knows whether 2011 will be a stellar fruit year (like two years ago) or a not-so-good fruit year (like last year)? We can’t wait to find out! Seriously. We cannot wait.

The Gleaners Team meets at 9:30 AM on the second and fourth Monday of every month upstairs at Quality Foods (in The Step Above coffee shop) for our planning sessions that this year will include:

  • more promotion, and for a longer period;
  • more door-to-door flyer drop-offs at homes with fruit trees;
  • more outreach to community groups;
  • more feedback and coordination of pickers & picks;
  • more follow-up on picks (how they went, where the food went and how much, the variety and the quality of fruit picked and donated, the state of the trees, etc.);
  • more education about picking, preparing and preserving fruit — we hope to get lots more mileage out of our cider press this year!;
  • more fundraising activities, including a new Skookum 2012 local growing calendar out in early August!; and..
  • A Fall Fair fruit-themed festival!

All this in an effort to increase the number and quality of picks, resulting in:

  • more food picked & preserved for the community;
  • more donated fruit for people (not bears) in need;
  • better disposal of spoiled and windfall fruit for farmers to feed pigs, use as compost, etc.; and
  • a healthier tree and human population.

But we need your help to make this all happen. Skookum Gleaners is a project of the non-profit Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative, and is run by volunteers. The picked fruit is divided equally between the volunteer picker, the tree owner (if they want any fruit) and charity.

Some of these might grow up to be cherries.

Yes, it’s a great idea and it really deserves widespread community support. The Gleaners Team needs people with all sorts of talents, experience and some time to devote to the project, as well as any money you can donate to make this year’s project the best ever.

Interested? Contact us at gleaners@skookumfood.ca.

You may donate via PayPal or Credit Card by clicking here, and noting “Gleaners” in the Purpose box or you may drop off a cheque for Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative (or ‘SFPC’), noting your Gleaners contribution in the memo field, to Kingfisher Used Books (4486 Marine Ave., Powell River, BC V8A 2K2 CANADA) in care of SFPC.

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Nola’s Mushroom Log Workshop

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Gianni

Just a little window into Nola’s special Skookum-sponsored Mushroom Log Workshop that happened within the last month or so. Nola bought the spores online in quantity (to reduce the cost for all) and presented the workshops. It was a BYOL (Bring Your Own Log) affair. Images of the oyster and shitake mushrooms coming soon. Many thanks, Nola! Do you have a project you’d like to lead? Propose it here: http://blog.skookumfood.ca/our-projects/suggest-a-project/

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