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Mar. 30, 2010 at 11:58am
Minutes from March 26th Board meeting
Tacoma Food Co-op Board Meeting Minutes
Friday, March 26, 2010 5:00pm – 7:00pm
Location: The Greener Bean in Fircrest
Board members in attendance: David, Molly, Corrinne, Amber, Casandra, Michelle
Others in attendance: Chico, Ariel, John Loesch, Carla
Updates:
Ø Website: membership form is up there and Paypal should be coming soon
Ø Board members: Anders will officially resign and we will remove Anders and Libby from the website soon
Ø Food on Film: Fresh screening on March 10th went well, had a good turnout, but not as many people as last time. We got one membership and about 10-12 people who wanted to sign up to be on our email list. We also got a lot of people who checked the box saying they would like to volunteer.
o Next one is April 7th and the film is Ingredients
o We do not have one scheduled for May, so if we want to continue doing this program, we should figure out how we want to do it over the summer or whether we want to wait until the Fall semester
Ø TEDxTacoma sponsorship: agreement that yes we want to sponsor it by paying for the printing of the reusable shopping bags which would cost $250 for 250 bags
o TFC expectations RE: this sponsorship: want TFC logo and website on bag, recognition on all marketing materials, newsletters and membership forms in the bags
Ø Other updates:
o Recruited volunteers for events at Bryant Montessori and Dupont
o Talked about space for storing our stuff (t-shirts, etc)
Financial Report:
Molly shared pre-preliminary budget information: (see proforma Excel file). She needed to make various assumptions in order to complete this draft and she shared those figures with the rest of the group.
Inventory cost per square foot: these numbers are somewhat arbitrary.
John thinks we could have $40K of inventory eventually in our space but recommends that we not start out with the full amount.
Labor, typically, is 12% of gross sales. Our labor has to be a lot less. John’s overhead in the store is 25%. We need to make 30-32% gross profit.
John Loesch joined our meeting at 5:55 p.m. along with Carla.
Annual Benefit Event:
Amber suggests that we do this on a Tuesday night, combined with the 6th Ave Farmers Market and a showing of the new retail space.
Neighborhood Market Report:
John: 6th Ave Business Association would be a good thing to join. This would allow us to put up a booth at Art On The Ave, be involved free of charge in the Farmers Market. We agreed to join right away.
We discussed the logistics of signage. John suggests adding our logo to the existing sign, which would be much less expensive than the original sign.
John Toler e-mailed Amber with results from the member survey. We have tabled going over the survey results until we can get them in a more user-friendly format. Perhaps we can get Shawn from UWT to come give a presentation summarizing the results of his survey. John Loesch suggests that we don’t take survey results overly seriously but rather rely on a good manager who understands the business.
Marketing/Outreach Efforts:
Ariel has developed a database of partners. She is hoping to set up a few “event” days with local businesses, where some percentage of sales from a certain day will go to TFC. She wants to keep in touch with these businesses regularly.
Also, Ariel wants to send out the first quarterly newsletter on Earth Day.
Vendors: she has some communication papers ready but is waiting for the results of the survey to make contact.
Why do this? 1) Exchanging advertising, 2) true partnership/community building
Project Manager Hiring Process:
We had GREAT response (17 applicants!). Casandra and Amber have narrowed the search down to 3 people and will be interviewing them this coming week.
John would like to work with the project manager as soon as that person is hired. There are a few physical changes that need to happen in the building and John would like that person to be on board with this.
Next Board meeting will be on Saturday, April 10th from 9am to 12pm at The Greener Bean in Fircrest. All are welcome.
posted by Michelle under board meeting, minutes
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