We Sold Lots of Cider!

We had great success at the Fall Fair this year! Skookum made over $900 selling freshly pressed apple cider, and we gained new 5 memberships over the weekend, and we continued to promote our Co-op to many interested individuals.

A HUGE THANK YOU goes out to our dedicated volunteers who helped in many ways. We could do this event without you!  Most of you were choppers, and we chopped and chopped and chopped until ALL of our apples were chopped at about 1:30 on Sunday!  At that point, we had about 40 jars of cider just sitting, waiting to be sold for the rest of the afternoon. We were able to pass along of all the mash (what is left after all the juice is pressed out) to local farmers to feed their various livestock.

THIS is really what Skookum is all about.  Taking excess food from the waste stream, and making good use of it!
As we approach 350 members, we are really starting to make an impact in the community.  Please continue to tell your friends all about us, and encourage them to become members as well.  Together, we really CAN make a difference!

THANK YOU once again to all of you who contributed to such a successful weekend!

Jill Amatt, Treasurer

Help with the Fall afFAIR (Sept 19/20) + The 2015 Rancho Vignola Order is ON

Pete and admirers
Pete and admirers

September 19/20th is the weekend for the smaller version of the regular Fall Fair (renamed FALL afFAIR), up at the Farmer’s Market grounds.  While the hours will be shorter, we will still be there in full form with our Cider Press. This event is a chance for us to press apples to cider, show people how to do it, and raise funds for your cooperative.

If you volunteered last year, fear not!  We have your contact info and will be in touch soon.  If you would like to volunteer, and did not do so last year, please reply to Jill at funktifyd(at)gmail(dot)com

Many thanks to our Treasurer, Jill Amatt, for taking on the rather large job of wrangling the gear & volunteers needed to press cider at the Fall afFair this year, which is happening from 12:00 noon to 3:00 PM Saturday September 19 & Sunday September 20.

We still need a volunteer or two for the following times:

  • Saturday, 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM;
  • Saturday, 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM;
  • Sunday, 10:00 AM to 12:00 noon; and
  • Sunday, 12:00 noon to 2:00 PM.

If you’re up for some fun, please go here and sign up: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oo1TXRRq9Sef5--1v5el9oh_uOssDaPbOJtuZmkRxM4/edit?usp=sharing.

 
If you’re not volunteering, come on by the press and get yourself a delicious cup or bottle of fresh apple cider.

We will also require the usual list of items that we have needed to borrow from members in the past.  If we have borrowed anything from you for this event in the past, please let me know what the item is, and if you are willing to lend it to us again.  We do have a list and contact info for this as well, so we may start hounding you down soon also!

We are looking forward to another successful weekend of Apple-y goodness!

Remember to refill your Townsite Growlers all Sept. long with $1 each going to Skookum!

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rancho-vignola-logo-300x132

Members’ deadline for submitting their Rancho Vignola orders is Friday September 25 by noon. You have until that time to get your order to us with payment either by cheque, direct deposit, or e-transfer. You can drop off a cheque at Kingfisher Used Books (4486 Marine Ave., under the bowling alley).

If you want to learn about the products on offer, check out http://www.ranchovignola.com/products.html. As always, there are some new products this time around (organic pine nuts, reg. hemp seeds, organic apple rings, organic diced dried mangoes, organic sun-dried tomatoes, etc.)

Members, check your email for details!

We need your apples + Support Skookum with Townsite Brewery in September

We will be running our usual Fall Cider Press Event this fall. This event is a chance for us to press apples to cider, show people how to do it, and to also raise some funds for your cooperative.

We need apples!
The success of this fundraiser depends on getting a good supply of apples for free. So if you or someone you know has excess apples, we will gladly take them and press them to cider. They do not need to be the most lovely apples, since if there is one thing that cider is good for, it’s getting rid of large quantities of non-beautiful apples!

We need storage!
If anyone has extra space in their garage, basement or shed, please let us know.  We are hoping to be able to stockpile at least 20 boxes of apples.

 If you have extra apples to donate, or if you want to volunteer to help out, please contact Jill  604-344-0017 or apples@skookumfood.ca


Do you want to rent our cider press (members only), click here.


Click the logo to view their website
Click the logo to view their website

Townsite Brewing is donating $1 to Skookum all September long through their Growler Program, so drink responsibly and get your growlers filled to help fund the Skookum Gleaners project, all September long!

Find out more about the Gleaners Project here, and find out more about the Growler program here.

Fall Fair Fabulousness

Pete and ‘the son of Spiderman’, with requisite admirers

Whew! Some 20+ Skookum members and friends were on hand this past weekend for year 2 of our Fall Fair cider-pressing/processing/vending presence, and we provided a very good show indeed! Not to mention delicious fresh, lightly spiced hot and cool cider, sold by the mug ($1) and by the 32-oz bottle ($5).

This Skookum fundraiser raised somewhere in the neighbourhood of $500 after expenses. We would like to thank all the apple donors as well as those folks and organizations (CJMP springs to mind) who let us use their materials and equipment. Very special thanks to Board member/taskmaster David (who organized the whole shebang this year, taking cues/tips from Jax), our president and chief im/presser Pete, Jacqueline herself, Jan (and husband Gary, both working behind the scenes to make sure we had the press, bottles and materials we needed), and former director Sharon!

Members Stacy, Annabelle, Connie, Patricia (and her husband John), Melissa (and her daughter Chelsea), Emma, Lyn, Dan, and many others I met for the first time worked so hard (many on both days of the fair!) and were so generous with their apples and materials/equipment to make the event a success. You can spot some of them on our Facebook page photo gallery (plus videos).

Remember that the press belongs to Skookum members, and as a member you can rent it for just $20/day (see details here).

 

Goin’ Squirrely

Did someone say “nuts”?

Skookum is all about projects that serve our cooperative, and that benefit the co-op as well as the wider community, too. It’s members helping members to grow, pick, prepare, preserve, store, and share in the bounty of food.

The accent these early autumn days is on ‘store’ and ‘preserve’. With a mega-load bulk purchase of Tattler BPA-free reusable lids (drop by our table at the Fall Fair Sept 22-23, 2012 to buy a sample pack or extra rubber rings; help out with our apple cider pressing event there or donate apples to this Skookum fundraiser: Click here) and Excalibur dehydrators in, several small Skookum work parties where members processed, canned and dehydrated fruits and vegetables, and yet another Abundant Pantry bulk food purchase period under our belts, it’s time for the once-per-year order of this season’s freshest dried fruit, nuts, seeds, plus delicious and decadent confectionery from Rancho Vignola.


  • Rancho Vignola makes their product list available only once per year, when the nuts and fruit are at their freshest;
                          • The final deadline for our order to go in is September 27, BUT the final deadline for members to get their order and payment to us will be 12:00 noon on Monday September 24;
                          • They will ship to us in November or thereabouts;
                          • 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, 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 click here.
  • If you have questions, please contact David as soon as possible at skookum@skookumfood.ca;
  • Otherwise:
    •  print out the attached price list
    • mark the products you wish to order, and
    • calculate the total price. Don’t forget to add 11.11% at the very end (i.e., not for each item individually, but on the final total; If you prefer, you may simply email David with the list of products you want and a final tally. He’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 24No money means no order!
  • We have a a splits page (click here), as we do for The Abundant Pantry Bulk-Buying Club. [For example, a member might want to order almonds but might not want the whole ten pound case (which has a better price than smaller units)]. If someone else wants to split that amount, then one of them can order it and then the two members can arrange to split it between them later.
  • To be clear: The coordinator WILL NOT MANAGE YOUR SPLITS; all splits will be between members, with one member ordering and paying for the entire item to be split.
  • Any questions? Please get in touch with David ASAP at skookum@skookumfood.ca

As always, members are encouraged to propose and run projects! Interested in running your own Skookum  project? Submit a quick proposal here.

Just the facts.