Chicago Market is bursting with excitement to tell you some big news:

We've hired a wonderful person to help secure the funding necessary to turn your dream grocery store into a reality. And, best of all, it's a name you likely recognize:

A couple folks from the Chicago Market Grocery Logistics, Retail and Procurement (GLRP) team visited Tempel Farms Organics in Old Mill Creek, IL this week. Farmers Chris and Tania Cubberly are proud Chicago Market Owners and are growing some terrific organic food and flowers.

Really want to stay in the loop about Chicago Market's progress? You'll want to read these summaries of our monthly Board meetings. 

Grant praised the group for bringing new volunteers to the community. And he reminded us to keep them engaged and keep building our communities. Grant also reminded the group to use Basecamp for virtually all of our communication, with email only in limited situations.

Mike introduced Lance Rantala by reiterating what is in our proposed bylaws regarding appointment of new Board members. If a vacancy arises six months or less before our Owners' meeting, a new Board member will be appointed to serve until the Owners' meeting after the upcoming one. Otherwise, the person would be up for election at the upcoming Owners' meeting. 

This update is from Board member Karen Jacobs, who leads our Organizational Development Team. 

How does an all-volunteer organization “do” the traditional work of a Human Resources team? Meet Chicago Market’s Organizational Development team (or as we call it, Org Dev). Our team helps other Chicago Market teams to define their goals and strategies, and break them down into projects, tasks and timing for volunteers. Then we get to work on the really fun part of our job, which is talking to Owners and supporters of the co-op about how they can be part of our team.

The Chicago Market Board of Directors is delighted to welcome Lance Rantala to the Board.

Rantala, an experienced co-op manager, is filling the Board position recently vacated by the wonderful Nisha Kapadia Bhesania. Nisha brought much wisdom and enthusiasm to the Board during her tenure, but had to step down because she moved to the Bay Area with her husband. 

Vicki Westerhoff, one of Chicago Market's most-supportive farmers (scroll down, that's Farmer Vicki on our homepage), has had a rough summer. 

Heavy rains early this season washed away many of her crops. 

But 10 of Chicago's best chefs are coming together on Aug. 30 for a benefit to raise money for Genesis. Your ticket not only gets you some outstanding food and drink, but you'll be helping an outstanding farm.

Really want to stay in the loop about Chicago Market's progress? You'll want to read these summaries of our monthly Board meetings. They'll be posted here by the end of each month. (Yes ... we know this one's a bit late ...)

We at Chicago Market are so fortunate to work with so many outstanding local businesses. 

And one of our great supporters has been The Shift, a co-working and community space in Uptown, that has hosted several of our Board meetings and educational workshops. 

It's like that scene from the Steve Martin classic "The Jerk," where he runs around screaming "The new phonebook is here! The new phonebook is here!"

We had that same level of excitement at Chicago Market HQ when we caught our first glimpses of our shiny, new branded water bottles. 

Your Board has built out a number of teams,  each of which has a focus. Recently, you learned about the work of Site Selection & Design, developing site selection criteria and reaching out to real estate brokers. This week, I want to update you on a team I lead called Grocery Logistics, Retail and Procurement, or GLRP for short (we smile and pronounce it GLuRP).