Thank you for your interest in joining the Ebytown Food Co-op!

We are a member-run non-profit cooperative organization. Members are the people who use and need the services and goods a cooperative provides, and assume some responsibility in the operation and longevity of the co-op. These contributions could look like serving on committees, taking on volunteer shifts during store hours, helping organize deliveries, keeping financial records, or planning meetings and events.

Membership

At Ebytown, we define a member as "someone who actively participates in activities of the food co-op, whether that be through purchasing food, volunteering, participating in member or committee meetings, or in discussions through the email group. A member subscribes to the co-op's mission and values. Members are eligible to participate in bulk ordering and buying items from the store, they receive a discount on their purchases from both bulk orders and the storefront, and they have voting rights."

To become a member, an individual must sign a membership card and pay a one-time refundable loan of $20, or less, should the potential member's financial need require it, at the discretion of the board. Once the membership card is signed, the member will be added to the Ebytown email discussion list and have access to onboarding documents.

Volunteering and pricing

Ebytown is operated through volunteer work, including through various operational committees (e.g., ordering and inventory, store, onboarding and outreach) and operating the store. To compensate and incentivize volunteer work, members who contribute at least 3 cumulative hours of their time per month (or a suitable block of time which can be altered at future members' meetings) are classified as "working members" and non-working members are classified as "regular members".

Working members will enter their volunteer hours in a work log after a store shift, a committee meeting, or other volunteer duties. For every three hours of work, the working member may purchase food at the working-member pricing for one month (i.e. 30 days). Hours can accumulate, so that six hours of volunteer work during one month allows the member to stay in the working-member's category for two months. Members will self-report their status as working members when placing orders and will self-report their volunteer hours in a central document, where they can be audited periodically by the Membership Coordinator.

A member can suspend their credits if they do not buy anything for a month or more, and then apply them during the next month in which they make purchases.

Pricing policy: All food purchased by the co-op for sale in the store or through pre-orders will be priced according to a mark-up scheme. (For reference, the mark-up for health food in retail stores ranges from 35 - 50%). The selling price to members will be calculated by applying the markup to the prices paid by the co-op to its suppliers at a mark-up scheme:
- 35% markup for sales to non-members
- 20% markup for sales to regular members
- 10% markup for sales to working members

Sales taxes: The co-op pays sales tax on some items it receives from suppliers. The amount of the sales tax for an item is not included in the markup calculations. In the case of invoiced sales to members, the sales tax charged per unit by the supplier is added to the invoice. In the case of items sold from store shelves, the sales tax paid per unit to the supplier is included in the item's price.

Households: Couples and households need only hold one membership if preferred, however it is understood that all individuals in the household participate in some form of contribution to the co-op. For memberships involving multiple people in a household, the member card will be labelled according to the household (e.g., 32 King St. Household) or family (e.g., Smith Family) with all of the household residents listed under the household membership in the member database. Volunteer hours provided by any one individual in a household apply to the status of all members of that household.

If you are interested in becoming a member, please read through our shared objectives as members of the co-op. If, after reading through them, you feel like they align with yours - amazing! Please send us an email at ebytownfood@proton.me or visit us at our storefront and we'll help you get started w ith a membership.

If you are interested in joining us or have questions, please send email to info@ebytown.ca or ebytownfood@proton.me