Some of you may be aware that throughout 2014 the Waiting Room hosted a local weekly vegetable box scheme (with Bennison Farm) and an established food buying cooperative. Both groups complemented our own ethos of re-connecting local people to locally and responsibly crafted, sourced and produced goods and services.

Colchester Food Coop brings local people together in a social group to share a love of ethical food, discover exciting new local produce, and save money. They do this by supporting ethical producers, cutting out the middle man and purchasing together in bulk. This allows them to trade directly with wholesalers and local producers who can’t otherwise afford to – or are not set up to – sell to individual customers.

Colchester Food Coop has placed a regular monthly order with wholesaler Suma Wholefoods since 2007 and is now looking to grow in a sustainable way.

After been organised using various peoples garages, in 2014 the group made a move and started using the Waiting Room in Colchester as its town centre collection point. This has proven very successful, has increased visibility and has helped this collaborative shopping experience become even more fun and convenient.

To build on this success, Colchester Food Coop would like to recruit a Community Coordinator to help them grow and improve in the following ways:

1. Create a greater sense of community and co-ordination within the group, encourage more member involvement in shared activities to make this a true cooperative.
2. Increase the number of opportunities to socialise and share an interest in food.
3. Forge new deeper relationships with a wider selection of ethical local producers and specialist wholesalers and explore the potential to buy directly from them in bulk*
4. Lower the cost of the order by:
   – encouraging members to share when they are ordering**
   – being more proactive in seeking out deals
   – increase membership numbers to facilitate higher order volumes and therefore greater discounts

The group recognise that co-ordinating the Coop will be too much responsibility for a volunteer. They also recognise that by providing some remuneration and/or allowing for an element of enterprise, it can can afford someone (a Community Coordinator) the time and space to explore adding value to the membership and increase potential savings. To start, Colchester Food Co-op are willing to offer a 5% (of any collective order value) as a gesture commission towards someone’s time.

The Coordinator is responsible to the Colchester Food Coop.

In addition to growing and developing the group in the aforementioned ways there are also some immediate core functions to ensure the smooth running of the existing service, these are:

1. Meeting with the cooperative members to establish and understand how they currently operate; which group tasks function well, (i.e setting ordering dates, order inputting and payment procedures with Suma Wholefoods) and which tasks need the input of a coordinator.
2. Co-ordinating receipt of delivery and organising the volunteer rota for the dividing up of group’s purchase into individual orders, or categories, for collection.
3. Advertising shared pick up times and working with the Waiting Room to maintain access to collections for those who cannot make it.
4. Consulting with the group, using the Google group, about any major changes, and organising any meetings of the group.

If you are interested in this role, please contact the Colchester Food Coop by email ([email protected]), with answers to the following questions.

1. Why you are interested in this role
2. What you think you have to offer
3. Details of any relevant experience
4. Tell us about your own love of food
5. Any ideas that you have for improving the group
6. How would you recruit new members

Deadline for expressions of interest is: Sunday 1st February

*eg. exploring opportunities to order (or even pre-order) seasonal produce from local farmers for short periods of availability.
**eg. ordering 1x 5l Ecover container Washing Up liquid and splitting into members own recyclable packaging as opposed to buying 10x 500ml bottles.

Image: Christian Cable