We have some very exciting news to share with everyone -- we have found our own space for the co-op, and we will be implementing new ordering software very soon!  These are two things that we have been working very hard to achieve this past year, and we are very excited about the growth and opportunity that both of these changes will bring.  Here are the details:

New Space
We have found a wonderful place on 59th and Waters, right behind Savannah Tire.  It is a lovely, large space that should be convenient for all of our members.  It is only a couple of minutes away from St. Michael's where we hold our pickups now and just off of the Delesseps exit from the Truman Parkway for those of us coming in from that way.  Having our own space opens so many opportunities for us -- allowing us the flexibility to work directly with local producers, providing space to offer more great products and have some dry goods on-hand, and room to grow into a great source for healthy food for the Savannah community. 

Our first order in the new space will be the January 28th order.  We will send detailed directions and information prior to pickup. 

If you have any office equipment (desks, tables, chairs, etc.), folding tables that we could use for sorting, or any other items you think we could use in our new space, please respond to this email and let us know.  We'd love anything you'd like to share!

New Ordering Software
Yes, it's true - we are finally there!  We have spent many hours and many months working on a new ordering software that will make the co-op ordering process much easier and smoother for all.  The software will allow each member to have their own login where you can view or update your current order, view previous orders, check your current balance, browse available products, and more!  It will be a much easier user experience, we believe, and again, will allow us to offer a wider variety of products and vendors since the overhead from the back-end will be much more manageable. 

We will be implementing the software either with our January 28th main order or with the February 11th order, so be on the lookout for detailed instructions very soon.

Thanks to all of you for being a part of the co-op and making this growth possible!

The Co-op Managers,
Melissa, Carmen, and Julie

Please remember that the co-op will not have our regular Thursday pickup on December 24th.

Our every other Thursday delivery will resume on January 14th, 2010. The preorder and Frontier portions of the order will open on January 1st, so keep an eye out for the emails.

We hope that you are all enjoying the winter holidays!

We have a new address for mailing or dropping off your checks.

Savannah Food Co-op
c/o Emily Sontag
403 E 50th St
Savannah, GA 31405

If you are dropping off your payment put it through the mail slot in the door. Please do not knock, as Emily's little one might be napping.

If anyone has a check in transit to the old address please let us know so that we can keep an eye out for it.

Thanks,
Julie

We have created a new page on our website that gives you the ability to access co-op member order total and payment history (see link below).  It is a lookup similar to the invoice view - you input your name, click submit, then click a link to the right  so see all of your order totals and payments for 2009.  It will also give you your current balance (as of the most recent completed order) and show any damaged or missing items credits (those that are reported through the damage form after an order).  A few things to note:

- the credits you will see listed specifically in the balance lookup do not include things such as items that were ordered originally but do not arrive because they were out of stock, items you didn't receive because of a shortage in quantity shipped, etc.  Those kinds of things are handled on the order spreadsheet directly - we simply remove or change the items in question from your order, removing/changing the related amount and updating your balance accordingly.  So you will not see these types of things listed specifically as 'credits'.

- the credits you will see are generally specific to items that are reported on the damage form directly after an order.  The date of the credit relates to the order for which it was reported.

- order totals are listed as negative numbers, payments as positive numbers

- there is a link to previous order spreadsheets on the member balance lookup page.  You can access order spreadsheets from March and April if you'd like to view your order in more detail.

Here is a link to the web page (you can also access this from our home page via a link in the navigation bar on the right side of the page):  http://www.savannahcoop.com/Home/member-balance-order-information

We hope this will be helpful!  Please let us know if you have any questions or feedback.

Thanks,
Melissa Beauchamp, Co-op Manager

Hi Everyone,
There has been lots of movement behind the scenes at the Co-op this past month, and we wanted to let you know about it. Two of our wonderful Managers, Marisa Lilje and Emily Sontag, have left the ranks of Co-op Managers in order to focus on other work and help support their families.  We want to thank them A LOT for the countless volunteer hours that they put in to get this Co-op started.  And of course they're not really going anywhere and will continue to help with this endeavor (yeah!), but hopefully at a pace that allows them to focus on other things too.

Marisa Lilje (marisal_99@yahoo.com) is still one half of our wonderful bakeshop, Clover + Crumpet, and is hoping to expand their offerings to include special occasion pastries and breads. She is also running a small cottage business doing handwork (knitting and sewing) for anyone who could use it. Finally, and most importantly, she will be focusing on her art career. Marisa will be teaching at the Jepson, and hopefully elsewhere, in the coming months. On a personal note, both Carmen and Michelle can vouch for her beautiful and delicious birthday cakes (will post a pic to the yahoogroup).

Emily Sontag (emily@dewittmortgage.net) will still be the Check Processing Coordinator for the Co-op, so don't worry, your checks are going to the same place as ever.  But she has also joined Dewitt Mortgage as a mortgage broker! She is very excited about helping people take advantage of all the purchase and refinancing mortgage options that are part of the Stimulus package, including rates in the mid 4% range. She is currently offering all Co-op Members a 25% discount off origination fees. She will be very happy to answer your questions, run numbers for you, and just generally help you figure out what you may qualify for. We will miss her handling our accounting, but figure it's for the greater good.

Thank you both so very much for all you have done. We wish you so much luck with your new businesses!
-Michelle Solomon, Carmen Vazquez, Julie Scott, and Melissa Beauchamp, Co-op Managers

We know it's been tough to review your order and totals on the order spreadsheet, especially now that we have so many members and so many products with each order.  So, we've updated the website to allow you to access an invoice view of your order.  It will contain all of the information that's currently on the order spreadsheet, but laid out in an invoice-type view and displaying only your order information.

You can access the order invoice view from the Produce Orders page or from the Current Order spreadsheet page, and here is a direct link to the invoice view page:  http://www.savannahcoop.com/generate-order-invoice-view.  Simply submit your name and then click the link to the right of the page to view your information (this is all described on the page as well).

There are two important things to note:

1 - it could take up to five minutes for the view to refresh with your information after you submit your name.  Clearly this is not ideal, but unfortunately we are bound by google (where we host our site and spreadsheets) as far as how often they refresh their views of the published data. 

2 - this is still in a beta-type mode, so if you have any problems, please let us know so we can check into it.  You can reply to this email with any questions, problems, or feedback.

We hope this will be helpful and make it easier to review your order!

Thanks,
Melissa Beauchamp, Co-op co-coordinator