Get Informed, Keep Up-to-Date, Educate!
Read the blog! Tell your friends to read the blog!
In particular, read Wholefoods Finances: The Whole Picture.
The basis of most accusations coming from the MSA Executive stem from the idea that Wholefoods was not and can not be a financially viable business when run directly by students through a collective model; a collective model that has been operating for approximately thirty years from 1977 to 2007.
Among other erroneous and misleading claims, the MSA Executive is holding the Wholefoods Collective accountable for over $30,000 in losses for 2011 as well as other financial losses that Wholefoods has incurred over the past few years. Read this section to find out why this claim and others are unsubstantiated, unfair and in many ways misleading.
The rumours that the MSC Executive have spread about Wholefoods Collective and its “financial mismanagement” have been inaccurate, misleading, defamatory and insulting to students who work and volunteer at Wholefoods.
Please read this section and spread the word to friends and colleagues about what has really happened to Wholefoods in the past and what best explains its current demise.
Follow the blog and Facebook page for regular updates and news of upcoming events.
Sign the online petition!
Tell MSA Executive that students want to revive and maintain one of the few (potentially) affordable restaurants and vibrant, politically progressive, socially inclusive and (previously) student-run spaces left on campus.
Tell them that we do not want another expensive, standardised and impersonal fast-food outlet. Tell them that Wholefoods should be student-run and can be a commercially viable enterprise under a collective organising model, thriving on consensus decision-making processes, not top-down, autocratic control.
For every person that signs this petition, an email is sent to the the MSA Executive notifying them of your support for Wholefoods as per its Constitution.
https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/monash-student-council-president-recognise-wholefoods-collective
Sign the Student General Meeting petition!
Monash Clayton students: If some friendly Friends of Wholefoods people approach you to sign a paper petition, please sign it, even if you’ve signed the above online petition. These two petitions serve separate but important purposes.
Find out more about the Student General Meeting petition when you are on campus or come back here.
The last time the Monash Student Association held a Student General Meeting (SGM) was in 2005! It has been too long.
Spread the word!
Do you have a blog? Do you need an excuse to be on facebook? Or is Twitter the best thing happening? Or has everyone got it wrong and is tumblr where it’s at?
Friends of Wholefoods are looking for people to commit to helping with internet and social media to get the word out to Monash students.
There are a plethora of things you can do. Bombard your wall with SaveWholefoods.com ! Post information on your Club’s Facebook page. Leave messages on the Facebook pages of the MSA and non-collective Wholefoods page. Write articles for eminent publications.
Please, let us know what you are up to and whether you would like to combine forces with others.
Are you a food co-op or organisation?
Friends of Wholefoods are collecting messages of solidarity and support from food co-ops and organisation that value what we value. It would mean a great deal to us for your collectives, co-ops, and campaigns to say hello and that you’re thinking of our struggle.
Email: wholefoods.friend@gmail.com
Write to the student paper Lot’s Wife
Tell Lot’s what you think of this business in a letter to the editor. You can email them here:
msa-lotswife@monash.edu
Add to Wholefoods: The People’s History
Were you involved in Wholefoods in any way?
Were you a hungry volunteer? An overburdened Kitchen Coordinator? A lasagna on Mondays, moussaka on Thursdays addict? A balcony couch fiend lost between Proust, paganism and Jay’s pumpkin pasta? A prudent patron, guilty of checking out that cute new volly by the chai urn, hoping that they could be the one?
Whatever your reason, if Wholefoods meant something to you – write about it! We are collecting as many personal reflections as we can and adding them to this page.
If you have photographs, email them through and we’ll upload them. Wholefoods has a rich history as a student space more poignant and worthy of reverence.
Come to an event!
There are many other ways to get involved! Come to an event and speak to us in person at one of our stalls to find out more.
You can become more actively involved in our campaign by joining our Friends of Wholefoods active organising groups by working with us or, instead, you can support us by simply keeping informed and in touch by getting onto our supporter mailing list.
Send an email to wholefoods.friends@gmail.com with your full name and number and we will add you to the Friends of Wholefoods supporter or active organiser mailing list. Notifications for upcoming meetings, events or other campaign developments will be sent out regularly over these lists and on the Save Wholefoods Facebook page.
However you choose to get involved, we look forward to hearing from you soon!
Friends of Wholefoods 