It’s been a big weekend: breakfast yesterday at RVL (Cygnet) meeting Guy and Eliza from Mount Gnomon with fellow bloggers Victor and Steven, Stephen Estcourt and wife Mary, as well as blogging king Cumper (see writeup here), then beautiful Chinese New Year celebrations last night at Bund in Shanghai (writeup here) in King St, Sandy Bay also with Victor, Steven, Stephen E and Mary plus some other delightful friends, and culminating this afternoon with a meeting at the UTAS site of Source Community Wholefoods Cooperative, in lower French St, just above the Uni union building.
Ben Wills is the spokesperson for this innovative scheme, which has acquired funding to set up a community garden and wholefood shop which will retail fruit and veges grown onsite there, as well as other assorted goodies to be found typically in a shop such as Eumarrah.
They are well on the way towards achieving this goal, and have a planned business opening date of Saturday 13th March.
Ben stressed to me that anyone can shop there, and also become a member of the cooperative if they wish. UTAS have been supportive of the venture but are not affiliated with it. So, it’s a community effort, staffed by volunteers.
The shop will be run by Jonathon Cooper and Michelle Dwyer, who are the organic market stall holders at Salamanca Market every Saturday. If you want to qualify for a 30% discount on goods bought there, you should volunteer to work in the shop.
It will cost $25 per year to be a cooperative member if you are a wage earner, and $18 per year if you aren’t. The shop will operate Wed to Sat over the following hours:
Wed 11-6
Thurs 11-7
Fri 11-6
Sat 10-4
The Mercury wrote a full account of the venture last week (9/2/10, P8) too, by the way.
I was most impressed by the passion and enthusiasm of all the volunteers present today beavering away frantically at the working bee: wheeling wheelbarrows full of healthy-looking topsoil, planting lettuces, spreading mulch, watering seedlings, mulching compost, digging and generally working their butts off.
I also loved the fact they have a large wood fired oven there, and had just finished making some healthy-looking fresh pizzas when I arrived.
Good luck with it guys, and Rita will definitely be shopping there.
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2 comments:
Hi Rita, this sounds like a really great idea. It sounds similar to the Woodbrige Co-Op which was operating(not sure if it still is?)
It is rather interesting for me to read that article. Thanks for it. I like such topics and everything that is connected to this matter. I definitely want to read a bit more soon.
Best wishes
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