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Counter Culture
Oct. 5th, 2004 02:04 amI can't remember what I've said about Counter Culture in this LJ, so I'll start at the begining. I think I'll record my CC thoughts here rather than on tabnet because this is more relevant to Torontonians.
Counter Culture is an alternative, vegan café at York University, and I'm on its understaffed board of directors. The café is moving into new digs hopefully in January, and in the meantime, we have no home since our old home faculty moved into a new building.
So right now I'm the volunteer coordinator of sorts. We need to do some serious fundraising to pay our ongoing insurance, plus some debts we incurred last year (not much), plus backtaxes not paid by previous managers (now that's a lot of money). So we'll be tabling at school, selling some goods (boxed tea, hot chocolate powder, jam, etc) and our cookbook.
I've had the first volunteer meeting on Thursday, and I was kinda let down by the turnout. I was hoping some 10 people would show up, and I didn't even get that. Worse, I only got two people to commit to firm tabling hours. So I'll possibly end up tabling as well. I don't really want to do that because I'm already doing other things for CC, and time I spend tabling is not spent on something else.
Today I hooked up with our baker from last year to repatriate last year's leftover ingredients from a college kitchen to our own storage room. While doing this I ripped up my jeans, and I'm writing this entry as a way to take a break from patching up said jeans. I like the idea of sewing my own patches, but my fingers start to twitch after a while. F suggested that I go to the dry cleaners downstairs and get them to sow my patches with a sewing machine. No way man. I'm PUNK!! She said she wouldn't tell anyone. So sweet!
So anyway, other than ripping my jeans up, this moving business was pretty good in another way, where Kim, the aforementioned baker, has decided that she wants to be on the board of CC. I was really glad to hear that because since I first joined the CC board, we have always been understaffed, which lead to some chronic disorganisation, which may not be a stranger to why we owe back taxes. On top of being understaffed, we lost one net member this summer, and we will lose two more members within the next year. That would leave me as the sole student on board. So much for students running their own "student-run" café. Anyway, if that was to happen, we'd just call it a day, but since we're not there, it's good to hear that someone is interested.
Actually recruiting board members is my new big job, I should concentrate on this. That should relieve my stress about everything else related to CC. There's actually less stress now because our super manager from last year completely cleaned up our finances and wrote a manager's manual for newbies. Finally some guidance! Both for managers-to-be, and the board itself. I'll pore over this manual ASAP.
So anyway, this was kinda jumbled, but as events happen with Counter Culture and I write about there, a certain narrative should emerge. Hopefully it's not tragic.
Counter Culture is an alternative, vegan café at York University, and I'm on its understaffed board of directors. The café is moving into new digs hopefully in January, and in the meantime, we have no home since our old home faculty moved into a new building.
So right now I'm the volunteer coordinator of sorts. We need to do some serious fundraising to pay our ongoing insurance, plus some debts we incurred last year (not much), plus backtaxes not paid by previous managers (now that's a lot of money). So we'll be tabling at school, selling some goods (boxed tea, hot chocolate powder, jam, etc) and our cookbook.
I've had the first volunteer meeting on Thursday, and I was kinda let down by the turnout. I was hoping some 10 people would show up, and I didn't even get that. Worse, I only got two people to commit to firm tabling hours. So I'll possibly end up tabling as well. I don't really want to do that because I'm already doing other things for CC, and time I spend tabling is not spent on something else.
Today I hooked up with our baker from last year to repatriate last year's leftover ingredients from a college kitchen to our own storage room. While doing this I ripped up my jeans, and I'm writing this entry as a way to take a break from patching up said jeans. I like the idea of sewing my own patches, but my fingers start to twitch after a while. F suggested that I go to the dry cleaners downstairs and get them to sow my patches with a sewing machine. No way man. I'm PUNK!! She said she wouldn't tell anyone. So sweet!
So anyway, other than ripping my jeans up, this moving business was pretty good in another way, where Kim, the aforementioned baker, has decided that she wants to be on the board of CC. I was really glad to hear that because since I first joined the CC board, we have always been understaffed, which lead to some chronic disorganisation, which may not be a stranger to why we owe back taxes. On top of being understaffed, we lost one net member this summer, and we will lose two more members within the next year. That would leave me as the sole student on board. So much for students running their own "student-run" café. Anyway, if that was to happen, we'd just call it a day, but since we're not there, it's good to hear that someone is interested.
Actually recruiting board members is my new big job, I should concentrate on this. That should relieve my stress about everything else related to CC. There's actually less stress now because our super manager from last year completely cleaned up our finances and wrote a manager's manual for newbies. Finally some guidance! Both for managers-to-be, and the board itself. I'll pore over this manual ASAP.
So anyway, this was kinda jumbled, but as events happen with Counter Culture and I write about there, a certain narrative should emerge. Hopefully it's not tragic.
