Hello, welcome to Tikvah News. This is our first message. It took a while
to get things set up but I think I've got most people added alright.

My partner and I moved from Oakland to Petaluma in January. We have a
great property up here in the country. A bit of land (3/4 acre), 2 homes
(one which is rented out), and a barn which we'll be renovating into a soap
kitchen and office.

I'm in the process of applying for organic certification. Since I'm
applying for the manufacturing part already, I will try to add some garden
space too so I can grow some of the ingredients for Tikvah's products and
even have a small farm stand (with soap of course) if I wish (we're zoned
for it). I have no idea how long it will take but CCOF estimates 1-4
months, depending on paperwork.

Many of you may have seen that Tikvah was closed during the move. I still
don't have my production going again, and I'm missing some inventory, but
my office (temporarily in the house) is unpacked.

We're reopening now for anything that we have in stock. This includes
castile and calendula bar soap, most Organic Essentials products, organic
cotton bedding, and respirators (still need some filters for the half face
masks). We'll be ordering inventory too and the plan is to start making
soap again in a few weeks. No shampoo or liquid hand soap yet until I get
the packaging kinks worked out (though if you're local you can bring a
container over to be filled).

I'd also like to announce a new staff member. Welcome to Felicia Chavez,
Tikvah's office manager.

The next few months will be busy but we're hoping to have the barn together
by the end of summer and production going full force. We should have
enough production (we hope) for smaller wholesale orders in a couple of
months.

Of course we'll interupt it all in mid-May for the Organic Trade
Association Conference in Austin Texas. No Tikvah booth this year but
Connie Barker will be having one for the Environmental Health Network
again. I hope to see some of you there!

I'll be bringing you more updates and information later on. If you find
yourself on this list by accident (I added people who signed up for the
newsletter at the Tikvah booth at the OTA Trade Show last year) and don't
want to stay, just follow the unsubscribe directions or write me at
cyndi@....

Here's our new contact information:

735 Gossage Avenue
Petaluma, CA 94952
707-775-4475 (voice; call first for fax)
http://www.tikvah.com/

Take care,
Cyndi