Roaring Fork Valley CSA

Fat City Farms, Inc. 501(c)3 Non-Profit

Board of Directors Meeting

14.Dec.2006

Attending:

Susan Brady, pres.
Michael Thompson, v.p.
AJ Joos, treasurer
Katie Leonitis, member & Slow Foods Board member

Potluck Dinner:

Elk Chili
Grape-leaf wrapped Rice balls
Brie cheese & Crackers
French walnut bread from Catherine Baking Co.
Red Wine
MT’s Homebrewed beer – Happy Trails Pale Ale (all local hops), and Backyard Heather Ale
(local hops and homegrown heather flowers)

Discussion:

1 Questions from Jeff Cohen, to complete the IRS Form 1023 for our 501(c)3 application:

a. Education: how will the organization educate the community about food growing? Types of food, process, chemicals, environmental protection, etc.

i. Slow Food Roaring Fork now holds classes for elementary and middle school students, but they need hands-on facilities;

ii. Our mission, to establish year-round food growing facilities, including greenhouses, will help Slow Food with their mission;

iii. We will expand the educational mission in partnership with Slow Food, by teaching high school and adult classes, which will help us to recruit volunteers and expand awareness of our mission;

iv. Community education (all levels) will include seedling propagation, soil building and preparation, crop planting, irrigation and cultivation, crop harvesting, food preparation and preservation, including field courses and greenhouse operations;

v. Community education will also focus on the historic aspect, teaching the history of hunting, farming and ranching in Colorado and the Roaring Fork Valley, including stories of the Ute Indians, the Settlers, Potato farming, Cattle Ranching, the Italian immigrants and the Heritage Fruit Tree Project, among others;

vi. Katie said that while teaching her classes, she is discovering that food production lessons encompass everything students learn in all their other classes – reading, writing, mathematics, history, science, art. There is no better unifying subject matter, no better sustenance-providing, inspiring topic for learning ANYTHING.

b. Charitable work: Will the organization donate food grown to those in need, such as poor, homeless, shelters, food banks, and low-income people?

i. This question brought to mind our valley’s “Lift-Up” organization, whose mission is to help anyone in need. We should meet with them, and supply a local food component to their toolbox, from our future harvests. We thought that their organization (another 501(c)3 non-profit), should be one that we identify in our non-profit application, even though we have not yet made formal contact with them;

ii. Food harvests will be consumed by volunteers who work, by members who donate money and/or time, and in one or more annual community dinners to celebrate and publicize local food production efforts. People in need will be welcomed to volunteer if they are able, and the education they obtain while learning to produce food, will be extremely valuable as a rehabilitation therapy, no matter what the need.

iii. The primary work of Fat City Farms is the propagation of knowledge about sustainable agriculture. We recognize that future for-profit food-production ventures may spring from our efforts, but the requisite learning process to re-invent agriculture in our region will be too long for a for-profit venture to undertake. (Jeff – we may not want to put this realization into our application at this time, but we believe it will be a factor – do you have a suggestion for how to handle it?) In essence, the mission of Fat City Farms, to do the learning work required to make our region food-sustainable at a local level, is the greatest charitable effort we can make, and the most necessary for the future of human settlement in this region.

2 Slow Food Roaring Fork: Is this entity a 501(c)3 tax-exempt non-profit organization? Yes, they are. Do you need to list their EIN, or some other hard evidence of their status? Please let us know if you need this, and Katie Leonitis will provide for us.

a. Are any of the officers/directors of FCF related to this entity? – No. None of Fat City Farms’ board members are board members of Slow Food, and vice versa.

b. Susan Brady, FCF President, is a Slow Food Roaring Fork member (contributor), but she is not a beneficiary of either organization, and neither is anyone else on our board. Does this answer the question, or is there something else we should address?

3 Scholarships: We agreed that we will not plan on giving any scholarships at this time;

4 Profit/Loss Financial Data: AJ Joos is compiling the details of our research and discussions from the meeting, but the general results are as follows:

a. 10/2006 thru 12/2006: Revenues: $2,000. donation from the Brady Family Foundation, $200. from M.Thompson, and $100. each from two Aspen families, for a total of $2,400. in deposits during this period; Expenditures: $1,569.80. total to the Cohen Law Firm, for 501(c)3 registration, and a Post Office box rental for $50. (to be completed this week – P.O. Box address will be updated to everyone, including the IRS, as soon as it is established.

b. 2007 Tax Year: We estimate approximately $18,000. to be spent establishing the first farm plot next year, including one-time investments for fencing, tools and an irrigation system of approximately $6,000., and an annual expense of approx. $12,000 for insurance, soil prep, seed, straw, mulch, and some hired labor to tend the irrigation and cultivation work. The remaining labor is anticipated to be done by volunteers, primarily, including the planting and harvesting. We anticipate, unless we have such an enormous response to fundraising efforts that we can afford to startup several plots we have permission to farm, that we will build only one plot of farmland in 2007.

c. 2008 Tax Year: In general, we estimated that we may startup two more plots in 2008, at the same costs as the first plot, except with some savings in insurance and labor. Although the numbers may vary because of plot size and linear footage of fencing and irrigation required, we estimate that we will have expenditures of approximately $40,000. in 2008. AJ will send along the detailed numbers we generated at the meeting. We anticipate that we will raise the funds we need for each year, and that if we raise less than our budgets, we will cut back on our expenditures, and if we raise more, we will expand our expenditures to accomplish more production.

Finally, we discussed fundraising activities, including the Colorado Dept. of Agriculture Specialty Crops grant program passed along to us by Donna Ralston yesterday, and we decided to schedule our next board meeting for the week of January 22-25, to create our strategy for fundraising: We will complete our mission statement and publish a fundraising package for release in February, and we will list the names and addresses of people and organizations we will solicit for participation. We will assign responsibilities for follow-up to each or the names on the list.

In the meanwhile, we will submit a “wish list” to the Aspen Times by Dec. 20 (next Wednesday), for deer fencing material (8-feet high) and fence posts, irrigation hose and drip fittings, garden hand-tools, an ATV in running condition, photovoltaic panel and irrigation pump, and mulching materials. David, can you assemble this? Any other ideas for wish list items?

We will also need to write an application for the CDA Specialty Crops grant program, by the deadline of Feb. 1, 2007. I sent the link and a file for this yesterday. We will need someone to generate letterhead, stationery, etc., and a small committee to research the grant requirements and generate the application, before our next meeting in January. Volunteers?

That is all for the moment.

Happy Holidays to all, and while we are thanking each other and our loved ones for being in our lives this Holiday Season, don’t forget to imagine the food we eat, becoming the actual fruits of our labors in years to come!

Michael Thompson, FCF, vice pres.