Subject: Re: payment plans and units

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 11:46:26 CDT

We let people suggest their own payment plan, like West Haven. We are 
concerned that our membership be as diverse as possible, so I don't think 
we would consider discounts to people with more money, though we are also 
relatively small. Our coordinator has been working with a nearby social 
service grant writer, and hope to offer some assistance to low income 
families next year, if all goes well.

In a somewhat related area, is anyone doing or thinking of writing core 
group functions into your budget (ie paying both garden and coordination 
work in food, paid for by other members)? Do working members decide where 
to work, or does the group decide what work is available to people?

We also discussed at our last meeting approaching the farmers mkt, our 
local food coop, and perhaps others (restaurants, grocery chains) about 
working together to encourage people to eat locally, and perhaps help 
invest in local growers through revolving loan funds and/or "local food 
dollars". We think our state dept of econ. dev. would be interested in 
funding this sort of thing, is anyone familiar with anything like this 
around the country?

Finally, has anyone gone to the Equity Trust workshops on land trusts in 
CA or CT? I'm signed up for the one in Chicago June 14-16, and am 
interested in hearing what people have thought. 
 
> At West Haven Farm CSA here in Ithaca, we do allow (but I wouldn't say
> encourage) payment plans.  At first we made it cheaper to pay up front than
> to do installments, but we stopped doing that because we realized that if
> *we* wanted to join a CSA we'd need to pay in installments ourselves.
> 
> Our system works like this: Shareholders who want to pay in installments
> contact us, and we tell them that whatever schedule works for them is OK.
> We make it clear that we want to be farmers, not bankers, and that we won't
> send them reminders or statements.  They put in writing what they want to
> do, and send it to us with whatever deposit they can afford.  When we get
> this we send them a reciept stating what they've paid so far, what they
> owe, and the schedule they've said they'll keep.  We do our bookkeeping on
> Excel and we just keep track of when they make payments--it's almost always
> when they've said they will.  We usually have about 20 shares each year who
> choose this option, and we haven't had any problems with it.
> 
> Jen,
> who this season is hoping for 1/2 inch of gentle rain on Monday and
> Thursday nights
> 
> 

---
Jeff Hall	
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Jennifer Bokaer-Smith)
Date: Mon, 20 May 1996 11:46:42 -0400

In terms of the unit system that was in GFM this month-- my take on it is
that it only works if you're dealing with really large amounts of produce.
You need to harvest enough so that those coming at the end of the pick-up
don't end up with 12 units of beans, or whatever.  They seemed to be
picking a lot to cover themselves, and then marketing the extras.  I think
it's rare to find market outlets for your extras.  It can damage your
reputation to market stuff that's been picked over or that's been sitting
around for a while, so be careful with the extras--make sure the quality is
good if you're going to market them instead of donate them, which I think
is more of the norm.

Last year we started offering choices to our shareholders--choose 2 of
broccoli, cauliflower, red cabbage, green cabbage, or choose two kinds of
herbs, or two bunches of 5 different kinds of greens.  This is a similar
idea but we've found that we don't need to pick tons extra in order for
everyone to get their first choice.  Because the items are so similar,
someone may end up with broccoli instead of cauliflower but it's not as
much of a drag for that last shareholder as it would be to end up with 12
lbs of beans, which I could imagine happening if we went to units.  So on a
small scale (we have about 50 shares), the "choices" option seems like a
good way to offer variety and customized shares without making other
compromises.

Good luck!

Jen,