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Ringing in an Eventful Spring
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Table of Contents
1. A Word from the General Manager ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .
"GM Update", Gary Taylor
2. Good to Know: Announcements & answers
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
April 6: Co-op Catering Launch Party
April 7: Edible Book Festival
April 19: Finan¢ial Meeting of Owners
April 28: Plant Sale Fundraiser
"Meet Our Operations Manager", Joanne Mierek
A Call for Family Recipes
Art Gallery Opening during Boneyard Arts Festival
Fresh Sushi at the Co-op!
Also New at the Co-op: Local Bison Meat
Chip Reader Rollback
April Deli Features
3. Food for Thought ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .... ... ...
"Reusing > Recycling", Andi Marietta, FOH Manager
4. Local Food
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .... ... ... ... ... .
Marketing's Q2 focus
On the Importance of Local Food
April 26: Join Us for Local Food Lobby Day in Springfield
5. Round Up for Good ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .... ...
April Round Up: R.A.C.E.S.
March Results
6. From Your Board ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .... ... ...
Charles Delman, Board Member
7. Keepin' it Class-y ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... .... ... ...
Upcoming Classes & Events
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GM Update
Gary Taylor, General Manager
Hello Common Grounders!
Wow! It has been a whirlwind of a first month and I am so excited to see what is next! My amazing staff, owners, customers, and suppliers are definitely keeping me busy. Coming up in April I will be heading out to Raleigh, North Carolina for the NCG (National Co+op Grocers) Spring meeting where I will be able to network with many cooperative GMs from across the country! I look forward to speaking with new and seasoned leaders of the movement to share as much information as possible in the true cooperative spirit!
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Co-op Catering Launch Party
See you April 6 in the Mall Hallway
Yep, that's right - we cater! Our Prepared Foods & Deli departments have worked hard to put together an impressive, delicious, affordable array of catering options for your meetings, parties, and events!
See the new menu.
To celebrate the launch of this new, long-awaited, oft-requested program, we're throwing a party of our own.
Come to the
Co-op Catering Sample Party
Friday, April 6 from 5 to 7 pm for samples of our delicious catered foods, live music by Dewclaw, local beer for sale, and another big, colorful surprise we've been planning for a while that we know you'll enjoy.
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Edible Book Festival
One of last year's most popular events is back April 7th
Join us for the 13th annual Edible Book Festival April 7th from 10:30 am to 1 pm. This quirky festival celebrates literature, gastronomy, and community. It is held on or around April Fool's Day every year, as it is "the perfect day to eat your words." This event is hosted by the University Library in collaboration with Common Ground Food Co-op and the Eastern Illinois Foodbank.
Categories will include:
- Best depiction of a classic
- Punniest
- Best entry based on a children's book
- Best entry based on a young adult book
- People's choice
- Others TBD by our judges!
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The Annual Financial Meeting of Owners is April 19th
Hear from the GM and Board about the financial standing of the Co-op
Owners are invited to Common Ground's Financial Meeting of Owners, hosted at the
Urbana Civic Center
on Thursday April 19th, from 7 to 8 pm.
Hear from our Board Treasurer, Magdalena Casper-Shipp, and our General Manager, Gary Taylor, on the financial standing of the Co-op.
Mingle with Co-op owners, hear about our community impact, meet our Board of Directors, and enjoy refreshments.
This is a private event for Co-op owners only. Not an owner? Become one today!
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Common Ground's Annual Plant Sale is Coming Up
Saturday, April 28th is this year's big Food For All fundraiser
Our annual Plant Sale Fundraiser is April 28th from 11-3 pm! Start your garden with local seedlings grown by
BlueMoon Farm
,
Sola Gratia Farm
,
Delight Flower Farm
,
Old Town Flowers
,
Plant Mode
,
PrairiErth Farm
, Green Pantry Nursery, and many Co-op gardeners! We will have a wide assortment of tomatoes, greens, bell and hot peppers, herbs, veggies, flowers, succulents, black raspberries, seed packets, and unique varieties of seedlings to grow this year!
All proceeds will benefit our Food For All Program that provides Co-op ownership grants, 10% discounts on produce and hundreds of pantry staples, as well covering all Co-op classes for our Food For All participants!
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Meet Our Operations Manager
Joanne Mierek
It seems about time for me to let Common Ground owners know a little bit about me and what I do here at the store. For about 20 years, I've worked for a number of retail, wholesale and food service companies, all small independent businesses. My husband Jason and I met while working for an independent bookstore in San Francisco. (Subsequently put out of business by Amazon Books - remember when Amazon just sold books?) We moved to Champaign in 2002 after our daughter was born. I had been shopping at Rainbow Market in SF and was a member of a local CSA, so one of the first things I did here was become an owner of Common Ground.
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A Call for Your Favorite Family Recipes
We are starting to compile a Co-op Cookbook!
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Art Gallery Opening during Boneyard Arts Festival
Friday April 13th, 6-8pm featuring Yeong Choi and N.C. Stephens
You are invited to an Art Opening for Yeong Choi and N.C. Stephens, the Friday of
Boneyard Arts Festival
April 13th, 6-8pm. Meet the talented artists, enjoy delicious co-op foods with wine and beer for tasting. Free to the public and kids are welcome!
Join our Facebook Event!
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Fresh Sushi at the Co-op!
Locally made every day
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Also New at the Co-op: Local Bison Meat
We now carry local, 100% grass-fed, free range, antibiotic- & hormone-free American B
ison meat
in 2lb packages with our frozen meats. Lieb Farms is a 5th generation family farm only 26 miles away from the co-op in Monticello, IL. They feed their
bison
grass and hay grown on their farm, free of GMOs.
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Chip Reader Rollback
As you may know, the Co-op switched over to chip readers for card purchases at our registers several months ago. While we have been working hard to ensure a great customer experience, the transition hasn't been seamless and continues to have some problems. Until the companies we use have fixed the issues we've been experiencing, we feel the best option is to go back to the swipe method of card reading, which was much easier for customers and staff alike to use. We will continue to review the process and will try the chip reader once the issue have been resolved. Thank you so much for your understanding.
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April Deli Features
For April's feature sandwich we are introducing a Brie & Pesto Grown Up Toasted Cheese. Served on our Local Great Harvest Dakota Hoagie, with Co-op made Arugula Pesto, Organic Spinach, Tomato, & Caramelized Onions and Champignon's Triple Crème Brie (vegetarian).
Call in your order! (217) 239-4525
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Reusing > Recycling
Andi Marietta, Front of House Manager
Every year the city of Urbana offers a recycling program to people living in single-family homes up through four-plex housing units through a contractor. This contractor generally serves about 8,500 such domiciles per week. The items for recycling are placed in a large container and taken to a facility to be sorted by type of item (cardboard, steel, glass, #1 plastic, etc). Once sorted, the items themselves are baled and shipped to different facilities to be recycled. Some of those facilities are here in town, some are as far away as Georgia (
1)
. The items are then recycled and turned into new products.
While recycling is a great thing to do to help reduce these sorts of items going into a landfill, you can see that recycling requires further energy and resources to get the items recycled. What can make a bigger impact environmentally is to reduce the amount of items you need to recycle. This is where reusable items come in.
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Marketing's Q2 Spring/Summer Focus: Local Food
April, May, & June we will be celebrating what makes CG special
One of the
Four Ends of Common Ground Food Co-op is "Our local food system is equitable, robust, & environmentally sound". Building the local food system is a continued focus for food co-ops like ours. Thank you for supporting Common Ground Food Co-op - when you buy local, you're not just helping the co-op, but your community, the local economy, and the local environment, too (more on that
here).
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On the Importance of Local Food
Revisit some articles by Co-op staff
by Sam Ihm, Marketing, June 2017
by Sam Ihm, Marketing, November 2017
by Tim Sullivan, former Interim GM, January 2018
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Join Us for Local Food Lobby Day April 26 in Springfield
We are lobbying with Illinois Stewardship Alliance for local food issues
Every year, the
Illinois Stewardship Alliance organizes a Local Food Lobby Day. This year, there are four focuses: industrial hemp farming, SNAP (food stamp) match at farmers markets, fully funding the Soil & Water Conservation Districts, and clarifications to the Illinois Food Freedom Act. Read more
here.
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April Round Up For Good: R.A.C.E.S.
"The mission of Rape Advocacy, Counseling, & Education Services is to challenge the rape culture and empower victims and survivors of sexual violence through advocacy, counseling, education, crisis intervention, and activism.
RACES also works with non-offending significant others, allied professionals, and the community at large to end all forms of sexual violence.
RACES believes that working to end sexual violence, a widespread form of oppression that primarily victimizes women and children, is essential to building a world free of all forms of oppression."
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March Results: Prairie Rivers Network
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Board Update
Charles Delman, Board Member
The CGFC Board of Directors has recently been focused on three things:
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Welcoming our new General Manager, Gary Taylor, and building a strong, effective working relationship with him,
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Planning the Financial Meeting of Owners (FinMoo), to be held on Thursday, April 19, from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Urbana Civic Center, and
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Improving the Board's governance process, effectiveness, and responsiveness.
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The next board meeting is: Monday, April 9 from 6:15-8:15 pm, Urbana Civic Center
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Check out all our new seasonal classes & events, along with some Co-op favorites
See the classes email
here for the full list!
For details on our classes, check the
calendar
.
Register online or sign up in person with our staff at the registers. Unless indicated otherwise, all classes and events are located in the Flatlander Classroom at Common Ground, 300 S. Broadway in the Lincoln Square Shopping Center.
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Stay connected on social media
Like us on
Facebook
to stay up to date on events, new products, goofy stuff, and news.
Follow us on
Instagram to get your mouth watering.
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300 S. Broadway Avenue Suite #166, Urbana, IL 61801
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