July 2011 Coffee News

-4th of July in Chicago
-2011 Coffee (and New Prices) have arrived
-Your Feedback

4th of July in Chicago
We hope you had a nice 4th of July holiday weekend. Our family had the opportunity to visit Cathy's brother and family in Chicago last weekend. We have an update on our trip and our fun conversations on permaculture and greening Chicago, as well as an opportunity for you to give us your feedback below.

 Cathy's brother and family moved to the Chicago area last year, but this was our first chance to visit them. They planned a fun-filled weekend  for us complete with Chicago style pizza and hotdogs, a trip on the "L" into downtown Chicago where we happened upon an outdoor concert in Grant Park and enjoyed the crowds of humanity teaming Michigan Avenue for Taste of Chicago, plus plenty of swimming and fireworks on their nearby Lake Michigan beach.

As fun as Chicago is, the best part of getting together was the opportunity for the six cousins to play and our wide-ranging conversations on everything from permaculture to transition towns and peak oil. We learned more about the connections they are making between their work at Garrett Evangelical United Methodist Seminary and their neighborhood and city. We watched a thought-provoking video on the Farm of the Future and saw the permaculture design they have planned for their yard.

With all these conversations fresh in our minds, it was inspiring to come home and see an article in the July edition of our neighborhood newspaper, the Park Bugle, about the Saint Anthony Park Energy Resilience Group and their connections to Transition Twin Cities and the world-wide Transition Towns movement that is "harnessing local creativity to drastically reduce carbon emissions and to build resilience against climate and energy uncertainty." It all came full circle seeing that the top article currently linked on the Transition Twin Cities website is about the steps Chicago is taking to prepare for climate change! It's sometimes hard to know where to start with all of this, but I'm thinking perhaps a good start would be to attend our own block club meeting next Wednesday. We encourage you to find your own ways to get connected in your community.

2011 Coffee (and New Prices) have arrived
While we were driving back from Chicago, our 2011 coffee shipment arrived safely at our roaster in Le Center, Minnesota. As we mentioned in our June email newsletter, we are paying our family members quite a bit more for their coffee this year and thus you will see our new higher prices on your invoice this month. (12 oz bags of coffee - $9.00. 8 oz flavored bags of coffee - $6.50. 5 lb bulk bags of coffee - $50.00. Let us know if you'd like our new wholesale or fundraiser prices.) We greatly appreciate all the supportive comments we've received as we've had to make this shift.

Your Feedback
With this change in prices, it seemed a particularly good time to get your feedback to make sure we are doing everything we can to provide a high quality product and service. We've created a short 8 question survey to gather your feedback. In order to ensure we get your honest opinions, we've made the survey anonymous, so we can't offer you any reward -- other than the satisfaction that you will be helping us improve. Click here to begin.