[ShareTompkins] Save Ludgate Farms Meeting Summary

[Shira Golding]

hi everyone,

we had a great meeting last week at the owl cafe to continue the  
discussion about the future of ludgate farms!

in attendance were alex colket (swidjit), marlo capoccia (garden gate  
delivery), blake myers (debit w/ local rewards card), janet morgan and  
jim skaley (from the town of varna), shira evergreen (share tompkins),  
and dick cahoon (greesnprings, fl land trust, cctec).

nobody took minutes (sorry!), but here are the highlights as i  
remember them:

- dick cahoon came close to buying the property last summer and is  
still very interested in buying! he would like to run an incubator for  
"agripreneurs" on part of the land and rent out rooms in the house. he  
is then very open and eager for others to step up and run the store in  
whatever new and improved form it takes. he would be a very supportive  
landlord.

- marlo capoccia of garden gate delivery expressed interest in  
partnering with the new space as a hub for garden gate and a partner  
for purchasing and distributing inventory.

- janet morgan and jim skaley discussed how the town of varna (very  
close from ludgate's) is working on a redevelopment plan. they offered  
some other location ideas for a new store on the "main drag" of route  
366 and also talked about ways pedestrian and car traffic from varna  
could be better directed to a store at the current location. they and  
dick also discussed some zoning issues related to the property.

- we discussed how the new store could be more of a "destination" and  
therefore bring in new and more consistent customers. some ideas that  
we were most excited about included having the store be exclusively  
local and zero-waste/zero-packaging, including a "free store" in part  
of the space, and having a commercial kitchen with classes on food  
preservation and other food security skills.

- marlo, blake and alex all volunteered to contact some other key  
people who might be interested in getting involved and/or being part  
of a management team.

- dick plans on moving forward with purchasing the property and will  
keep us all in the loop.

if anyone else who was at the meeting would like to add or correct  
anything, please do!

- shira :)

Shira Golding Evergreen
shiraevergreen at gmail.com
http://www.shirari.com