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 shiitake mushrooms coming soon. Many thanks, Nola! Do you have a project you’d like to lead? Propose it here: http://skookumfood.ca/our-projects/suggest-a-project/
Hey there Skookum members (and other interested folks)! We want to let you know about some opportunities to get involved with a few projects that we will be working on this summer. If any one of these projects looks interesting to you, please contact us and we’ll hook you up.
Skookum Gleaners
Once again this year, we’ll be managing the local fruit-tree gleaning project. One of the tasks for this year is to figure out how we can combine gleaning with activities for members of Skookum such as canning, dehydrating, cider-making, and other processing. The basic model is that 1/3 of the gleaned fruit goes to the pickers, 1/3 to the homeowners, and 1/3 to the community; but we might need to look at ways that this project can generate some revenue to pay a coordinator and return some tangible value to Skookum. Interested? Contact us!
Bulk-food buying
As we mentioned at our recent public meeting, we’re planning to start bulk-ordering non-perishables, as a way to increase people’s individual and household food security. Food storage, along with production and preservation, is one of the three pillars of food security, and it’s an activity that works well when people work together. We’re getting this project up and running and looking for someone interested in coordinating this project. There will be some payment in the form of food or money. Interested? Contact us!
Preserving food
Last year we set up a half-day work party to get people in the kitchen together canning tomatoes. This year we plan to do a lot more to help our members set up a well-stocked home pantry full of preserved food of all kinds. We’ll need to plan more work parties to learn and do canning, drying, freezing, pickling, and other preservation techniques. Interested? Contact us!
And of course, if there is a project that you would like to see happening — especially if you’re interested in leading that project — contact us. We want our members to step up and start running things!
Calling all members and friends of Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative! We’ll be holding a public meeting on Wednesday April 13 at 7:00 PM at the Community Resource Centre on Powell River to talk about our plans for 2011:
Please note that this meeting is primarily to talk amongst our members. But of course it’s open to anyone interested in knowing what we’re all about. And we always welcome new members!
(Workshop is now full!)
Want to wander into your yard to gather your own juicy oyster and shiitake mushrooms? You can! Mushrooms add a delicious earthy taste to your dishes, they don’t take up a lot of space and don’t require a lot of work to grow. Any shady, moist spot in your garden will do.
On April 10, 2011, from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM, we will be offering a mushroom growing workshop. There are many ways to grow mushrooms, and many kinds you can grow. This workshop will focus on growing shiitake and oyster mushrooms using dowel plugs in hardwood logs. We will touch on some other methods very briefly, but the dowel plug method is easy to do, and provides an efficient and aesthetic way to grow.
All participants must pre-register and pay for this workshop. Each registrant will receive 250 spores of their choice of mushroom (one type) and you can order any more you like in sets of 250. So, for example, if you want to grow both oyster and shiitake mushrooms, you can register and select shiitakes, then order an additional set of oysters.
Things to bring:
On Wednesday February 9, 2011, Skookum brought Carol Murray up to Powell River to spread the word about cooperatives, what they can do, and how to get them going. Carol is the Director of Co-op Development at the BC Co-operative Association, and is one of the people who helped Skookum’s initiating group find its bearings and get through the early stages of planning and incorporation.
Skookum planned this public event in the spirit of the fifth principle of the International Co-operative Alliance’s Statement on the Co-operative Identity (emphasis mine): “Co-operatives provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their co-operatives. They inform the general public — particularly young people and opinion leaders — about the nature and benefits of co-operation.”
Skookum signed on to a very slightly amended version of these seven principles when we crafted our own statement of principles, and we endeavour to live up to themcommunicate them to members and others.
We wanted to create an opportunity for people to learn more about cooperatives, since we learned when we got started that there is a lot of misinformation and confusion out there.
Carol spent most of the day on Wednesday meeting with various people and groups who had indicated that they were interested in having a sit-down meeting to talk about a cooperative idea they were thinking about. And then on Wednesday evening she made a presentation to packed room in Trinity Hall at the Powell River United Church.
But before we got to the presentation, there was food: Skookum member Jacqueline Morales prepared two delicious lasagne made with pasta from flour locally-milled by Periwinkle Granary. Fran Cudworth of Periwinkle Granary also prepared fresh garlic breadfantastic vegan pizza in honour of Carol Murray, who is vegan. Members brought salads and desserts, and amazingly we managed to feed everyone who showed up, although the turnout was somewhat larger than we anticipated. Maybe cooperatives are one more people’s minds than we thought…
Carol presentedtook questions from the floor. You can view or download her PowerPoint presentation here. One thing is certain from the conversations that Carol had earlier in the day and from the questions that people were asking: there is considerable interest in cooperative housing and land ownership. There are a lot of people keen to farm and create collective projects requiring land, but the cost of land remains too high for many people, especially younger people in the region. Skookum hopes that we can make progress on that front, since access to land for community agricultural projects is certainly something we’re thinking about for the future.
We wish to thank the Powell River Food Security Project, First Credit Union,the BC Co-operative Association for helping us put on this event; Fran and Jacqueline for the most wonderful food I’ve ever seen at a free public event; all our members who helped with donated food and labour; and everyone who showed up. Most of all, we thank Carol, who was extremely generous with her timedid a great job of spreading the word about cooperatives.
