Happy 2nd Anniversary Moving to Conservers!
Can you believe we are 2 years old this month? Two years ago, 8 of us got together for a zero-waste potluck dinner and to study a video course on resilience from the Post Carbon Institute. Those 8 people shared the word and now we are a group of hundreds. Wow. To celebrate we are gathering at the Peace House (one of our original meeting spots) this Thursday at 6 pm for a zero-waste potluck and party. Su and Rob have graciously opened their space to us for this wonderful gathering. Su has put together a [...]
Living Wage Coalition educates us during a zero-waste potluck at WolfBrew Bottle Shop
Elaine Long of the Living Wage Coalition joined us for our October 3rd zero-waste potluck gathering at WolfBrew Bottle shop. We invited her to educate us and help us identify what we need to pay the staff of Transylvania Shares, the sharing cooperative we are creating. A living wage in Transylvania county is $12.60 an hour. According to the Living Wage Certification process, a process that allows members of our community to know who is compensating their employees at a living wage rate, the only requirement to become certified is to pay employees $12.60 an hour [...]
Transylvania Shares cooperative now has a board of directors and then some…
Many thanks to Ed for guiding us through the creation of our sharing coop. Here are Ed's notes from the September 19, 2019 meeting. How exciting! Hello All, We had another productive meeting last evening at Oskar Blues on the Business Plan for the sharing cooperative. Here is a summary of what we resolved and the action items. Name of the Organization: The name of the organization will be 'Transylvania Shares'. (kudos to John for coming up with this clever name) Transylvania Shares Mission: A Community Resource sharing stuff to reduce consumption. Transylvania Shares' Principles: Zero [...]
Waste Less. Save More. Poster Unveiled!
Thank you everyone who shared their ideas in our Use Food Scraps Essay Contest. Thanks to Althea for analyzing the essays (she said she teared up when reading them) and creating this fantastic poster AND presenting it to the Transylvania Natural Resource Council today. Thanks to Jinx for funding the printing! What an amazing community we have and how awesome it is when we come together and share our love.
Jackson County Green Energy Park
We ran into a friend today and she handed us a flyer about the Jackson County Green Energy Park. Pretty amazing place! They are using landfill gases to fuel an artist community!
Sharing club draft mission statment developed
James, Kathleen, Susan, John and I enjoyed a gathering of beer and pizza at the Cedar Mountain Canteen while coming up with a draft mission statement for our sharing cooperative. We started by each person being asked to write down a few words on scraps of paper that describe things they are passionate about when creating a new business in our community. We took those scraps of passionate words and arranged them on the table and came up with a draft mission statement: Providing an equitable community resource by sharing stuff with neighbors to reduce consumption. [...]
Use Food Scraps Poster Unveil is this Friday at the TNRC meeting!
In March, we hosted the Use Food Scraps symposium. A part of the event was an essay contest where members of our community gave suggestions for keeping food out of our landfill. Those suggestions have been used to create a community poster! We received a $100 donation to print the posters and the poster will be unveiled during our presentation to the Transylvania Natural Resource Council this Friday. Many thanks to everyone who made this possible and to Thea for using her skills to analyze these essays and bring them together as a community asset!
Our gathering at Cup and Saucer was exciting!
What a fantastic gathering at Cup and Saucer September 5th! Thanks to Gail for organizing our visit with them and thanks to Gail for purchasing a sampling of goodies for us to try. I know I am sold after trying their food. We enjoyed meeting Elisabeth, one of the owners. She explained all they do to reduce their waste and asked for input from us. We shared a few ideas and a joint event may be in the works! Pretty excited about it. We will announce more as it develops. Elisabeth shared they use Rooster Head [...]
A beautiful way to start the day, swapping sharing stuff with smiles, laughter and joy!
This morning, we had the honor of chauffeuring a dear friend to Asheville for an appointment. We also had the good fortune of delivering dishes and supplies to Su for a Thursday event. Julia had some of our supplies from an event she hosted this weekend so she also met us to do an exchange. What a wonderful way to start the day, with hugs, joy, and sharing. I have read many times how becoming a zero-waste community builds community. We experience it all the time and I love it! Thanks to those in our community [...]
Sharing Coop Steering Committee Minutes of 22Aug2019
We had a productive meeting this past Thursday evening at Oskar Blues. Sue, Kathleen and Owen, we missed y'all there. I have attached the document that we used as a basis for discussion. (Moving to Conservers Cooperative Discussion) To all: please review the the information below and let me/all know of any corrections: We discussed the 3 questions on our discussion sheet and they are summarized as follows: 1. What is the need that the Cooperative will meet? Summary: We will build community by loaning tools and other items so that members will not have to [...]