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Harvest Coop Board Meeting January 30, 2006 Attending: board members Sujatha Byravan, Betsy Adams, John Mascia, Jessie Myszka, Loren Rodgers (by phone); staff Garland McQueen, Mike St. Clair Absent: Amy Cotter (excused); Karin Emry (excused) Members: Elisa Alonso, Karl Gossot, Judy Goldberger, Minka van Beuzekom, John Reinhardt Retreat Discussion The date for the next board retreat was discussed briefly. Board members listed the Saturdays in spring and summer that they cannot attend. Jessie will compile this data and offer possible dates for the board retreat. Approval of Minutes for Public Session of Board Meeting on 12 December 2005 No changes to the minutes were suggested. Loren moved to approve the minutes; Betsy seconded. No abstentions. The minutes were approved 5-0-0. Public Comment Section Harvest members offered their comments on the end of the member work program. Karl Gossot has been an active member for 15 years and has also been a staff member and a board member, and until recently, a member worker. He was disappointed by the way the decision was made and the news communicated to member workers. He had hoped that there would be a meeting for member workers and an effort to include them in the decision to end member work. He had also hoped that there would have been positive outcomes from the different aspects of the problems of the member work program – such as legal issues and liability. Is the Board interested in investigating ways to save the member program, or investigating fully IRS code and other laws and codes that the Coop may have to abide by. He challenges the board to really look into other options for saving the program. Karl hopes that member workers, because they are a small percentage of the total Coop membership, will not be outvoted on the concerns of the member work programs. In summary, he wanted to see more information on this decision. Judy Goldberger notes that she is also speaking for three additional member workers who couldn’t attend tonight’s board meeting. She has been a member since 1992, and working member for the past three years. She repeats Karl’s concerns about the decision-making process. Member workers didn’t know these discussions were on the board agendas, and would have come to more board meetings if they had known this was being discussed. There was also some confusion about whether staff were informed – some found out from member workers. Her understanding was that the goals of the member work program were to be accessible to lower income people, to support the Coop, and to help provide [staff] hours. So if those goals are not met by member work program, what will help reach them? John Reinhardt has been member for a long time. He used to be a member worker a long time ago, and echoes Karl’s’ and Judy’s comments. This is a huge upset, and a major character change for the coop. Minka vanBenzekem is another disappointed member worker, but would be willing to assist the Board to research legal matters about the member work program. Jessie notes that Chris Durkin has fielded a lot of phone calls and letters, and that the comments from Karl, Judy and John reflected the essence of those phone calls. She apologizes for the timing; the Board tried to call member workers before the letters informing them of the decision arrived. Cooperative Development Services (CDS) consultant Marilyn Scholl has given the Board a lot of reasons for giving up the member work program. There’s been a lot of discussion about this in the food coop world, however the legal aspect is so serious that most coops have moved away from member work, mainly because of Fair Labor laws. Mike comments that no one was affected positively by this decision, but he is concerned that the process wasn’t a good one. The Membership and Social Concerns Committee (MSCC) is coordinating a series of meetings in April to discuss the changes to the membership program. There will be more open member meetings. And more material will be moved to the public section of Board meetings. Change in Bylaws Purpose: At the Board meeting held November 19, 2005, the Harvest Board of Directors voted 7-0-0 to "suspend worker member discount by Dec. 31, 2005" for reasons of liability and fair labor practices. At the December 12 Board meeting, that date was changed to Jan. 31, 2006, to allow for better communication with the worker members. The Board needs to amend the by-laws in accordance with this decision. Resolution: The Board of Directors resolves to amend the By-laws as follows: (Article 3, p. 3) Section 2: Rights of Members A member of the Cooperative has the following rights, subject to the member's status as active or inactive, as described in Article 3, Section 1(d) above: (a) to use the Cooperative's services, (b) to vote at meetings of the members, in referenda and in elections of the Board of Directors, (c) to be informed about the Cooperative, at the discretion of the management or ultimately, of the Board, (d) to participate in committees, subject to the approval of the Board or committee members, and (e) to attend Board of Directors meetings, except Executive Sessions. Note that the amendment presented above is different from how the change was originally presented in this month’s board packet; in the original version item (d) was cut out completely, which was too much to cut. Loren moves to approve the amended change in bylaws; Betsy seconds the motion. All are in favor 5-0-0 and the bylaw change above is approved. Board Calendar of Tasks Jessie gave a brief overview of the board’s calendar for 2006. Highlights: By one month after the fiscal quarter ends we’ll have quarterly results available. July – board elections; recruit new board members, annual meeting planning. End of August – candidate petitions due. October – balloting commences, voting materials sent to members Newsletters go out every month Committees meet; what are their priorities with respect to the board’s overall goals? There was a brief discussion on the distribution of different board responsibilities among the board members. Board responsibilities chart Public GM Report Sales Review The year-to-date sales at the Cambridge store are ahead 3.8% compared to last year. The Jamaica Plain store sales are up 5.5% for the same time period. The total is 4.6% for both stores. We have hit a milestone – Harvest now has well over 6000 members. Since December 5, we’ve had 63 new members. There are 21% more members compared to last year. Operations The store has completed a cashier training review process that takes each cashier through a complete training & education on topics such as customer services, cash out, ringing in customers, and product identification. There are plans for repeated audits of different aspects of the program so that they can be tweaked and improved as time passes. It had been some time since cashiers had been trained. The two cashiers who had been with Harvest the longest were involved in the training and received premium pay for it. Mike observed some of the training sessions and thought they were very good. The goals of the cashier training are to provide better customer service, fewer “open rings” (products are rung up without identifying what department they’re from), and more accurate ringups, which affects how products are costed out, for example conventional versus organic produce. The program also grades the cashiers and helps them see their weaknesses (identifying products, for example). The IS department has generated a better tracking system for products, such as when they shift from one department to another (e.g. from Produce to Deli or Café, or from Cambridge store to JP location). The electronic transfer procedure includes “to” and “from” codes that are input into the cash register. The generated report goes into the financial data. The initial reports from this tracking suggest that as much as $70,000/year of product gets shifted around. These figures affect margins and operations – if a department isn’t getting credit for product that’s shifting, this can affect decisions about margins. This report can also capture discarded product. One cost-cutting goal has been to reduce unused inventory (stuff that’s on the shelf or in storage) by 5%. This past weekend Harvest did its quarterly inventory and discovered that unused inventory in Cambridge has been cut by 13%! Much of this is back room stock that is not seen. The JP unused inventory will probably be reduced 6-7%. Nate Cronin has been hired on as the Cambridge grocery manager. Marc Cutler was promoted to JP store manager. Garland will take on the Cambridge store manager responsibilities, in addition to his role as chief operating officer. Public Finance Committee Report The Finance Committee has been meeting every two weeks for the last month or two, but is now returning to monthly meetings. At its last meeting, the Finance Committee discussed how to improve financial reports. Although members would like to have more high-level summary reports in future, they will defer working on it. Instead, the Finance Committee will focus on starting a budgeting process in March and developing 12-18 month forecasts. The public session ends at 8:25 Minutes submitted by Ava Chan |