Annual Cooperative General Assembly

Our Annual General Assembly happened last week, and turnout was honestly better than we expected — over a hundred members showed up, maybe the biggest crowd we've had for one of these. We started with the treasury committee's financial report, then went line by line through each part of the cooperative: olive oil, za'atar, honey, soap, and the newer tomato line, each one going over how the year went and what they learned.

The big decision of the night was approving a new cold storage facility, paid for partly by member contributions and partly by a matching grant we landed earlier this year. Once it's built, we'll finally be able to hold onto perishable stuff — fresh produce, some dairy from members' households, finished goods — for longer instead of rushing everything out the door, which should mean better prices and buyers we couldn't really serve before.

Membership is up too — eighteen new families joined since our last assembly, several of them mentioning our Academy training programs as the reason they signed up. The Women's Projects committee gave an update on the soap workshop and the new farmers' shop, both doing better than expected in their first year, and the Community committee talked about expanding childcare during harvest season so more mothers can actually get out to the groves.

Like always, we ended with open floor time — anyone can stand up and ask whatever they want, push back on whatever they want. That's been part of these meetings since day one and nobody on the board wants to change that. "This is where the cooperative actually gets built — one vote and one annoying question at a time," one board member said as we were wrapping up, only half kidding. Minutes and the full financial report are up at the office if you want to read them. We're already starting to plan next year's.