September News – Payment Plan Now Available!

$20 a month? Hey, that’s easy!

We’re now accepting online installment payments for new owners at our website, baycityfood.org.
You can sign up for a standard $200 membership at $20 a month for 10 months, or you can become a $400 founding member at $20 a month for 20 months. (In either case, the first payment includes a $6.88 PayPal fee.) Because of the bookkeeping that would be involved, we are only accepting the payment plan via the website; full payments can still be made either online or by mail.
This eases the burden for those who want to join the co-op but find it tough to come up with the full ownership payment at once.
And thanks (for the umpteenth time!) to our friends at Ohno Design (ohnodesign.com) for setting this up for us.

Events

HELL’S HALF MILE RUN: Bay City Cooperative Market sponsored the HHM Half Mile Run, Sunday September 25th, on Water Street downtown. The run, part of the Hell’s Half Mile Film & Music Festival, started at 10 a.m. Sunday near the corner of Water and First and finished at the Delta College Planetarium parking lot on Center. Runners registered (cost was $10) 8:45–9:45 a.m. Sunday at the starting point and were encouraged to dress as lumberjacks and saloon girls, or anything that would make you “run like hell”! Donuts and a short award ceremony followed the run. BCCM provided apples and bananas!

FERMENTATION CLASS: Our workshop on the basics of vegetable fermentation, with chef Anne Boulley, will be held 6-8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7 in the kitchen of Trinity Episcopal Church, at Center and Grant. Each registrant makes and takes a 32-ounce jar of sauerkraut, made from locally grown cabbage. Class size is limited to 12.
Cost (including all materials) is $10 for co-op owners, $15 for non-owners. Pre-registration and advance payment are required, by sending a check or money order to: Bay City Cooperative Market, Box 32, Bay City, MI 48707. Please include a phone number or email address with payment so we may confirm your reservation.

NO-KNEAD BREAD CLASS: 6-8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 18. Details on our Facebook page.

Help!

The co-op remains in need of accounting assistance — especially someone who can help prepare our tax forms. If you or someone you know can help, please message the co-op at info@baycityfood.org.

Have a question?

People sometimes wonder what sort of store discounts will come with co-op membership when a store opens. The short answer is that we don’t yet know.
Some benefits of ownership certainly are in order. But the particulars of store discounts would have to become part of store budgeting, and we might harm ourselves in the long run by committing to anything now.
We can say, after looking at how other food co-ops operate, that regular discount days for owners are common. In other words, members might get a discount of 10% on everything they buy on one day a month. That could be on a certain day (for instance, the second Saturday) or it could be that each member could take the discount on any one day’s purchases. Other owner deals, such as substantial discounts on bulk purchases, also are common.
Other questions? You can contact the co-op board via email anytime at info@baycityfood.org or via message on our Facebook page.

And…

The best way to make the co-op a reality in Bay City is to become an owner, if you haven’t already.
It’s easy, at baycityfood.org, either online via PayPal or by printing out the member agreement and mailing it in with a check. A share costs $200. Or, to help out even more, you can become a founding member for $400.
Already a member? You can help by encouraging your friends and neighbors to join you.