Five Ways Farm project
Guiding Values: Nature, Health, Friendship, Knowledge, Sustainability
Mission: Living a higher quality life
THE VALUE OF THE PROPOSITION
Vision
In 2021 I will be 60 years old.
Five Ways Farm Project will have been successful if in 2061 it is a community of centenarians who want each other well, who are healthy, kind, agile, and vibrant, eager for knowledge and dedicated to passing it on, who gather weekly to celebrate life and friendship.
proposition's value
Subscribers to the shares of the farm company will be entitled to the following benefits.
living with nature
The right to enjoy for free an agricultural environment, with natural elements (groves, hedges, meadows, ponds), created between 1990 and 2005; this point is crucial because it means that we won’t have to wait thirty years to enjoy the natural elements! They are already present.
living among friends
The possibility of living in a community of friends with whom to share pleasantly times, spaces, activities, feelings, and emotions, who take care (caring) of each other, and who cultivate daily the virtues of sincerity, honesty, loyalty, transparency, seriousness, responsibility and firmness to improve themselves.
To live in the countryside
The right to live in a furnished apartment on free loan, for the part due to the held share, to maintain their independence and freedom.
To do business
The possibility of doing business, deciding what to do / how to do / for whom to do the agricultural and connected activities, activities selected by ourselves in the Business Model Design, realizing an idea or a dream of all time.
To work
The possibility to work, for a fee, participating in the company’s management and / or in the main agricultural activities and / or activities related to these.
To be served
The possibility of being relieved from daily duties upon payment of a monthly price reserved for members, in favor of the company, for management expenses of the agritourism services provided and for maintenance expenses of the facilities dedicated to these services; the services included in this possibility are as follows:
– service of daily administration of meals with high nutritional density, for lunch and dinner (Health Way), in the building authorized for the activity of agritourism catering, starting from ingredients preferably of business origin and organic, with menus and recipes developed by the members indicated by the community and charged by the company;
– weekly cleaning service of the apartment
– washing, drying and folding service, every two weeks, of bathroom linen (towels and mat), bed linen (mattress covers, sheets, and pillowcases), and kitchen linen (dishcloths, tablecloths, and napkins);
– service of washing, drying, and folding, every two weeks, of personal linen – in the hypothesis in which someone desires the operation of ironing of some garments, he will be able to carry out such process personally or to entrust the task to an external laundry-ironing shop;
– access to the spa, with different types of saunas (Finnish, bio-saunas, herbal saunas) and Turkish baths, to purify the body, relax the mind, improve circulation;
– access to solarium and bio-pool;
– access to areas reserved for study activities;
– access, at the indicated times, to the areas dedicated to soft sports activities with mat.
Share's liquidity
The right to use, free of charge, the information service provided by the company, aimed at maintaining contact with potential members already enrolled in the appropriate record, and search for new potential members to be enrolled in the same document, to offer
– to members wishing to sell their shareholding, the possibility of quickly finding a buyer to whom to sell the shareholding, and vice versa,
– to potential members who would like to acquire a social share, the possibility of quickly finding a seller from whom to take over the social share to participate in the project.
A unique proposition ...
Alignment Dreams Reality
Achieving coherence between what we would like to do and what we will do
(Gain Creator)
Nature
A path in connection with Nature
(Gain Creator)
Health
A path of Health
(Gain Creator)
Friendship
A path in the company of Friends
(Gain Creator)
Active Life
A path of Active Life:
to dedicate oneself to agricultural activities,
to one’s passions, to Study, to the Arts, to Crafts,
to Sports, and
to cultural and convivial events organized by the association, together with many friends, all inside and outside the door of one’s home.
(Gain Creator)
(Gain Creator)
Sustainability
A sustainable economic-financial path, that is, participating in main and related agricultural activities chosen by us, capable of generating a satisfactory income and handing down to future generations a place of beauty and abundance
(Gain Creator)
Company
The solution to a need for companionship related to a possible situation of progressive loneliness as it can happen to those who are lucky enough to grow old and lose many loved ones and friends on the street
(Pain Killer)
Challenge
It is a complex path that will be lived and managed by a community of motivated, prepared, focused, and responsible people.
(Gain Creator)
It is the value that defines the true benefit offered by a proposition to those who accept it,
and the value of this proposition is
helping participants walk a path together...
...to live a life of
higher quality!
The value of this proposal ends where our creative ability ends
In reality, this value proposition has a higher value than what can be communicated/perceived from the previous sections.
It depends on our creative capacity and will become explicit once we know all the community members, because each member will have his preferences and creativity.
Each of us’s preferences and creativity will help define the choices that will guide the community, company, and association.
However, I will try to give a few examples to illustrate elements of value potentially contained in the value proposition.
being relieved of daily tasks
Let’s assume that 72 people sign up for the project and that 22 apartments are built as per the Capital Raising, Example 2.
Let’s further assume that everyone agrees to live in the community, relieved of their daily duties, upon payment of a monthly fee with a convenient price/quality service ratio.
These will be agritourism services offered to members, and the members will pay the company for these services.
We will make a financial calculation. Based on these calculations, which will be transparent to all members and discussed among all members (after all, any income from the company will accrue to the members), the monthly fee per person will be set.
Let’s assume, for example, that this fee is set at 750 euros per person per month, corresponding to 25 euros per day, a lower amount than the price of services of equal quality provided by external parties.
Only from these services to members could the company collect annual revenue E = 750 euros per person per month x 12 months x 72 persons = 648,000 euros per year, corresponding, by removing VAT, to revenue R = 648,000 / 1.10 = 589,090 euros per year.
Thus, the partners could dedicate themselves entirely to their work and, in their free time, to cultivate their cultural, sporting, and convivial interests.
In my opinion, only free from daily tasks, unless these are elevated to recognized jobs and therefore lose the connotation of tasks (unpaid tasks), will we have the time to walk the Five Ways of the Community: Nature, Health, Friendship, Knowledge and Sustainability.
Only time-consuming tasks would remain the responsibility of members:
1 – the daily making of their bed, to leave their room in order,
2 – cleaning, every time we use them, of the white sanitary fittings (washbasin, toilet bowl, bidet, shower, bathtub) out of respect for the other flatmates;
3 – daily preparation of breakfast in one’s apartment, limited, for those who wish to follow the Health Way, to the preparation, with a kettle or espresso machine, of herbal tea, tea or coffee, with subsequent washing of cups and saucers (no sugar/sweeteners and therefore no spoons for those who follow the Health Way).
WORK
To provide the agritourism services, which relieve the members of their daily tasks, the company will have to employ staff. This staff can be recruited in whole or in part among the members who wish to fill the jobs created in the agritourism activity.
In addition, for the preparation and administration of meals, the company, in the role of agrotourism activity, will have to purchase from the company (internal passages), in the role of the agricultural producer, unprocessed foods (seaweed, medicinal and aromatic herbs, vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, mushrooms, eggs, milk, meat) and those resulting from small local productions that may be activated within the company, therefore it will have to employ personnel that in whole or in part may be recruited from among the partners who wish to undertake these tasks.
This type of organization has a favorable social implication because it allows the emergence, recognition, and valorization of “domestic” work, which the agricultural company will professionally perform.
The old map of economic sectors showed only three sectors: Market economy, Government economy, and Illegal economy.
The new economic sectors map lists six sectors: Household economy, Unpaid Community economy, Natural economy, Market economy, Government economy, and Illegal economy.
The household economy is a unit of consumption and, above all, a unit of production.
Its main product is people, and people are the most critical production factor in post-industrial digital economies, whether to care for others (parents, children, grandchildren) or care for themselves.
The human factor, along with the nature factor, are the fundamental inputs for a quality life.
Riane Eisler, “The real Wealth of Nations”, 2007.
Berret-Koehler Publishers, 978-1-57675-388-0.
Berret-Koehler Publishers, 978-1-57675-388-0.
The pleasure of the soul
Some members may want to engage in agriculture, not for work but the soul’s pleasure.
In this case, the society could assign them free plots of land where they could apply Permaculture and create and maintain agro-ecological units such as raised-bed gardens, polycultures, plant guilds, edible perennial gardens, micro food forests, nut forest gardens, micro-habitats (e.g., butterflies gardens) and so on.
Upon presentation of a project, society could also provide them free of charge with the technical materials (seeds, plants, soil, compost, rocks, etc.) and the necessary tools for their realization.
The company would be compensated for the free allocation of land plots and materials because these realizations could be the focus of lessons organized as part of the educational farm activity.
Car park
A community, which owns a company, could make the company purchase, after assessing the feasibility and convenience, a fleet of electric or hybrid cars, with fast charging stations located in the company’s parking lot itself, activating a formula of car sharing for members.
It could include eight minivans with nine parking spaces each, two minivans for quick trips, two vans for transporting goods, 0 personal vehicles.
It could provide a zero price when members use the cars for tasks performed on behalf of the company and a price per km when members utilize them for personal reasons.
In this way, on a global level, the number of cars on the road and the resulting pollution would decrease, while, on a personal level, the unit cost per km incurred for transportation would decrease.