The topic of The Great Waiheke Plum Drive came up recently on the Waiheke Community Notice Board Facebook Group, and before long there was a small flood of comments, from people wanting to make it happen.

Now the date has been set – Sat, January 28th from 9am at Palm Beach Hall. If you want to join in, jump over to the thread on the Notice Board and let people know how you’d like to participate. And in the meantime, have a look at this short clip from the 2010 event.

 

See you at the Palm Beach Hall.

The jam is almost all gone.

Is anyone up for being part of a team to organise and host another cookup?

By 9:45am the first pots were boiling on the stove and gas rings that had been setup in the community hall, water was boiling in the cauldren and the jars were being sterilised, and the fruit washers and cutters were already getting ahead of us.

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The planning and preparation will be tested today, and if the community response is anything to go by, it will be a fabulous success.

The calls have been coming in steadily for the last two weeks, from people offering plums, jars and labour. Pictures and the story of the event will get posted very soon. If you are considering coming down to the Palm Beach Hall today, know that you will be very welcome!

Lots of people have offered to help on the day, and the jars seem to be forthcoming, though we’ll only know on the day. We have preserving pots and burners pledged, and now we need to be sure we have enough plums!

So if you know of a tree that is offering, and can pick and bring them on Thursday morning – fantastic! See you there. And if you need us to come and pick, we can do that on Thursday morning, just call to arrange: James: 372 8737

The Plum Drive is an opportunity to play with a local currency.
Here are our initial thoughts on this idea.

The unit of measure as a single 375gm jar of jam or chutney.

Labour/Time

The Chief cook on the day (Maureen) gets paid 4 jars/hr
Captains of the different functions that need to be overseen, get 3 jars/hr
Crew get 2 jars/hr
Helpers get 1 jar/hr

Product

A full bag* of plums will be paid for with 1 jar
10 clean, label-free jars with lids (no matter the size of the jars supplied) willbe paid for with 1 jar

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* Last night I picked three full buckets, which fill a standard plastic (re-used) shopping bag, I weighed them at 6Kg each bag, and picked them in 30 mins

No more wasted plums.

“The Great Waiheke Plum Drive” will happen on Thursday January 7th, at the Palm Beach Hall from 9am – 5pm.

The kitchen’s been hired, and preserve makers on the island are offering their help and knowledge. Now we need jam jars, and fruit. We will collect the jars and the fruit on the day (or you can bring them on the day).