Sorry I sent the wrong attachment. The attaching system works. Here is the DRAFT Agenda. Loomio was being a bit clunky. I hope the DRAFT agenda gets to everyone's screens. Best TonyA

Thanks for your draft agenda @johnanthonyallan this will be perfect for Thursday. I am not sure @johncherry will make it that early, but he will be there later on. We will get through as much as we can, and I think we need someone to volunteer to take minutes so we can feedback the discussion to the collective through loomio

Thank you Abby for your message.
Since I have made a fuss about the meeting I'd be prepared to take minutes. But if someone else has minute taking ambitions I'd be quite happy to have them take them. Tony

About levels of participation, how we organise and Loomio

For quite a few years now I've been involved in projects that have been open for members being actively involved in organising affairs, without appointing an individual or small group as manager(s).

I've been fascinated by the way things have progressed in OurField, doing some research about how Loomio works and thinking a bit about how things could work and how I may like to see things progress.

I was expecting that more people would get involved in discussion and voting - although on reflection and re-reading the OurField collective pdf - which gave everyones introductions - I'm slightly less surprised. I can imagine many havent been able to find the time to engage, some may have joined just to watch and some may have joined to financially and morally support the project knowing they would not have time. I also recognise, from other internet (and 'real life') discussion spaces, the prospect of 'lurkers', people reading whats going on - but, for many possible reasons, not actively engaging in the ongoing process. I think on reflection that a ~50% turn out for voting is quite respectable.

Although I think it would be nice if more people had a more active engagement, I dont think it is a problem if people dont want to vote, or discuss. Low levels of participation is a pattern that I've found repeated in other projects - people have busy lives.

What I would find disappointing is if the opportunity for people to be involved. or observe the process of organisation was reduced. I'd like things to be as transparent as possible.

I notice a few people appearing somewhat confused or unsure of Loomio. Thats not at all unusual of any new internet space/tool. Some people have more experience or pick things up quicker. I've had a good look and as far as I can tell, unless individuals change their email settings, we all get emailed all messages sent to all threads in this Loomio group.

If people are feeling overrun by messages. And I appreciate this is quite possible. There are a number of places to alter settings. There are settings for all Loomio messages, messages to this group, or messages to individual threads. There are details of how to do that here

At times I've found this thread can take a very long time to load, I wonder if others have been having similar issues? Could it be the length of the thread? Or maybe my sometimes poor internet connection?

Maybe things would be easier to follow and manage if we started new threads for conversations about different subjects/tasks and for different votes? People could manage their email settings to suit their interests. Or if we paid Loomio a bit of money for their service we could open sub-groups, for particular tasks (eg. organising beyond farm gate activities), that interested co-investors could join and others could observe if they are interested - but the default would not be that everyone would get every message to the sub-group

I've been closely following the development of online tools to aid group decision making and group working - considering our size, what we are doing and what I imagine/hope we as a group would want I think Loomio is probably state-of-the-art.

Given our geographical spread, ability to come together and time at such meetings for discussing issues I dont think we could find a better way to facilitate group deliberation and decision making. I do however think meetings are valuable and proceedings of meetings can usefully feed back into Loomio as Loomio can feed into meetings.

@darren4 thanks so much for your thoughts on participation and using Loomio. Really helpful to share how OurField fits in with your other experiences, and I think your discussions of how and why people do or don't participate are spot on. I have been very pleased with the engagement from the collective. I think that having different threads for each decision would be wise in future as the loading time for this thread is ridiculous and makes it impossible to use loomio on your phone because it takes too long to scroll to the bottom.
I also think that having certain co-investors be officially more involved in the organisation and increasing transparency around this is an excellent idea. Something to be discussed if we decide to carry on for another year (or more!). Really hope you can make it for 6.30 meeting on Thursday to be part of the discussion...

Dear Darren On Loomio
Your comments on how the group has collaborated is very valuable indeed. Very many thanks for sharing your experience.

Dear Grahame
I am very sorry that I cannot volunteer this weekend. Tony

I agree with Tony - thanks @darren4 - very useful things to think through. The thread usually loads ok for me on my laptop (I tried once on a phone, but never again!).

@grahamehunter I am available to help at the weekend. Sunday would be better but I could probably make Saturday too.

I've also heard from Wrights mill, with the following (selected info rather than the whole email chain. Some comments are good, some not so good:

I didn’t realise this was spelt but that shouldn’t be a problem. We would expect that the grain should be de-hulled (as in de-hulled by the combine). Perhaps it is best you send us a sample!

As a sample Wendy – just a couple of kilos to start with. I am slightly concerned about this non de-hulled part. It might be that we need to look at it in the barn. Where is it stored?

I have agreed to send a couple of kilos of both hulled and unhulled in the first instance, which I can hopefully pick up this weekend.

@wendyalcock thank you for offering to help and it's definitely not something you could do on your own :) so we have been looking into alternative options of how to get about 100kg dehulled! I think @abiaspen will have some updates on this either later today or tmrw.

We did get the results of the tests back from Marriage's:
Protein:13.0
Hagberg:82
Impurities: 13.5
Moisture: 14.80
Bushel Weight: 69.5
Gluten: pass 4
Needs dehulling

The protein content is good enough for bread-making. However the Hagberg No. is low and impurities quite high. Abi will fill you in with more info from millers about what's possible and what this means.
Regardless of what's possible with those numbers, as long as we can get about 100kg spelt dehulled by Wednesday eve and delivered to London, then E5 are happy to mill some grain for us so we can try the flour and members can take some home Thursday eve. If anyone thinks they might be able to help ferrying 100kg of dehulled spelt to E5 bakery on Wednesday by car then please do shout!!

Wendy about Wrights Mill, thanks so much for continuing this conversation and keeping this opportunity open - best to speak to @abiaspen and @grahamehunter about getting the samples sorted. I think we may find that they only need to see a dehulled sample as other mills have said spelt must be dehulled before milling.

shortage of volunteers - only Wendy so far..

A few days ago, I posted this appeal

_ volunteers wanted to help sieve our Spelt_

Abi is going to arrange access to the large barn with John this coming weekend 18th or 19th November. What is required, are a few volunteers to come to Baldock, to help sieve some of the spelt so that around 100kg can be taken by car to E5 for milling before the Harvest Festival event on 23 November. She predictes this may take 4 or 5 hours.

I am sure that the Co-operative funds can stand the expense of re-imbursing the volunteers their travel costs from London, and buying them a decent lunch in the pub.

sign up here, please

if there are no takers to sieve the spelt, there will very little spelt taken to E5, to be milled for the Harvest event.

__ That does not effect matters regarding the bulk selling of the spelt, but does mean co-operative members may not be able to take some of their own spelt flour home from E5.__

As it is now Friday before the event, anyone who wishes to help needs to liaise directly with Abi Glendcross by phone her number is 07935029192

@grahamehunter I am very sorry, we have a stand at the Living Crafts Christmas fair at Blenheim palace Thursday through Sunday evening so I am unable to offer any time at all; otherwise I would have been there to help. Tamsyn

I am also sorry that I cannot come to Baldock. Very sorry. Tony

Really looking forward to seeing many of you tomorrow! @abiaspen is preparing some amazing food. And we have some great discussions planned with farmers, bakers, millers, OurFielders - we hope you will all share! As well as music.
Unfortunately we do not have any of our own spelt dehulled (to be discussed tomorrow), but E5 are preparing some very special loaves just for tomorrow night as a special treat, and the E5 team will be on hand to answer questions about the mill on site!
Please do come along at 6.30 for the initial meeting as well!
p.s ( you should all check out the dinners @abiaspen and @sadhbhmoore are doing this Sunday and Monday at Borough market all about cereals: http://boroughmarket.org.uk/events/sustainable-food-story-supperclubs )

proceding with the implication of the poll

Leaving aside the de-hulling matters (that is, assuming the mills themselves can cope with de-hulling or we find a business to do it for us) I think we should now get firm prices from Mills for processing the Spelt (milling, packing, palletising etc).

I shall be at Weston next week, and can undertake _ packing and shipping of samples_ to any mill that any co-operative member has contacted and believes can take the bulk of the grain, __ provided I have __

• a full delivery address with post code and
• a contact address and telephone number for the person who will receive the delivery, and
• a clear instruction how much to send.

If we can do this, and get prices before Christmas, I can arrange shipping from Weston to a single mill or to two mills, in the New Year.

Dear Grahame
Very many thanks for sending this very useful information which implies you are prepared to do a lot of important things over the next month. Much appreciated. Your message arrived after I was on my way to last evening's very successful meeting and festival in Hackney.

I have drafted some minutes which you and a few others whose emails I have will have just received. I have incorporated your message into the minutes. I am hoping that Abby who ran a very good meeting , and others present last evening, will augment and approve the minutes for circulation on Loomio.