What did you talk about? Any trading opportunities?
Anyway, I'd hate to take any official position, but I don't mind walking. So somebody else please volunteer to be our trade representative, and I'll be the pack mule :p
Also, some status update on Bottleneck. The communal field is producing wheat faster than we can harvest, and our beehives are full to the brim. So food situation should be good, as long as we catch the time to mill flour and bake bread. Next project is a communal tea field, to keep our miners going. After that we're looking into a hops field. We've also got plenty of beeswax to make candles for our miners, but we need more yarn. The plan is to provide everything the metalworkers need to keep working without interruption, and in turn they should make us plenty of tools and armour, maybe even for export.
Also, I must apologize for stealing somebody's iron ore. I mined as much as I could, but it still wasn't enough to fill the smelter. So I took the ore from both smelters to make one full batch. Unfortunately, I got only one bar, and I used it to make a communal saw (it's in the mine toolbox). I hope you guys will forgive me when the tea starts flowing (there's already some, check the stockpile and the basket by the mine). I just felt that it's a waste to use bone saw on our limited trees, so I made us an iron one.