4/18/07 Food Coop Meeting Minutes
Agenda
1) Food Spoilage
2) Workshift Scheduling
3) Bulk Buy Report
4) Markup
5) Financial/bank account?
6) Outreach?
Food Spoilage
Had more complaits.
Suggestion: Examine food more carefully to look for possible spoilage
Is he giving us old produce? He’ll tell us if we ask which is ‘freebee’ and which is ‘ordered’.
Organic produce doesn’t last as long. Strategic eating is recommended
What is correlation between not working shifts and complaints about food quality? 1:1.
Important to recognize that everyone involved is a contributor, and necessary at this point.
Workshift Scheduling
Suggest a workshift of ‘calling to schedule workshifts for the month’
Another workshift is calling to remind folks each week
(for this week, Ron will e-mail a reminder to sign up)
Keep open to discussion the idea of people paying instead of working
Dave will talk to Somer/Aurisha and Hop and Adelila about if they can make those phone calls. He will also send a general e-mail, requesting people sign up if they can’t do Sundays. Also, mention “is there anything else you want to do?” Volunteer hours instead of workshifts. This can also create ownership. Also ask about record keeper. (see financials beow)
Building a culture of work.
Bulk Buy Report
Ann did research on possible distributor.
Natures best needs retail/resale liscense. Also too big, not a nice corporation. Too many processed organics/supplements/cosmetics.
Mountain People was small distributor, bought out by United Natural Foods. They said that they will supply to buyers clubs. Haven’t gotten though to human, but Ann will follow up. Couldn’t get access to product list yet, but they will probably have all we need and way too much more.
Where does nature mart get their produce?
Thank you Ann for this work.
Can we order straight through seventh generation?
Do we need to use decomposable non-plastic bags?
Markup
We may need supplies at some point
At Park Slope Food Coop, there was 22% markup?
We may need to start saving for food.
Another possible markup is order $220 for when we have $240 , for example?
Perhaps start long-term planning, specify markup as savings for long term goal.
Save $20 a week off the top?
Financials/Bank Accounts
Can someone do record keeping as workshift? Ask if anyone wants to do that as a workshift?
Do we need to be able to get online payments?
Need someone who keeps contact between record keeping, money collection, weekly coordinators, etc. Data administration/data guru.
Specifics of Database Needs
General Info On people
Payment tracking
Volunteer hour/shift tracking
Weekly order tracking
Payment in advance
Outreach
If people want to do outreach, can they?
Do we have the infrastructure to handle big influx?
Lets encourage outreach, but word of mouth, not large listservs.
“Food Lobby Food Coop” Its cheap, its convenient, its fun
Next Meeting
Thursday, May 10, 7:30 pm
To be discussed
- Formalizing a markup-Introduction and Discussion
- Bulk Buy Report
- Workshift Scheduling-assigning regular shifts