The way forward for OurField Weston..
Grahame Hunter
Public
Seen by 45
Abby Rose: I just updated the title of this group to be more general about the way forward for OurFieldWeston as I think we have moved into a more general discussion now. (Jan 24th 2018)
_Background _
We have 43 members in the OurField Weston co-operative: 42 members with one farming share, and John Cherry who has 18 farming shares, so a total of 60 farming shares altogether. For each farming share £150 was subscribed.
In addition, the external co-operative members but not John Cherry contributed £50 to theOurField organisers account from which various external costs and events have been paid.
The co-operative farming account has £3,952 in cash so each farming share is worth now £65.82 _ and also _ 250kg of unhulled spelt from the 2017 harvest.
The cooperative farmed a large part but not all of one field (20 acres out of 28 acres).
In the next year I would propose as follows
That John is bought out of his major stake in the farming shares (it is anomalous, as he is effectively “employed” by the cooperative to farm for them)
That the cooperative farms the entire field (so takes on a further 8 acres in addition to the present farmed area of 20 acres)
That the increased risks of the above are partly mitigated for the present cooperative members, by attracting 18 new members to replace John's large stake – so retaining the original total of farming shares at 60.
__ If these points can be agreed,__ the consequential matters going forward are:-
At what price do the new members acquire their farming shares?
Do new co-operative members also pay £50 away, for the organisers’ portion?
Is it reasonable that if the organising committee is allowed to fall away, that _ the administrative and event costs are taken up and apportioned by all the 60 farming cooperative members equally_ (some members may not attend events)?
Are the members of the co-operative willing to contribute to a continuing accounting / facilitating role which will have some costs: probably around £30 monthly, or 50p per member per month.
What will be the method of calculating the price at which any retiring members would be paid out?
Will present co-operative members be allowed to increase their farming stake - ie to acquire one or more new farming stakes from retiring members?
If yes to existing members increasing their stake, would they then be allowed more votes in polls?
Grahame Hunter Fri 26 Jan 2018 4:35PM
The payout for any withdrawing members now
Anyone who does not wish to remain in the OurField group for 2018 should let me know by 15th February 2018 either publicly on this forum if you wish to share your reasons, or privately to me by email.
Anyone leaving on 15th February 2018 would receive
* £65.87 in cash at once by bank transfer,
and also
- the eventual sale value of 200 Kg. of un-hulled 2017 Spelt less £10 administrative cost, within 21 day of the sale of the grain. It is not yet known how much this could be, nor when it would be paid as a sale has not been agreed, nor any indicative prices obtained.
The reason that withdrawing members would only receive the value of 200Kg. of Spelt (vs. the harvest of up to 250 Kg. per member) is that the actual weight in the shed is only a rough estimate; there may be some losses, and there will certainly be some handling, drying and transport costs.
I propose that any happy overage over 200 Kg. will accrue to the benefit of remaining members as a small recompense for their patience and persistence.
Grahame Hunter Thu 15 Feb 2018 9:10PM
withdrawing members 2017
written February 15 2018
__ We are now at the end date for cashing in from the 2017 harvest and withdrawing from the group.__ Anyone who does not let me know very very soon will be assumed to be "in" for the 2018 year. No one has yet withdrawn, so it looks as if we have existing members going ahead..and are starting to open the group for 18 new members.
Of course people can withdraw at any time, but mid year withdrawals _ will mean they will have paid some of the current year running costs but would not receive a share of the eventual harvest._
anyone who wishes to withdraw can contact me privately by email on [email protected]
@alexandrasexton @alfredlawrie @andreadibiagio @annielandless @averilglencross @catherinearend @christinelewis @danielkindred @darren4 @edibleutopia @edna @ellemcall @emersoncsorba @carolingoethel1 @harryboglione @harrygreenfield1 @jamestickell @johnanthonyallan @johncherry @karlschneider @lucybradley1 @matteodv @matthewshribman @nikireynolds @nikitagulhane @romymiller @sadhbhmoore @seangifford @sebastianpowell @shyamdesai @sineadfenton @stevenjacobs @stinewilhelmsen @tamsynforsyth @tessatricks @tristramstuart @veronicalopesdasil1 @wendyalcock
Grahame Hunter Fri 26 Jan 2018 4:52PM
The monthly accounting from January 2018
Each second month-end (so by 28th Feb, 30th April, 30th June etc) every member will receive a statement from me showing the cash balance per member brought forward, and below that the bi-monthly costs incurred, broken down into the following categories:-
- the ground rent net of Single Payment
the farmer's cost
farm admin overhead
the agronomy charge
seeds and sprays purchased
machinery and manpower costs
other handling costs (store, drying etc)
These categories make the Sub-total farming costs
Then follows
Accounts & facilitation charge
misc. organisational expenses
VAT paid, not recoverable
All the above then make up Total Outgoings
With this information, I will then forecast the cash sufficiency for the members, so that everyone will have at least 90 days warning of an impending cash shortage, and there will in those circumstances be opportunity for the members to determine the best course of action.
Poll Created Fri 26 Jan 2018 6:01PM
Lets keep growing in 2018 Closed Mon 5 Feb 2018 5:03PM
Everyone who voted, __ voted to continue, and to expand.__ 11 votes were cast.
This has some exciting implications:-
in 2018, OurField Weston will be farming a total of 13.6 Ha. including the same 8 Ha. farmed last year,
the total number of external members will rise to 60 and John Cherry will be the farmer and not a member,
existing members have until 15th February to inform me if they wish to end their membership, but so far no one has left,
a nominated team are putting together information about the goals and scope of OurField with the purposes of explaining the project, attracting new members, and bringing renewed focus on what we want to achieve..
John Cherry is content to continue the present OurField engagement for 2018 and onwards.
To make this viable, and easier to track the inputs, and to better monitor how field fertility is improved it is proposed that the entire bounded-area of 13.64 ha. (33.7 Acres) be farmed entirely for OurField members.
The 8 Ha area farmed last year for OurField, that has a handsome cover crop of clover and reseeded Spelt growing, is within the larger area which is called Far Town Field, Lannock.
The implication of farming the entire field and not just a part of the field is that we will have space for new members, and the OurField project is more viable for Weston Park Farms to support.
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Agree | 100.0% | 11 |
|
| Abstain | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Disagree | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Block | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 0% | 30 |
|
11 of 41 people have participated (26%)
Wendy Alcock
Sat 27 Jan 2018 9:08AM
The more the merrier I say :)
Christine Lewis
Sun 28 Jan 2018 10:26AM
Happy to keep going and I should have more time and energy for this in 2018
Abby Rose
Tue 30 Jan 2018 11:35AM
Sounds great!!
Grahame Hunter Fri 26 Jan 2018 6:32PM
Financial implications for 2018
I have put up a poll to farm the entire field. Without this larger area it is hard to correctly track inputs without asking the farmer to follow all our decisions for that part of the field which is not within the Ourfield area.
If we take on the expanded area, then we can also accept new members, part of whose money will replace John Cherry's 18 /60th stake in the initial project. If we continue to have 60 paid-in member-stakes, the costs of farming the larger area are entirely manageable at the current level of contributions (new members paying in £200, existing members leaving the rump of last year's stake in play.)
I have shown the costs based on a repeat of last years inputs, with additional costs that are known (Administration, VAT etc) and for the larger farmland-area here,
Darren Tue 30 Jan 2018 12:21AM
Thankyou for taking all this on Grahame - mapping out a fair direction for us to continue.
I dont appear to have got a notification about the vote, other than in the middle of one of the daily digest emails, which I tend not to read, rather checking the emails for each individual discussion posts - guess this is a habit I should change. I'm sure we used to get mails about votes. It might be a temporary hiccup with Loomio, I know they've recently been doing lots of work on the voting/polling part of the website.
On a somewhat unrelated side note - I've been in contact with two separate places where we can probably get some of our spelt dehulled. One may be able to do it all, thinks the hagburg number isnt an issue for baking and even says, that if it bakes a good loaf, they could probably find us a buyer for it all. I should have more details very soon.
Grahame Hunter · Fri 26 Jan 2018 4:21PM
the present financial position
The funds raised for farming were 60 x £150. (the other £50 went towards organisation and set-up) = £9,000