The more I learn, the less I understand...

I thought as I spoke with more people about how to organize the buying club, the clearer things would become. In fact, it has gone the complete opposite way. I have spoken with a local farmer who coordinates his own buying clubs in the Indianapolis area and the former coordinator of the Ohio buying club that I was involved in. I don't want to say that I felt discouraged after those conversations, but I did pour myself a stiff drink. :)

So, let's talk about where we are.

1. I have contacted the man who created the web-based ordering system for the buying club in Ohio and he is willing to let us use his system in order to further the cause of availability of real milk/herd shares to consumers. (Thank you, Don!) This will involve an initial setup fee of a domain name and website, plus a recurring hosting fee. These costs should be minimal.

2. I have spoken with some of the farms from the database. Some are very interested. Others are smaller family farms who are consuming all that they produce at this time. There was a recurring theme in these conversations. I had to have a bit of a paradigm shift. Most of these farmers planned six or more months ago for the food they are producing today. The rate of growth of the buying club could easily surpass the rate that each individual farm is able to grow within a season. This doesn't mean we can't grow the buying club. It just means that we may have to be a little patient with supply issues until the farms are able to catch up with this new interest.

3. As I said, I spoke with the coordinator of the buying club in Ohio. She basically said that coordinating a buying club like this is a 40-50 hour a week job for which you do not get paid. She said that she definitely felt as though her family suffered due to the commitment. She didn't discourage me from doing it, so to speak, but she encouraged me to find a way to compensate whoever ends up coordinating (not just me, but other coordinators of other pickup locations) to help prevent burnout. I know this is not a popular concept, but it's something that I need to give some thought to at the beginning of this project because once it grows to 50 or 75 families and requires 40 hours a week to coordinate, it's too late to look at it and think, "wow, I should have worked out a way to compensate those of us who are coordinating this."

4. Since we're talking about what no one wants to talk about (money), it looks like there will be a one-time membership fee to belong to the buying club. This will not be a large amount of money, probably about $20. Again, it costs money to breathe. Truly. Between the cost of the web site for ordering, paper, envelopes and postage to mail the orders and the checks to the farmers (especially the Amish)... I think that it's also important to have some kind of buy-in to show a level of commitment to the buying club. Initially, the size of this club will be limited. It will be important to buy-in to show your interest.

5. I met a guy with connections to chefs in our local restaurants on Sunday. He was full of incredible ideas to get local foods into our local restaurants, so that on those days when you are much too busy to prepare your own local food, you can have a wonderful place to order from or go to eat deliciously prepared food grown in our area. The mind swims with the possibilities...

Hope you don't mind the stream-of-consciousness style of this post, but I wanted to update you on where I am. I have had some help thus far (thanks, Caroline, Paul, Jillian, Val, Craig, Danna, and Jen :). As I get the ideas formulated more, there will be opportunities to help more. I completely appreciate all the offers of help.