Present: Dave, Randy, Lara, Ann, Ron, Ritu, Andrea
1. Bulk Food Feedback and Plans
- Andrea will thank the NELA food-coop folks and invite them to dinner
- issues this time around:
- we had the wrong pick-up date
- website has suggested retail values, not actual sale prices
- ordering process and dividing process were very labor intensive
- ideas for how to deal with the issue of dividing things: 1) everyone who buys has to show up and help divide goods 2) add a surcharge to pay someone to divide goods 3) only buy things that are easy to divide
- should we store bulk goods here and make it like a store for co-op members? Do we want to postpone this discussion until later?
- feedback: expiration dates on tofu and tempeh were very soon
- suggestion: if you order bulk, you have to do some part of the work
- target next order for September
2. New Farmer Feedback and Plans
- Lara figured out our order from the farmer
- more work for us to figure out what we wanted
- didn’t have even numbers for dividing things up
- delivered by car, not huge truck
- seemed like less food, but better quality?
- advantages to alternating between farmers: establishing relationships with multiple farmers for food security; maximize variety of produce
- could we improve our communication with Jaime farms? Use telephone instead of email
- need to make sure that Finley is willing to continue working with us
- will get contact info from Rebecca
- Consensus: for now, we will alternate between Jaime and Finley farms each week
3. Workshift Proposal
- don’t have a good system for tracking who is doing their part
- Lara’s proposal: need to be doing work shifts in order to order a $10 box, otherwise can partner with someone who is working to get a $20 box
- other ideas: charge people extra for boxes if they don’t work; sign everyone up for a day and they have to find a sub if they can’t do it;
- Dave will call everyone who has ordered in the last six weeks, tell them if they want to order, they have to sign up for a shift
- strategies from the Park Slope Food Co-op: squads work the same day every three weeks, if you miss a shift, you have to work two
- one workshift could be tracking participation
- does only one person per household have to work, or does each person have to work?
- need to keep track of who shows up for workshifts
- could say that the amount you work is based on your share, but this is harder to track
- coordinator could be responsible for printing out sign up sheet and posting them on the wiki
- rotating squads every five weeks, Ron volunteers to be a squad leader
- most people who order regularly are working
- Consensus: Dave will call to get people to get them to commit to workshifts (will get Ron to finish calls if he runs out of steam), will have rotating cells every four weeks, plus a list of people who can’t work on Sundays (Cell E), each cell will have a coordinator drawn from the existing pool of coordinators
4. Money and Randy’s Role
- typically only have about $100 by Wednesday, and then Randy goes to collect, which sucks for him
- however, if we don’t have someone going around to collect, we end up not having a large order and don’t get a good selection of food
- proposal: need to put in money work in advance, or get someone to front the money for you
- why don’t people pay? Seems to be mostly because they are spacing out.
- about half the people typically need to be reminded
- can try to pull in more dependable people to deal with the small order issue
- currently it is all falling on Randy to track people down, could we have another people take this on?
- require that people pay by Monday by the end of the community meeting
- put a sign in the room reminding people to pay (think about drop-box for future)
- one last bugging phone call from Randy this week
- Consensus: new deadline is Monday, so pay your $$$, people!