Skookum Food Provisioners' Cooperative
Local Food is Skookum!
We neglected to note that the Powell River Community Food System Assessment Final Report was released in mid-June. A pdf version can be downloaded here:
https://prfoodsecurity.org/2016/06/17/community-food-system-assessment-final-report-now-available/
Our members are urged to attend our Annual General Meeting.
Potluck supper will start at 6PM. Skookum is providing two hearty main dishes, and members are encouraged to bring a side dish, salad, or dessert. If you can’t manage to bring a dish, bring an appetite; there will be plenty of food.
The AGM will start at 7PM.
Five (5) board positions are up for grabs including three 2-year terms and two 1-year terms. The event will take place at The United Church Trinity Hall (at 6932 Crofton at Duncan — kitty corner to City Hall)
We will have Powell River Dollars for sale as well as Tattler Canning Lids (see prices here).
We hope to see you all there!
This is Part 2 in a short series on cooperatives, and specifically on Community Service Cooperatives, because that is the designation for Skookum.
As a cooperative, we adhere to all the rules as described here (there are 171 of them) based on the BC Cooperative Association’s Regulations. This includes the fact that cooperatives are owned by their members (that’s one member=one vote, as opposed to being based on amount invested/donated, making cooperatives very democratic entities), and that each member holds a stake in the cooperative, that can be redeemed at any time. At Skookum, this is represented by your share certificate that costs $20.
The gist of it: What’s A Community Service Cooperative?
Skookum is concerned with increasing the amount of food available locally, regardless of how it comes to people:
In practical terms, the cooperative’s members are encouraged to reflect Skookum’s commitment to the three pillars of the Triple Bottom Line (social, environmental, economic) by creating and supporting projects that help members to grow, gather, catch, raise, preserve, prepare and share healthful food as locally as possible.
As a cooperative, Skookum is a ‘bottom-up’ organization that relies on the energy and ideas of its membership to address this Triple Bottom Line through engagement at the levels of governance, project management, and participation in the projects or events we develop/participate in.
Skookum has no paid staff, but projects are expected to provide for coordinator remuneration, while addressing our core values and purposes, and providing a percentage toward Skookum operating costs. Recent projects include a member-run bulk purchase of fruit trees, ongoing Tattler lid sales, Cover Crop sales, and The Abundant Pantry Bulk Buying Club (now offering Cafe Justicia fairer-than-fair trade coffee, and always more local products), but also the recent get-together and plans for more informational/fun events like seasonal potlucks, film screenings and guest presentations in the fall/winter to come. We are also planning another round of our yearly ‘Apple Cider Press-a-Thon’ at the 2013 Powell River Fall Fair on the weekend of September 21-22.
We are seeking helpers for this as well as materials to make it work even better, so contact us with how you want to help out or click here and come up with your own Skookum project; check this page out for inspiration.
This post is an excerpt from a permanent page on our site. Find it here.
Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative has Tatter Canning Lids and Rings for sale to members only.
Why Use Tattler Lids, and why buy them from Skookum?
You can buy Tattler lids via Skookum for the best price possible (about half of what you’d pay via Amazon.ca, for example… and no shipping costs! See for yourself here). More information on the lids at the company’s website: http://www.reusablecanninglids.com/
Our prices are as follows; to order, use our contact page and tell us what you’d like, then you can pick them up by arrangement from our Westview neighbourhood location (sorry, we cannot ship the lids, and this is for members only– you can become a member here for just $20 for a lifetime membership).
Remember also that 15% of your purchase price goes to fund Skookum projects, too! It’s a win-win-win situation: you get to buy a product that is not widely available in Canada, you’re encouraged to can local and in-season food, you get to help Skookum fund projects, and you save c. 45% off what you would normally have to pay for the lids!
Here are your choices:
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We also have more cover crop seeds available so plant sow them as soon as you harvest a crop (like for e.g. garlic), to increase soil health and to keep weeds down.
William Dam seeds: 547 Peas 4010 and Oats 50/50 Mix Organic ($3 for a half-pound bag; shipping and tax, plus 10% going to support Skookum, included in price.)
Best green manure for spring seeding. Very effective Nitrogen and biomass builder. 4010 peas are the best leafy forage peas for plowdown, producing over 40″ of green mass in 10 weeks. Oats will utilize available nitrogen, building soil structure, suppress weeds and provide quick growth while the peas fix nitrogen for following crop. Well suited for late summer/ fall seedlings as well. It is best practice to allow three weeks before seeding following crops. Mow down and work into soil at flowering. Seeding Rate: 2-3lb per 1000 sq. ft, 80-100lbs/acre drilled, 100-120lbs/acre broadcast.
Aside from adding organic matter to the soil, cover crops have many other purposes:
To purchase ($3 for 1/2 lb bag), contact us here or email giovanni (at) rabideye (dot) com.
Save the Date! Our Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held on Thursday, May 2 at 7:00 PM at the United Church’s Trinity Hall (kitty-corner to City Hall at 6932 Crofton Street).
Feel free to bring along some snacks and desserts, but we will lay on a nice spread of snacks and beverages, so no worries.
You will be all be getting a notice in the mail (along with your newly revamped share certificates) soon, but here is a rough look at what our AGM will look like:
Well, there will surely be even more going on at the Skookum AGM, too.
See you there on Thursday, May 2!
This time we’re selling Tattler lids at even lower prices! They’re about half the price you’d pay via Amazon.ca (and 15% of the cost goes to support Skookum). We ask members to limit purchases to 100 lids ea. at this point, to allow more members to take advantage. After the AGM, we will offer the lids on a per-order basis.
We will have: