Summer Potluck!

Join us on Thursday, August 6th from 6-9pm for local beer, food, and fun!!!

Location: Field at the corner of Hall and Godfrey (across the street from Media Rare's front door entrance).

Bring a favorite summer dish to share and chairs or blankets for your dining comfort.

We will supply the place settings, beer, entertainment, games and a perfect opportunity to hang out with fellow co-op members and friends!

** Music by Badenya!
** Founders Beer!
** Games!
** Great Food!
** Good Times!!!

PLEASE RSVP BY NEXT FRIDAY JULY 31ST to benice119@gmail.com

Hope to see you there!!!

Highlight on the Green Food Blue Grass Festival

The Green Food Blue Grass festival is this Sunday, July 19th, from 1pm - 9pm, at the Felt Mansion in Laketown Township (near Saugatuck).
The Holland Sentinel published an article highlighting the event. There's a couple things that it doesn't mention:

• Proceeds of the tickets go toward the Friends of Felt project, which will be establishing a sustainable farming and sustainability learning center on the grounds of the Mansion.
• 10% of the Food Booth proceeds will go to the Mansion to cover the cost of the Festival.
• The remaining 90% go to the food booth operators.
  
• The West Michigan Co-op in conjunction with Slow Food will be serving food from Co-op farmers.
• All food vendors at the event were encouraged to use Co-op farmers for their food. We've distributed our farmers' contact information to all the groups involved to get their buy-in.
• Tickets are $25 per person, or a per-car $80 - if you can get more than three people in your car, that's quite a deal. Carpool!
  

The article also calls me (Paul DeLeeuw) out as one of the organizers of the event. I'd like to take a moment to highlight all the folks in the Co-op who've been involved in making this happen:

• Jerry, our Director, who had the original idea for a music festival featuring local food, and has been organizing the food booth in conjunction with Amy Sherman.
  
• Tara, our Volunteer Coordinator, who (as always) has been doing a wonderful job rounding up volunteers and assisting in planning the event details.
• Our wonderful farmers, providing food for our booth.
• Our core volunteers: (in no particular order) Diane Graves, Scott Steiner, Lisa Nelson (who is at everything!), Andrea Veldman, and Amy Neis and the Neis Family (boy, that sounds like a traveling family band!).

Thank you all so much - the Co-op couldn't do things like this without you.
I hope to see you all out there! And, if you're not familiar with the Mansion Park and Grounds - it's only a half-mile walk to the beach of Lake Michigan. If you want to take a break from the Festival, you're free to walk the trails and relax on the beach!
For more information, and to buy tickets online, see feltmansion.org/festival.

Our First Farm Tour of the Season!

Bluegrass not your thing? If you are not planning on attending the Green Food Bluegrass Festival this Sunday, here is another great option - our first farm tour of the season!

Funny Farm Organic Produce - Tour
13181 Centerline
Grant, Mi 49327
Work Phone: 231 834-8643
Email: funyfarm@riverview.net
Online At: http://www.funnyfarmorganicproduce.com

When: Sunday, July 19, 2009
Time: 4pm

Where: Go north on M 37-Alpine Ave past Sparta, Kent City and Casnovia. M 37 curves back to the north just past Casnovia. Stay on M 37 N and go 5 miles to 136th Street.Turn right on 136th St and go 1/2 mile to Centerline Ave. Turn left (only) and go 1/2 mile to farm on left. 13181 Centerline.

Details: Funny Farm is a WMCoop producer. They are second generation farmers farming the 100 acre farm. They tend aprox. 7 acres of USDA Certified Organic mixed vegetables and herbs as well as producing in a 2800 sq. ft. greenhouse built for fall & winter production as a 3 year research project for Michigan State University.

Perks: Drinks and Munchies!!!
Charge: None

Forums!

Hello! Paul the Tech Guy here, blogging once again.

Today, we're launching forums on the West Michigan Co-op. You can find them at http://wmcoop.com/forums. There's a few forums available to post in, and there will likely be more to come.

We've looked at a lot of software packages to solve the issue of forums, but none of the best options offered integration with our existing log-ins. We didn't want to make you, as a contributor to our community, have to open yet another account and password just to talk to other Co-op'ers. That's a mistake that we made with the Wiki, and I'm certain it's slowed down our use of the wiki as a community tool. And yes, I'm working on bringing the Co-op log-in to the Wiki so everybody who has an account with us can get in and help us document this process together.

We've also got that great short domain name that you see above: wmcoop.com - that's a new shortcut name - it'll take you to the same westmichigancoop.com that you've known the past 3 years, but it's shorter and easier to share with friends.

As always, thanks for your support, and if you have any suggestions, feel free to comment below, in the Forums, or email me at paul@wmcoop.com!