Rockbridge Food Co-op Board Meeting   March 9, 2010 

We met from 7:10 PM to 9:00 PM in the store. A quorum of the Board included Dave Wiest, Cindy Miller, Peter O'Shaughnessy, Winona Prior,  Tara Miller, Mitch Wapner, Dori Hamilton,  Ben Brown, Gwyn Campbell, and  Phil Coulling. Also Toria Brown, Larry Evans, Jo Ellen Parent, and  Lloyd Goad from the previous Board acting as chair. Ben wrote these minutes.

                                Events:

March 19 Friday evening    Silent Auction is in the evening. "Aloha Ohana" Tickets are $10.

March 24 Wednesday    This extra meeting is just for the Board, in the Co-op from 6 to 9 PM.

March 26 in the evening    A free dance with music by the Poison Bottom Boys, at the R.E.Lee Episcopal Church basement.

April 13 at 7 PM We will have our regular meeting in the store. All are welcome.

Lloyd will start posting the most recent minutes on the Co-op's web site. Ben will put the past two years of minutes into two huge computer files so that anybody can run a computer search thru them.

We selected a president and vice-president after two rounds of "No, I can't do it.." Peter will be president, with help from Larry and Lloyd on email and computer work, and from Tara in general, as she becomes the vice-president.. Dave will continue as treasurer, and Ben as secretary.  Lloyd will also continue to maintain the web site.

Lloyd gave each of us six magazine articles suggested by Harmony Leonard, on how Boards choose managers, and how much they pay them.

Dave wrote a job description of our Manager, based on the one used by Roanoke Natural Foods Co-op. He has not posted it yet. Ben said he does not like it, but we did not discuss that.

We would like Lloyd to do three things for the Silent Auction, please.

·   The store's computer and Mitch have the list of goods and services that have been donated to the "Aloha Ohana Silent Auction." Would Lloyd post the list on our web site, and either email the list to members, or send them a link to its location on our web site.

·   The poster for the Auction - Peter will scan and send it to Lloyd. Make sure the date is correct.  Put it on the web site. Either email the poster to members, or send them a link to its location on our web site.

·   Please post a notice of the auction on W&L's electronic bulletin board.

Harmony is away this week, so she asked Mitch to report to the rest of us that sales are terrible again. Dave said that the minutes should not include our discussion of Harmony's employment. But how it affects the Co-op, I will report.

Toria said that she is willing to become interim manager, part-time manager, or (what sounds the best to her) co-manager. But we asked, how could the same amount of work be done by a staff with one fewer person? Lloyd suggested that for a month or two, the Board could "pitch in."

We asked Toria to tell us more about sales. She said that last Friday was exceptionally good, at $2400. Our sales goal is $1540. There have been a lot of days in the fourteens, and some rare nine hundreds. No one prepared a Profit-and Loss statement for February, so we looked at the calendar where the staff writes each day's sales. Dave said that it looks like the average would be in the fourteens or fifteens.

Jo Ellen said that it would be "a can of worms" to train a new manager without Harmony here. Mitch had a long talk with Harmony, discussing where the Co-op could look for candidates for the new manager. The places include a guide to co-operatives that she has, Bruce Phlegar, Co-operative Grocer magazine, and to ask the Food Co-op in Harrisonburg. Maybe they found a candidate that would fit our needs. We could ask Harvest Moon in Floyd, the co-op in Asheville. and Robert Tollins of Blue Marble suggested a person. Harmony can help us explore some of these.

(As an aside, the Harrisonburg Co-op will be called "Friendly City." They are deliberately taking five years in preparation before they open. It will cost $500 to join. They plan to pay their manager $50,000.)

Larry Evans gave us a financial report orally. Our bank balance is a negative $4000, which he hopes can be covered by daily deposits before the checks clear. Add to that our accounts payable of nine to ten thousand dollars. The bottom line for February was a loss of -$1122, and we are in the red for the year-to-date about -$1900. (Ben notes while typing this that we have a Profit & Loss report for January which shows a loss of -$2,725.)The level of our inventory went down in the third quarter a lot, but up in the fourth.

Larry will hold off on writing checks for a while, until cashflow improves. He described sales as "pretty good. But invoices have been large." Mitch asked his advice, and he said, "back off on ordering." We will make it until the fund raiser, but maybe with some accounts complaining."

Dave asked if the reports can be made on the Accrual Basis rather than Cash. Peter said that the reports always say "Accrual Basis." Larry said that isn't completely the case, it's a mix. But he will make it all be Accrual. A good time to make the change in methods is the first of the year for taxes, and he can still do that.

Larry had figures for the Café. Gross income up thru March sixth was $2,000. Then he figured in food transfers from the store at $300, employee meals at $40 per week, one-fifth of rent and utilities. "Labor is a wash. About $300 per week" $50 of produce is used per week. We are paying the Patisserie about $750 per week. Given those assumptions, the Café lost $1225, and it would break even, if sales increase by $60 per day.

Café sales did not go down when we switched cooking to the Patisserie, but sales are lower than they were a year ago.

We received a donation earmarked for loan repayment, and it immediately went to help (with other special funds) to repay a two thousand-dollar loan. It would be good to have a separate bank account for money reserved for special purposes.

Gwyn said that the ten percent off on Tuesdays for students is a nice thing to do, and she asked, now could we treat the W&L staff as well? Mitch said that students are special, in that they have money, are new to Lexington, and we need to get their attention. He said maybe we could have a special for the W&L staff later. Larry said that the students add $400 to $600 to Tuesday's sales totals, and that a surprising amount is for groceries.

Mitch and Peter have two topics to discuss with Harmony. The main item is, they want to start  making an outline for how to train the next manager. And they would like her to choose new products from among items that members have asked for. There is a "wishing well" now, a place for members to put such suggestions.

Mitch proposed having a Board retreat to bring the new Board members up to speed, and to begin the hiring process.

Can we ask Lloyd to help us with hiring? He said he is willing, but he also said that he "is feeling closure" after his six years on the Board.

Would a part-time manager be enough? Toria said that generally the manager can work with the vendors and the bookkeeper in the mornings, and be done by 1 pm.

What are the manager's duties? Ask Harmony to make a list.

Gwyn had several related things to add to the Board's agenda. Debt reduction, publicity, and a membership drive. They all tie together with Fund Raising. Tara pointed out that it would take 36 successful auctions to pay our debt. Dori said that we may need to use fund raising for operating cash before we can use it for debt reduction.

It was either Gwyn or Dori who asked to get the Board and interested members together to collect all their ideas for a serious effort at debt reduction. Ben said that twenty or more people at our January 20 meeting at the bank made a long list of fund raising ideas. He will send copies to the new Board members.

Jo also wants us to make that committee, and her goal is one fund raiser a month until we get turned around. This is a good idea.

The posters for the March 19 Silent Auction with an Aloha Ohana theme have been made. Some are posted, and more of them need to be. Winona will work on that. A press release has been prepared. Members can take tickets to sell this week and next. We listed several electronic ways to promote the Auction. They are earlier in these notes, where we asked Lloyd to do them. Peter will bring several of the items donated to the Auction into the store for display.

An extra Board Meeting will be in the store on March 24 Wednesday from 6 PM until 9. Brainstorm for the short term and the long term. Tara said "We are flailing around" Meaning, let's get some of these things settled. What is this creature? What is our definition? The future of the Café. The store layout. Volunteers? Who are we trying to serve? Non-profit status?

We want to have a moderator, and we can help her or him if we pre-make an agenda by email. Peter will ask Burr Datz to be moderator, or Joan Millon, or Lloyd.

Phil presented the results of the survey, which he and "Survey Monkey" tabulated. He said that 67 people filled it out on the Internet. That is not a large number, and there were not many students. It is  biased, because it only including those willing to take the time to fill it out.

He called attention to the three most important departments: produce, bulk foods and cheese. The people who answered, said that the other store where they shop most often is Kroger, followed by Cool Spring and WalMart. They cite selection and price as reasons to shop at the other stores, and they cited price whenever the survey gave them space to do it. The things that they said not to change are staff, Café, atmosphere, local products, bulk food, and location. Toria got six mentions. Their overall satisfaction was "Satisfied." And they would recommend the store to friends. Some of the comments are included as they were written.

We thanked Phil for the work it took to do the survey.                   End.

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