The Scheduling Challenge

In years past, when it came to scheduling driver's I just put out the dates and let people pick their choice. In general, it worked "okay" for the most part ... that is until someone new wanted to join the coop.

Since new members are suppose to drive within 9 weeks of joining the coop, it becomes the challenge to insert a new driver into a driving date. The potential problem with failing to get new member to make the drive to get our milk, is that if they get "bored" with doing the coop, they leave without contributing to the coop. In 2008, we had 3 new families who failed to contribute their time to pick up the coop products in SC.

Why did this happen?

Simple, senior members were not thrilled with letting the new member have their upcoming date and having to be shuffled to a later drive date.

Truth be told: I have been wimpy at dealing with this aspect of organizing the coop. So far I have not found a practical way to handle this aspect of the coop management.

I've been burned both by new incoming members as well as senior members.

Last spring when I substituted a new family into an upcoming spot, the member who had that spot believed she did not have to fulfill her obligation at a later date. Unknown to me, she was job searching in another state ~ had I known she might have been moving, I would not have taken that date. Since this new family took "her" spot, she believed she did not have an obligation to drive before she moved away for the area. Huh?! Obviously I did a poor job of handling this although I contacted her on every available milk run before she moved away to try to get her to make the trip; she just always had an excuse for not making the trip.

Then there were a couple senior members who had scheduled a date at the end of 2008. Due to a variety of circumstances, these families left the coop. Sadly, most of them did not offer to take a driving date before they left. Those who did make the offer to drive were working into the schedule and those people truly blessed our life.

So how should I schedule drivers??

Am thinking this year to ask each member family to prove me with 4 possible drive dates, one for each quarter along with a request they alert me if their status with the coop will be changing. This way I will have more flexibility with scheduling the families.

Of course I am sure that folks will grumble ... but hey, what's new??