Update on The Beet

[Aliza Ess]

Hey Beets! So here's the email I typed up on the current status for The Beet. If anyone has any objections to anything, please let me know before I sent it out! I'll probably send it by Thursday, so let me know before then if you have objections.

Hope everyone's getting excited for fresh produce season coming soon!

a

****

Hi everyone! The Beet bulk food buying club has been taking some time to re-group and explore our options. Thanks for being patient.

The Beet has gone through some ups and downs in the past few months as we have moved spaces, learned how to place very large grocery orders and handle finances, had epic meetings about everything from the most sustainable packaging to cooperative business plans of all kinds. Ultimately the effort of organizing this project took a toll, which led to the recent time off.

Many of us who started this project had the dream of a place where you could buy a cheap meal of *real food* in the city. Since we began, Baltimore has happily gained more food options in this direction (Mill Valley becoming a food co-op, increased urban farming, the Land of Kush, Milk & Honey, and of course there's always OK Natural!).

There is still definitely room for a bulk buying club in Baltimore, but as for right now there is no central organizing party able to do all of the planning and labor. So what's next with the future of The Beet? The answer lies with you.

If any of you getting this message are interesting in keeping the bulk food buying club alive, there is definitely still interest. If you've got a place to hold the bulk goods and want to work out getting money from people and placing orders, I think you will have people who want to share in the bulk food goodness.

If you're looking for a way to get started, the Facebook page might be a good place to start having a central discussion about this sort of thing, and if there are people who don't have computer access or use Facebook, the word can always be spread through flyers, word of mouth, community meetings, etc. Set a date for a meeting and go from there!

Peas,

The Beet.

[Jasmine Sarp]

Hey Aliza, this looks good... sad to have to send it out though. Maybe in addition to mentioning remaining interest in the buying club, you could add that there is remaining interest in the storefront... I still want to see the Beet go somewhere, we all put in a lot of work, so I want the message to show that. I think you did do a good job of that, but personally my interest lies more with the storefront than the buying club. And I would be willing to keep meeting with people about it. 

Did everyone see the message that Tara sent about the conference in Philly? Is anyone interested? Aaaannd did we ever hear back from fusion?

Jasmine

[Aliza Ess]

Thanks Jasmine, good idea to include the storefront info as well,  I will include that with the information about the conference Tara sent out in case people are interested in attending.

The email doesn't mean the Beet has failed at all, it's just a step towards involving new people! I think we've all learned a lot over the past few months about finances, organizing volunteers, the need for an effective business plan and more. A functioning, sustainable business sometimes takes years to plan, so these are steps in the right direction!

a

[Aliza Ess]

Ok, here's the new email. Speak now if you want to add/change anything! I will try to send it out tomorrow.

a

****

Hi everyone! The Beet bulk food buying club has been taking some time to re-group and explore our options. Thanks for being patient.

The Beet has gone through some ups and downs in the past few months as we have moved spaces, learned how to coordinate very large grocery orders, organize volunteers, and had epic meetings about everything from the most sustainable packaging to cooperative business plans of all kinds. Ultimately the effort of organizing this project took a toll, which led to the recent time off.

Many of us who started this project had the dream of a place where you could buy a cheap meal of real food in the city. Since we began, Baltimore has happily gained more food options in this direction (Mill Valley becoming a food co-op, increased urban farming, the Land of Kush, Milk & Honey, and other natural food markets, and of course there's always OK Natural!). But there is still the dream of making The Beet a storefront to serve Baltimore with lots of low-cost food that's good for our bodies and the planet.

As of right now there is no central organizing party able to do all of the planning and labor. So what's next with the future of The Beet? The answer lies with you.

If any of you getting this message are interesting in keeping The Beet alive, there is definitely still interest.

[Dan Zink]

This is really good Aliza thanks. Maybe one last thing we could add is
that in addition to the fb page they could post something to this list
too? We've got lots of resources anyone trying again to do this could
use.

Thx!

[Aliza Ess]

Thanks Dan. You're right, I will also mention that people can email the main Beet list.

(Speaking of which, what is the address for that? And who currently is the person in charge of unsubscribing people if they want, etc.?)

a

[Dan Zink]

Google handles subscribing/unsubscribing. Email beet-core
+subs...@googlegroups.com, beet-core+...@googlegroups.com

[Tara Megos]

this looks great aliza!  what are we doing with the rest of the foods?  should we have a big discounted pick up day?  i know i would buy a bunch of it.  also, does anyone know what happened to the big scale of joys?  it's not at the bohemian or the zodiac.  i miss seeing all of you guys....

tara

[Aliza Ess]

I grabbed the scale when I was moving all of the food out of the Bohemian since I thought it was ours. The food and scale are at Lee's house (my gentleman friend in Remington). Since I don't actually live at the house I'd rather not offer it up to a big food-weighing and purchasing session with a group of people. I know Dan Zink was also interested in getting more food as well. It's sounding like I should move the food out of Lee's house to somewhere where everyone is able to weigh and purchase the remaining food. I can work on that over the weekend.

aliza

[Dan Zink]

There should also be an electronic scale that belongs to Kendall, but I
think she's pretty busy right now.

[Tara Megos]

We could have the pickup at my place if you'd like.  

[Aliza Ess]

I am assuming that Kendall's scale is the small black one? I have that also. I could probably move all of the food sometime in mid to late next week.

a

[Kendall Hoff]

Hey, everyone. Sorry I've been out of the loop. I moved in February and took the MCATs this weekend. Everything's been a little crazy recently, but I finally have a little free time. My house is also available for the pick-up. I definitely have the space to store food, but I'm sort of out of the way now, living in Patterson Park.