I'm pleased to announce our first stab at a Biodiesel Cooperative web site here. (www.novabiodiesel.org)
Some of the people who showed up are real movers and shakers and as a result we're going forward to incorporate as a either a 501(c)3 and/or a 501(c)12 (Virginia Cooperative). Of everyone who showed up (was it 25 or more?) there was so much enthusiasm, that they we stayed past the 3 hour point and I had to adjourn the meeting at 4 hours just because many were so hungry.
There's certainly a great amount of synergy happening from that meeting. Now we have a steering committee forming (4 of us) and a web development/design team forming (5 of us so far).
I think before I know it, we're gonna need a few teams too keep from expanding too quickly and becoming too big and losing our agility. That's a great problem to have! Mike Weaver and I recently talked about forming smaller spin-off coops with their own structure inside a "family of coops umbrella" -- if we grow too fast!
People are really connecting. I love this stuff... it's like the epitome of "me." Movements and activism... I love it! I shoulda been born in he 60s!
If any of you would like to actually become part of the cooperative, please email me or Jerome (jerome@dieselsprout.com) to join us. We may have to close membership within a certain geographic area or within a certain size soon. So the sooner you contact us, the more opportunity you'll have to get in early. Be warned, we're discussing a fee to ensure a serious membership group. So if you're ready for that, please email one of us.
And I want to hardily thank Kevin Gregg for being the impetus behind me and Jerome trying this biodiesel momentum and consensus building effort again! Kevin, I had given up... thanks for pushing me to give it another try!
Israel Kloss
Steering Committee Member
NovaBiodiesel.org
P.S. We want to partner as much as possible with our fellows in Maryland (and Winchester, VA), so please don't write us off because of our URL. We're cheering on Adam Schwartz of Green Guild Biodiesel right now and hoping he can be our Maryland counterpart. Don't forget his upcoming meeting:
March 12th @ 6pm
Center for Educational Partnership
6200 Sheridan Street
Riverdale, MD 20737
And don't forget to keep in touch with the happenings over at the Cleaner Greener Foundation in Winchester, VA. I even read about their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) project on their web site. I'm a part of a CSA, but since they're doing biodiesel, I would like to support them and move over to their CSA. Anyone interested in going in together on fresh Virginia-farmed vegetables?
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