Maybe you're talking about a REALLY BIG ORDER of film? Like in the hundreds of pounds, rather than feet or rolls?
While an admirable thought (I like to think that other people that think like me are somewhat admirable...perhaps I'm being egocentric) it's very difficult to get a group of people larger than 2 to agree on anything.
THEORETICALLY, if you can get, say 50-100 RFF'ers to all be interested in buying, let's say 300' (3 bulk rolls) of, let's say Delta 400, then you may be able to contact either Ilford's national distributor directly, or finagle a deal with somebody who either is getting out of the film business, or somebody who has a whole lot extra to sell it to you for a good price.
Any time you start SERIOUSLY bandying about numbers like $10,000 people will start to pay attention.
Assuming all the stars allign and everything goes right, you'll stumble groggily out your front door early one morning, as a Rooster crows in the distance. You'll find yourself standing in front of a gruff and overworked UPS employee one morning; his wife will have left him that morning, and taken his golf clubs; his dog ran away the night before, and he has yet to find a tasty cup of coffee.. He will tell you in no uncertain terms that you need to sign for this truck full of film. When you ask for help bringing it into the house, he will sneer at you and announce that he has no time for your ridiculous film fetish, and for all he is concerned, you can go to the airshow in the neighboring city where there is currently a flock of pigs, gracefully careening through the sky.
Then the adventure commences: dividing, weighing, packaging, addressing, etc.
Not to mention some people will have forgotten to mail you their addresses and postage fees, some will have stiffed you for their part of the purchase, and some will be impatient that (you bastard) you are two days late sending them their film. Some people may have even given you a pseudonym, or had elective transexual surgery in the meantime, and your packages will be returned to sender.
I for one would indeed be interested...because you can never save too many dollars on film, chemicals and the like.
The first thing I would do is keep people reading this thread for a few days...then I would contact Jorge, and if he is interested (and not too busy) he might post a sticky that says something like "film co-op" and will have a sign-up list, and a poll for which products people want. There may even be two polls, one for the products people want, and one for which products people would accept as their second choice.
It would be a lovely thing for RFF to start a co-op of sorts, and it might be of some interest to some of the dying companies that make the things we so love.
It may even be possible to achieve a distributorship of some certain brand, like Ilford....I say this because in these uncertain days of digicams and dwindling sales, some companies may be desperate.
If you're still interested, I wish you the best of luck, and if I can help at all, let me know.
