New Durham Central Market website now live

So a few weeks ago, the URL for the DCM website got sent out in the Duke Park e-mail list, and we started passing out fliers at the Eno Festival directing people there.  Realizing that we currently had nothing up other than "Welcome to your new website!" I spent about an hour on a Saturday night throwing together something that looked remotely passable and had the dreaded "under construction! coming soon!" info on it.

Since getting me to do web layout and design is a bit like asking Mr. Ed to do some nice calligraphy for you, we had two fabulous volunteers, Beth Fowler and Darwin Campa, jump into the breach and put together something that might not win a Worst of the Web award (a serious possibility with anything I  might put together).  Well, needless to say, they surpassed me, but it's worth mentioning that they didn't just avoid awfulness, but put together what I think is a great site.  So, without further ado, I present the brand new Durham Central Market website.

There's plenty of info there for anyone to read, but here's a brief status update on the market: because we want this to be a professionally run grocery store, and none of us have the experience needed to open this, the current goal is to put together the organization and raise the money to hire people who can do that.  So, if you think, "that Michael Bacon doesn't know a thing about running a store!  What's he doing involved in that?" you're largely right, but what we need is to raise money so that we can hire the people who can do that, and can raise more money, and get us a real cooperative grocery store in the Central Park area.

To that end, we need to sell Founding Owner shares.  Basically, a Founding Owner is someone who buys a share of the co-op (and hence becomes an owner of the corporation) any time before October 31.  Yes, right now, you're basically giving us $100 on good faith, but in return you get a fabulous t-shirt, your name listed in the store as a founding owner, a very low owner number (we hear this is a big deal over in Orange County), and the pride of having helped to build a true community-based asset to the city.  If you're interested, the easiest way to join now is to simply fill out an owner form and mail it in.  And as luck would have it, our new site has most of the details you should need.  Even if you're not interested, please print out our survey and mail it in (takes about 10 minutes to complete).  Many thanks to Natalie Spring for helping us put the survey together.

And if you have any further questions, I'll be happy to answer them.  Catch me in the right mood, and I'll be happy to talk your ear off about this whole affair.

Comments

[Valerie]

This is really fabulous news!

[ACW]

This is very exciting news!