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Harvest Co-op Supermarkets
Board of Directors Meeting
May 5, 2003


Present: Ed Barsamian (general manager), Eliza Strode (vice-president), Jeff Rosenblum (secretary), Mike Wiecek (president), Andrew Weaver (treasurer), Melitta Jakab, Sujatha Byraven, Betsy Adams, and Elisa Alonso (board members)

Absent: none

Revisions to the Agenda
none

Approval March 31 Board Minutes

Motion: Minutes approved as written.

For: Unanimous; Abstaining: Andrew due to being absent from previous meeting.

President's Report - Mike Wiecek
Mike had nothing to report at this time.

Eyes and Ears of the Board
Sujatha said that the Cambridge store looks fantastic. Elisa agreed and said the stores keep looking better and better. She added that she got overcharged on a product and then undercharged on a product. Jeff asked if there was an easy way for cashiers to notate pricing discrepancies. Ed answered yes.

(Mike left the meeting at this point.)

Committee Reports
MSSC: Jeff said this committee will be meeting soon. One of their priorities is to set up a staff, board interaction. The other priority is arranging for the board, in particular Eliza, to do co-op presentation to staff. Mike added that MSSC is natural place to keep an eye on the membership progress and new rollout.

Nominations and Elections Committee: Betsy is putting together the schedule for the board elections. She asked the board to think of potential nominees. Mike reminded everyone that Mike and Eliza's terms are expiring this year and the board should think about the officer slate. There was discussion about priority characteristics for board members. Betsy said business acumen, co-op values, and possibly experience as an attorney would be helpful. Elisa added diversity. Eliza asked if there was a way to find out the skills of current members. She suggested adding that to member applications. Mike added that it is worth sending out information to about nominations, elections, and committees to Harvest's email list, which is about 1,200 right now. Jeff suggested recruiting nominees with a marketing background. Andrew suggested checking board exchange organizations. There was also a note to keep in mind representation from the JP store.

Planning Committee: Eliza will be contacting Phil in order to invite him to be more involved and possibly chair this committee.

CCMA
This conference coming up next month and Ed questioned who was attending. Ed is attending and Jeff has expressed interest. Ed and Jeff will coordinate registration, etc.


General Manager's report - Ed Barsamian
Ed reported that the annual membership was re-introduced on April 17. He said the campaign is going okay and that a bigger push is coming. Floral departments have been set up in both stores and are starting to do well. The co-op sponsored a wine tasting recently. It brought the issue of doing the tasting here at the store. New stores hours are in affect in both stores. Parking in JP has been introduced to members. Bob Steadman is the interim store manager in JP. He's doing a good job.

[Board moved into executive session at this time]


[Minutes submitted by Natalie C. Jaeger]