SOC specifics – how and why it works

The SOC week starts on Sunday. Helen our accounts officer sends out an email with every households balance (some pay in advance) for the week.

Tuesday is the deadline for getting money to Helen’s secure letterbox - $20 per box and $3-4 for bread.

Helen tallies all the orders and then sends out an email to SOC’s waiting list inviting them to order a box if the SOC tally is lower than 25 boxes (not every household orders every week. If we invite our waiting list to order a box to make it to 25 boxes not only do they get a wonderful box, but our boxes have greater variety because we have greater buying power).

Thursday our rostered buyers chat about whose car is the biggest and where they will meet. The rostered sorting house host also sends out a reminder to the sorters rostered on and tells the buyers how many boxes they have left over so there are enough for the 25 boxes. The roster covers ??? weeks and is created by our Vice President. We have 6 different sorting houses where the sorting takes place each week – it’s important that the sorting houses have a big undercover space for sorting 25 boxes.

Friday morning the buyers are at the Wholesale Markets in Footscray Road by 6am to snap up the bargains at Biodynamic (you can pre-order however, SOC chooses to see what is available and potentially on special as Friday is the closing day of the market and often they are keen to get rid of things). It is important to set up a great relationship with the wholesalers from the start – our buyers like to think we have a great relationship with BD!

Friday a bit later at 7.15am, the three rostered sorters, kids and the sorting house host carefully sort our fruit and veg (remember potatoes and heavy stuff on the bottom!) into the boxes. The sorters then organise who is going to deliver where. Usually 6 boxes each and because we are so close together each person delivers to a relatively small area.

Delivery: we discovered that eight of our members have kids at Footscray City PS. Chrissie suggested we do one big drop off at the school as most parents are happy to pick up the box there as they are doing kid drop off anyway. Everyone is happy and less driving required. SOC would eventually love to deliver the boxes in those wonderful cargo bikes … we have one member who delivers in one … we’ll see what happens!

SOC boundaries: as the demand for SOC increased we were able to confine our geographical boundaries to a smaller space which equals closer community and less driving. Our boundaries are now Williamstown Rd, Somerville Rd, Hyde St and Barkly St (although some members still live outside these boundaries, all new members are required to be within them).

SOC specials: lots of special things happen between SOC members. Sharing of resources (tools, cars, bikes), babysitting, play groups, the making and sharing of a solar dehydrator, bike maintenance, egg and lemon swapping, land sharing for veggie growing, bulk buying of funky apple peeling gadgets, lasting friendships and so much more (no romance yet!).

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