Food Coop 2-21-10

Food Co-op Meeting 2/21/10
Present: Nichole, Jonny, Lara, Jocelyn, Ann, Jeremy, Becca
1. Follow-up on the On-Call System
- People who have been missing their shifts have been put onto an on-call list for substitutions on the weekly email
- A lot of people haven’t given us their phone numbers, which makes it hard to get in touch with them
- Jeremy will be our new cell coordinator coordinator – he will send out an email to all the cell coordinators to make sure they are aware of the on-call system
- Too early to tell how well this new system is working – we will keep on trying it out
2. White House Place Learning Garden and Food Co-op
- Michelle wants to put the Food Co-op down as a partner in the network of organizations on grant applications for the new White House Place Learning Garden
- Part of this might be to get an intern – a Bresee community center high school system
- We as the Food Co-op can’t commit to volunteer hours in the WHP garden
- Potentially this could evolve, might be a means to recruit more neighborhood folks to the food co-op
- We will try to get more info from Michelle about what she needs/wants from the food co-op
3. Veggie Box Sharing within Households
- Question about whether people in a household who are sharing a box – should it be one household = one workshift or one person = one workshift
- We have been leaving this pretty ambiguous, try to encourage everyone to participate who is benefiting from the co-op
- We won’t necessarily know if people are sharing their boxes with people who haven’t sign up
- Park Slope food co-op requires every adult to work a shift
- Can frame this as an opportunity to promote cooperation
- Our current sign-up form for new members says that every adult in a household should do a workshift, but our current practice is that some multi-adult households do just one shift, in others each member works a shift
- Lots of conflicting feelings about whether this is fair or acceptable or not…
- For now we will continue our current practice of encouraging one adult = one workshift but tolerating it if some folks only have one shift per household
4. Establish Volunteer Meeting Facilitator and Notetaker
- Would be good to have a rotating facilitation and notetaker system, can be an opportunity for more people to take on leadership
- Not always consistent participation from month to month in terms of who shows up
- Want to make sure we’re being open to having people step up to take on more leadership
- Jocelyn will be Becca’s point of contact for bringing her prep work to the meetings
5. Future Bulk Room Spaces
- Florist shop on Virgil was a potential, but got rented
- Angel’s space on Hoover also a potential, he will be opening a coffeeshop there; he says we would have to pay rent, which we might not be able to afford
- Youth center on Beudry and Beverly is also potential, but kind of far away – maybe we could coach them on how to do their own thing
- Leslie’s church 2 miles north of here is a potential but far, she will also investigate 2 churches near here
- Echo Park Time Bank is getting a storefront, could go in on the space with them
- For future discussion: what are our values and priorities in selecting a space
6. Monday Night Workshift
- Do we want to make Monday night a two-hour workshift? Or open up a third day?
- Hours are supposed to be 6:15-7:15 on Mondays
- Make it every 5 weeks
- Jocelyn will check in with Yuki about where we’re at with the Monday shifts and will let Ann know if she needs to recruit new folks to fill open shifts
- Will aim long-term to have two people staffing Monday night shifts