GM Notes 10.28.15

General Meeting NOTESWednesday, October. 28,  7.30 - 9.30pm Fulton Grand, Fulton St. Facilitator: Emily Miner Minute-taker:Meghan Curran Minute-takers - please see link to secretary responsibilities.

Directors in attendance: DK, Jeannie

Absent: Keith, Renee

Any person attending may participate equally in discussions, but only Co-op members/owners may vote on any issues. Member/owners may receive work credit if they attend (allotted 3 times a year).

Next General Meeting is November 18, 7:30 at the store. Want to be a facilitator, secretary, timekeeper or to propose items for a future GM agenda? Please email board@greenehillfood.coop.

Welcome/Orientation 7:30-7:40 (10 min.) (DK Holland)

Welcome and introductions. Brief explanation of the purpose of the General Meeting. Questions welcomed!

DK gave a welcome and introduction to two potential new members who were seated nearby.

Consent Agenda: 7:40-7:45 (5 mins) (Facilitator)

A collective vote on decisions that have already been made or that don’t generally require/solicit discussion. Attendees can pull out any item they would like more discussion on, and this item will be moved to discussion at the end of the meeting. Information on all consent agenda item votes will be circulated in advance of the meeting.

    • Ratify minutes from previous GM (please read beforehand on the Website)

 

  • Notes from previous GM were ratified

 

Finance and Membership Reports 7:45 - 7:55 (10 min) (Chad Donnick; Finance to provide numbers)

    • Current number of working members
    • Number of new members and deactivated in September
    • Number of exiting members waiting for investment returns
    • Monthly finance report

 

  • No one from finance was present; but the following update was shared via email:

 

Committee Reports & Projects 7:55 - 8:20 (25 mins)

    • Finance (10 min) (Facilitator)
    • *Julia is stepping away from the Finance committee soon and the committee is very badly in need of new members that will enable us to continue to track our operational finances, as well as carry out the medium- and longer-term financial planning for the coop.  Please reach out to Bianca or Brett if interested!!!

 

  • Factors to consider in spending film shoot $$$.
  • many competing obligations for the money including maintaining operating buffer, getting taxes filed and fulfilling our loan interest obligations.  
  • in discussion with park to slope to understand how to make decisions
  • The top priority at this point is maintaining  a sufficient buffer in the bank account until we can close our operating deficit for 2 months straight.
  • How to increase sales
  • As per previous point, we are still operating at a loss every month. Cutting buying costs is helping but is not enough.
  • Need to really think as a group about how we can increase sales.
  • Hiring a bookkeeper:
  • The update on the bookkeeper is that we hired a bookkeeper who started working last week. We are prioritizing having them up our records of past years so we can file back taxes. We recently received notice from the IRS that we have significant tax credits from previous years, and urging us to file our back taxes to take advantage of these credits (though it is likely that we will again not owe taxes because we have not made enough income). This work will take about a month and cost at least 3k. After that, starting around December, they can start doing regular bookkeeping to do all the proper record keeping and cash flow reporting on an ongoing basis that we haven't had the member labor to do.

 

    • Outreach (10 min) (Juliana)

 

  • Focused on membership drive, driving sales to the coop; hoping it results in new members, but have no understanding of impact of what’s working and what’s not
  • Coordinating with Shift Leaders; there are little packets with different streets and flyers – any member can take a packet and flyer door-to-door around the neighborhood; first door-to-door campaign
  • Event this Saturday for Halloween
  • Upcoming Open Houses:  Nov. 21st and include a food drive, and another on Dec. 13th
  • Do we have a budget?  As co-chair but that needs to be clarified; Renee saying
  • Open House Coordination: need more coordination across Outreach, Finance, Merch so that you can buy more food to be able to sell; coordinating with marketing for flyering for the Open House

 

  • Press Protocol (5 min) (DK Holland)
    • We’ve had a press protocol since the beginning; what we need is people who can speak to the press; be mindful of who you’re speaking to – approve facts and quotes in advance; Kelsey, DK, Renee, are authorized to speak to the press; hypothetically the Board would handle that; we might have more press coming up because of this; if you are approached, please email press@greenehillfood.coop – screen everything through Kelsey

Introducing the Inclusive Initiative  8:20 - 8:35 (15 min) (Christina)

The Inclusive Initiative is focusing on welcoming ALL into the Co-op

    -          Keith, DK, Christina – setting up a meeting with key community members, food justice, sensitivity training, whatever kind of training you might have; we need to acknowledge that we haven’t always been so careful to make sure that we’re working with the community; and being as inclusive as we could be;   

 

Review Coop Products 8:35 - 8:45 (10 min) (DK Holland)

    • Discuss what we buy, what we should by, and why

 

  • DK: wanting to talk more about the criteria for what is the food that we buy
  • Discussion – anyone can go to merch anytime if you have a questions, our vendors published on the website, and merch is willing to answer questions, consider new information or new vendors.
  • Could we have Merch report out at a GM to share more about how buying works?

 

Open Forum/Parking Lot 8:45 - 8:55 (10 mins) (Facilitator)

Review of items “parked” during meeting and space for discussion/comments on topics not on the main agenda. Items will require more time to discuss may be included as future agenda items.

Check-in desk binder; who owns this? Membership?  How can we use this as a tool to use the check-in desk as a way to flow information through to members.

Closing 8:55 - 9:00 (5 min) (Notetaker)

Board review/approval:  Board reviews votes at the end of each GM

There were no votes in this minute other than ratifying minutes from previous GM; only 2 board members present.

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