Tacoma Food Co-Op

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Mar. 2, 2010 at 12:17pm

Minutes from the March 1st Board Meeting

Tacoma Food Co-op Board Meeting Minutes 

from Monday, March 1, 2010

 

Board members in attendance: Amber, Casandra, Molly, John, David, Corrinne, Michelle

Guests in attendance: Malorie

 

Updates/Old Business:

Member Survey: John will e-mail the results to Casandra, who will send it to members tonight

Water bottles: John needs a check, once he finds out the grand total. The bottles are in the process of being ordered and should soon be available for sale at our co-op events along with our t-shirts (e.g., at the Food on Film events or at the Farmer’s Markets)

Food on Film:

• Michelle can meet Casandra to give her the stuff right before the film starts for the March 10th showing of FRESH the movie
• John is checking into the possibility of local catering for the April 7th screening of the film Ingredients
• 
  
  Schedule for upcoming Board meetings:

We need to schedule out the next few months of meetings. Casandra will prepare a Doodle Calendar.

 

Farmers Markets: 6th Ave Market will let us do publicity 4-6 times of the 16 total dates this summer. John will call Signs By Tomorrow. Broadway: 22 dates total; we can probably get as many as we want. South Tacoma: 12 dates total. Proctor: no response yet.

 

Letter of Interest/Arrangement with Neighborhood Market:

• John Loesch said we could use the storage space above the freezer to store our TFC materials.
• We reviewed the letter of intent which now contains a series of notes about things we would like John Loesch to address in the draft. Once the draft of the letter is finalized, it will get posted on the TFC website.

 

Email list cleaning up/Member communication:

• We have several people we would like to make sure are added to our email list (e.g., Lauren Walker and the two at-large members of the Tacoma City Council)
• We would also like to update and clean up our email address list for our members, so we will create a blog posting inviting members to contact us at tfcmembership@gmail.com if they are not reliably getting our emails.  
• Casandra will do a brief instruction session to teach the rest of the members of the Board how to use Constant Contact to send emails to our members and to our general email distribution list.

 

Miscellaneous:

John spoke with Laura about the idea of a benefit at the 6th Avenue Farmers Market site.

John is trying to set up a meeting with Gavindale about potential loan opportunities

 

General Manager /Member loan logistics:

Amber shared the Member Loan Toolbox with us.

Discussion/questions that we are tabling for now, but should discuss at a future meeting dedicated to this topic (likely the March 26th meeting):

·                     Would this be a good opportunity to reach out to members/get people more involved?

·                     Laura knows people who might be good candidates

·                     People who donate NEED to be members.

·                     Do we know what interest rate we can offer? Molly thinks LOW (similar to long term CD rates). Molly knows quite a few logistics. We need a five-year financial plan in order to set interest rates, minimum amounts, etc.

·                     People who volunteered for finance committee will be called in order to brainstorm and plan

·                     Best time of year to do this: May 1-June 30 (according to paperwork). The entire process would likely be around 4 months.

·                     Do we have enough people to work on this? This is time-intensive.

·                     3 roles: coordinator, caller, collector.

·                     We need to update member info; we don’t even have phone numbers for most members

·                     Molly: if we hire someone, it would be better to have an office manager-type position. Michelle: this could be a work study student.

·                     Corrinne: do we want to hire a project manager?

·                     Molly hopes to have a rough budget for next meeting, and this would help us plan re. project manager, etc.

·                     Michelle: we do ask for phone numbers on the membership forms, so we might have some of this information in our excel database or on the photocopies/originals of membership forms in the binder Molly has

·                     Amber loves calling people but hates blogging and e-mailing. Michelle and David hate calling people. Casandra and Corrinne have extensive calling experience. So does Molly! We definitely don’t need to hire people to call.

·                     March 26 meeting will be big. We will have budget, marketing plan, and PayPal stuff ready to go.

·                     Do we launch member loan program sooner or later? Should we have the business plan in place first?

·                     Corrinne will check with her former business professor who might be interested in being the project manager or could recommend someone for the position. We should also check with Kristina Lilliengren. We could start the project manager position soon (April 1?).

·                     Molly: could we approach people without a specific dollar amount?

·                     John: we need to make a list of what the project manager would do

·                     Corrinne and Michelle have established a $45-50K range for General Manager salary. We discussed whether this was reasonable/possible. Can we/should we provide health insurance?

 

Project Manager

Below is the information for a blog post to go on our website (Michelle will do this) and to get emailed out to everyone on our email distribution list (Casandra will do this) regarding our search
for a project manager should have this information:
 
We are seeking a Project Manager to develop and launch an upcoming member loan campaign, planning a search for a General Manager and initial phases of store start up.
 
The position will be a part-time position (i.e., 10-20 hours per week) beginning approximately April 1st with a monthly stipend attached to it (pending budget development).
 
Ideal skills:
~ Project management skills with appreciation for big picture as well as ability to work at a detailed level
~ Ability to create and execute action plans associated with co-op goals
~ Organized - able to keep self organized and coordinate efforts of others
~ Self motivated/self directed
~ Strong written and verbal communication skills
~ Marketing and multi-media skills (e.g., blogging, website management, creation of marketing materials)
~ Ability to work from home office/access to own office space
~ Work with co-op Board members and committees of volunteers
 
If you or someone you know is interested, PLEASE contact our Board President, Amber Englund as soon as possible at amber@tacomafoodcoop.com
 
Preference will be given to co-op members who express interest in this role. Due to conflict of interest, the project manager will not be able to be considered for the forthcoming general manager position.

 

Next meeting: Friday, March 26th from 5:00 – 7:00pm at The Greener Bean in Fircrest

posted by Michelle under board meeting, minutes