Earlier this month we braved the snowy roads to head over to the East Side and gather at the Wilmar Neighborhood Center for our first face-to-face organizational meeting. The purpose of this meeting was to finally put faces to names, but also to work on solidifying the vision for the group, as well as to continue brainstorming group function, logistics, and plan future events.

There were a lot of great ideas and really great feedback, and it became clear how effective in-person group meetings can be. I was particularly pleased by people’s enthusiasm for expanding the group to be a resource beyond skill-share classes – some new ideas were even brought to the table, including a) organizing field trips, b) working with farmers to plan group produce buys, and c) using the listserv and Facebook page as community support and fermentation troubleshooting resources. To summarize, the group now has four pillars of function:

1. Small events (skill-shares, maker parties, potlucks, field trips)
2. Member resources (group-exclusive communication, group-exclusive bulk purchasing)
3. Large events (community workshops, a festival)
4. Build a fermentation-oriented network in Wisconsin

Follow this link (google doc) to read the full outline of what we covered in the meeting.

I envision this blog having three purposes:

1. Giving updates and recaps about MFC events
2. Sharing and signal boosting cool resources like websites, articles, videos
3. Documenting the process of forming a collective like MFC, in the hopes that the information is helpful to others

Anyone in the collective is welcome and encouraged to share on this blog. Here's to future pickling!