Present:
Trustees: Brian Drayton, Naomi Schoenfeld, Alice Groh, Barb Healy, Anthony Graham.
Guest: Tatum Hammer.
Brian opened the meeting with a reading from Thomas Merton.
Study – We continued with our study of the fifth chapter from Farms of Tomorrow Revisited.
Report from Silvano
Silvano sent a report, which included the need for 120 bales of hay at a cost of $12,000. The board felt that we need to know if Silvano is pushing the milk production to provide as much milk as possible to the creamery in order to produce more cheese. Naomi has previously noted, and reiterated in this meeting, that the ‘profit’ from the cheese might be a lot less than has been thought in the past, since all of the costs generated by the creamery might not have been taken into account. Anthony will speak to Silvano.
Next Year
- Nila will leave the creamery on October 31st and James will begin November 1st.
- Ross Hall, who was an apprentice with Andrew in 2016, has applied to work in the dairy (and possibly do some work in the vegetables) next year. Silvano will ask him to visit so they can meet.
- Benjamin’s picture for next year is not yet clear. He has indicated some of the ideas that he is thinking about but there needs to be a lot more discussion to see how his wishes and the farm’s needs can be met.
Extra Vegetables and Hay
The possible need to buy in extra vegetables and hay led to a discussion about where the money will come from, so our next meeting on October 19th will focus on where to find the money in the current budget to enable these purchases.
Health Insurance
Brian has been investigating the possibility of purchasing health insurance for the farmers. He spoke to Chris Connolly, who told him that on their farm they have created a special account to reimburse the farmers for their Obamacare. We will pursue this avenue, as well as any other creative ideas we can come up with.
Brian closed the meeting with another quote from Thomas Merton.
Next Meeting – Tuesday 19th October at 7pm. Zoom hosted by Naomi.