Message from General Manager Lisa Blake 10/09/2013

Greetings from one of the most beautiful October days I've even seen. Did you know October is Non-GMO month? The Non-GMO Project, in 2010, decided to use this month as a platform for raising awareness on the GMO issue, and you can find more information on http://www.nongmoproject.org/.

Our board president, Sean Nestor, and I will be speakers at the March Against Monsanto rally (no actual marching this time). So gather up your posters, make signs, see what big, flashy message you can come up with to be seen by drivers passing by, and gather in front of the Maumee Indoor Theatre on Conant and Anthony Wayne Trail. The event starts at 1:00 and goes to 4:00, and very unfortunately conflicts with our great tasting at the store. But, hey! No reason you can't make both, right?

We held our annual meeting last Sunday and ate a lot of fantastic food (thank you to everyone who came)! If only we could open up a potluck restaurant. Everyone said we must gather these recipes and those from past potlucks and publish a fundraising cookbook. In the meantime, I put my own recipe for what I made last Sunday in this newsletter. Oh yeah, and we conducted some business at the meeting too. We heard from board members about our sales push and new member drive.

We'll be putting up each month's sales in the store (on a whiteboard or a blackboard) and measure each day's sales against our goals. Come and see how your purchases help the Co-op in our recovery from the long, dark summers of road and sewer construction!

Also, we welcome back our returning board members Shelly Boraby, David Bohon, and Sándor Halász, and please welcome NEW board members Alyx Kendzierski and Nichole Nauden. Jodie Kania has very kindly agreed to attend as our alternate and automatic replacement for openings that may occur before the next annual meeting, so a warm thank you for her as well. It was an extremely close election, and I'm personally very gratified that such qualified candidates wanted to join our crew.

Our membership has been surprisingly low for a city of our size, but that does come with our spread-out territory and location. But there is so much we can do together! That's the essence of co-op ownership. If we were bigger, we could bring you more products you want, a community space where we could teach classes, doubling as a hang-out for people picking up deli items (no, we haven't much yet, but most of us have said we wanted food we could eat right there, right then), and reach out more to improve our community's health. Expanding our membership will help us reach these goals.

We are committed to doubling our membership: we have about 300 members now (excellent growth over last year) and are aiming for 600. You KNOW being a member is a good deal. So bring a friend, check out our better-stocked store, and some truly amazing sales we're featuring right now and become a member if you aren't one already.

And keep October 26 open, because you'll want to attend the Label the Truth's costume fundraiser/party at Club Soda at 5:00 to 7:30. It's only $10 and that includes food, refreshments, prizes, music and games. More on this to come.