Western Sydney Fresh Food Co-op

[liz_gcmama]

Is there anyone on here interested in being part of a fresh food co-op in the Western Sydney area? I'm happy to do the coordinating. Of course, it wouldn't be limited to members of NP, but if we can start with people we "know"...

I think (from reading) that 10 families is a good number.

Post here or email me at liz underscore r underscore parnell at yahoo dot com dot au

Liz

[moo]

Way to go Liz!! I hope you get enough interest to get the coop up and running.

[liz_gcmama]

I think we could discuss it all... Including Julia and her mum I have interest from 6 familes ATM and one friend who I think I could "rope in" fairly easily... I was thinking, getting 10 families together, each putting in their $x each week and someone go and buy - well, someone go and buy and everyone pay on pick up. Probably a Saturday, but your commitment as far as buying goes would be once every 10 weeks... and then pick up Saturday afternoon? Or another day if it can be arranged?

What sort of spend would you be looking at?

Also, are we just interested in fruit and veg or do we want other stuff as well (eg meat/fish/poultry/eggs, dried fruit/nuts)?

Liz

[~Sam~]

I might be interested too, but would like to know more of the nitty grittys first before I commit.

[liz_gcmama]

I'm thinking $40 a week, ten families. Anyone who wanted could buy two "shares" though.

Maybe a small "entry fee", to cover any set up costs (scales if we decide we need them, etc).

A ten week rotating roster where each family has their turn to buy/collect the produce.

I'm thinking maybe just fruit and veg to start off with. The F&V market at Llandilo is good and reasonably priced. We may be able to negotiate something with them, saving us trudging to Parklea Markets or the like. The other option I can think of is the Markets in Penrith on a Wed, but they are v. busy, hard to find parking and hard to lug $400 worth of F&V around.

Or, if we use Llandilo, they also have bread ($1 a loaf - white, toast, multigran, wholemeal) milk ($1.79 for 2L) and eggs (can't rememeber $ off the top of my head) if people wanted to make this a part of the co-op as well?

The easiest way I can think of doing it would be for the family involved to put the $400 on their credit card and collect the $$ from people as they picked up their goods. I'm not 100% happy with this though, and so if anyone has any better ideas, let me know!

As far as produce we want each week, we can possibly agree on it once it is formed? IE. 6 different types of fruit and 8 different veggies each week, or always have potatoes and apples or $20 veg, $20 fruit... Whatever people want.

Let me know...

Liz

[liz_gcmama]

I'm still working it all out too Julia...

But I think by paying extra you'd probably negate any savings you'd make? If your mumw as interested would she pick up your share for you?

[liz_gcmama]

My other thought is, if not everyone wants to collect the F&V, maybe we have a roster (4 weeks if 4 families are willing) and then the family who collects gets their F&V free that week... so with 10 families we'd be getting $360 worth of fresh produce and splitting it 10 ways... IYKWIM?

I don't mind doing the shopping but taking up half of Saturday every week is a bit much for us, I think?

[liz_gcmama]

Or... another option if people aren't keen on making the commitment of an every week type thing is to start a yahoo group or similar and post when we see something we could buy in bulk/co-op and gauge interest? And whoever did the buying would get their share cheaper or collect a co-op fee? And have a set charge for delivery for those who wanted, but it would be up to the buyer if the could deliver IYKWIM?

[liz_gcmama]

I'm going to start a yahoo group anyway, and then we can have more detailed discussions and work out what we want to do?

[liz_gcmama]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/westernsydneycoop/