DAVIS FOOD COOPERATIVE, INC.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MEETING MINUTES
Call to Order:
The regular monthly meeting was called to order at 7:01 the Davis Food Co-op Conference Room, 620 G Street, Davis, California, by Stacie Hartung-Frerichs
Roll Call:
Directors Present: Janie Booth, Sam Citron, Theodora Consolacion, Stacie Hartung-Frerichs, Desmond Jolly, Steve Reynolds, Michael Ulrich, Kevin Wolf, Jack Young (via conference call)
Directors Absent: Julie Cross
Staff Present: Beth Tausczik, Doug Walter, Eric Stromberg, Kenna Krueger
Guests Present:
.
Roles:
Facilitator: Stacie Hartung-Frerichs
Time Keeper: Janie Booth
Notetaker: Nathan Milos
The Secretary determined that notice of the meeting was duly provided as required by Bylaw Art. VIII §6(C), and that a quorum of Directors was present under Art. VIII §6(B).
Member Comments:
Desmond: A friend of mine and member of the Co-op told me that he’s found that the Co-op’s cheese prices are incomparable with his search for value and he has stopped buying cheese at the Co-op.
Beth: Where was he finding cheese bargains?
Desmond: He goes to Cost-co. Another owner called me over the weekend. He was up in Ashland at the Co-op. He says when you go to the checkout stand, they ask if you’re an “owner” not a “member,” he thought that was meaningful; it had psychological import to him. He thought we could institute something like that here. He also thought we should promote exchanges between Co-ops.
Eric: We actually do that [Co-op exchanges]. And we’ve done it with Ashland.
Doug: There is a fairly active discussion among co-op communicators regarding the owner/member question. “Owner” can be an off-putting word to people who are outside (i.e. non-members).
Review Ground Rules: Read by Nathan
Announcements:
Eric: In the most recent Edible Sacramento they are talking about “foodshed.” Also, we have a tentative compromise worked out with Public Works. We met face to face and may have worked out a reasonable compromise. It’s an estimated $40,000 to $50,000.
Michael: I’m moving to San Francisco in January, and will serve out my term, work schedule permitting, through this current board year.
Stacie: I wanted to congratulate David Thompson for being inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame. I was thinking we might want to do something to recognize that achievement.
Doug: We were going to put something in the Co-op newsletter.
Agenda Review
Amend Agenda by
Kevin: I want to pull the Member Ends Linkage task force charter so we can approve it.
Stacie: The Member/Ends Linkage task force charter will now appear as item 7.3.
Jack: There’s nothing for 6.5 so we might as well pull it. I don’t want to pull 6.4
Motion: Steve Reynolds moved to adopt the agenda as amended
Seconded: Kevin Wolf
Reports
4.1 BGM Global Policy – Monitoring
Kevin: The board’s sole official connection to the Co-op is through the manager. We’re in compliance because we haven’t attempted to make another connection that would bypass the manager. I’ve also suggested some wording changes on this.
Stacie: Kevin, if you’d like to take these revisions on, we could put it on the agenda next month.
Janie: I’d like to accept this as a first reading.
Stacie: There would still be a second and a third reading.
Kevin: I don’t mind going through the three reading process.
Steve Reynolds moves that the board consider this a first reading of the changes
Seconded: Desmond Jolly
Motion carried unanimously
Stacie Hartung-Frerichs moves to accept the monitoring report
Seconded: Michael Ulrich
Motion carried unanimously
4.2 BGM-1 Unity of Control – Monitoring
Discussion:
Janie: I reported compliance. Julie Cross wrote [reading from Julie’s email]: “I think there's a typo in the last line ‘General Manager has not reported any instances where he was *unable* to refuse such requests.’ It makes us sound sort of tough & Mafia-like, but should probably be corrected!’” I pulled the wording right from B; I think the wording is bad and that’s why it sounds mafia-like.
Steve: I think the General Manager needs to speak up. It’s useful when making requests if the General Manager says, “It’ll take a lot of time;” it can change my request.
Motion: Stacie Hartung-Frerichs moves to accept the monitoring report
Seconded: Kevin Wolf
Motion carried unanimously
4.3 GP-1 Governance Style – Monitoring
Discussion:
Stacie: I sent this out late and I do apologize. I took GP 1 and I turned it into a survey and sent it out to the board, and then converted that into my analysis. So, I’m reporting compliance for A, B, and C and non-compliance for D. D is whether we discuss our performance at each meeting. I think we just need to recommit that we will do that. In doing this policy, I felt there was a lot of gray area, so while we weren’t perfect, I reported compliance.
Janie: There was a meeting evaluation form that Darius used to use – we did develop a meeting evaluation form. I’ll try to resurrect it.
Desmond: I think that might be an option. I don’t think it’s that people don’t take it seriously. But it comes late, and people are kind of tired by that point in the meeting. Maybe we could take it home and do it there.
Stacie: Or maybe we could do it silently for three minutes. We might fill out the meeting evaluation and read it at the next meeting.
Kevin: I think if we just take three minutes at the end and discuss went well and what do we need to work on it might be faster.
Doug: I wanted to mention, one of the aspects of self evaluation might be how often do things get in the packet or not. And the other thing, Kevin what you say about the end of the meeting sounds right, but it doesn’t always work that well at board meetings.
Kevin: I agree it can be a problem; any evaluation can be a problem. I do think asking how many late reports we had at a particular meeting is a good idea. If we have a meeting with no late reports, we can give ourselves a cheer.
Stacie: We’ve all been doing fine, we’ve had some late reports but nothing egregious, however we might want a process for confronting someone who isn’t pulling their weight as a board member.
Seconded: Janie Booth
4.4 B2 Treatment of Staff – Monitoring
Discussion:
Eric: Our average wage of 14 dollars an hour is very good. “Good” meaning we are above average. The Emergency Time Off usage is up this year because of a wave of summer flu, and, because of N1H1, we are encouraging people to stay home. The big issue is the on-time evaluations, which slipped from last year. The big reasons were delinquent managers and a low turnover rate, so we’re writing more evaluations than ever. But we have a plan and a commitment from every manager that they will be on time. I’ve also asked for January, April, and August reports on evaluations. We’ve also agreed that we have 30 days slack time for a written evaluation, but for a pay increase there is no slack – the date due is the date due. All managers are on page with that and have given a commitment that they will be on task.
Desmond: I thought it was a very impressive report. I did want a little more clarity on the terminations; you had 25. I wondered how many were voluntary versus involuntary.
Eric: The majority of terminations were voluntary. I could get the number of involuntary, but this year it was pretty close to half and half. Normally, it’s heavily skewed to voluntary.
Kevin: Do we have a way of keeping track of how much severance pay we owe, as a liability? How do we keep track of how high that goes?
Kenna: With accounting principles you would not list that as a liability. Vacation is a liability; sick pay is not a liability because we are not required to pay that. In our budget, we’ve increased the amount we’re budgeting for severance pay.
Kevin: You budget something for it?
Kenna: We’ve actually increased the amount budgeted since we’ve formalized our policies. It ties into what Eric is talking about in terms of turnover.
Stacie: Severance pay is not for voluntary leaving right?
Kevin: So, it’s much less?
Eric: If an individual is laid off for cause, there is no severance pay.
Steve: Overall, I’m kind of impressed, but I’m really disturbed that two-thirds of the performance reviews are late. It’s unfair to the employees not to give them evaluations. I’m glad that people are getting paid, so that they know what to take out for their 401Ks.
Eric: I can only apologize and say I relied on people who did not follow through, and that has been dealt with. I have impressed upon the managers how unacceptable this would be to the board. I’m not happy about it either.
Sam: Following up on what Steve said, I believe the auditors were also concerned about late performance reports. I’m interested in the report on employee bonuses and the subject of variable compensation, because it has important incentive elements in the way it encourages people to work towards goals. I would like to hear more about what kind of employee bonuses are available and what percentage of staff earned bonuses, etc.
Eric: Our Policy Attorney tells us that we cannot tie bonus pay to performance unless the individual has 100% control over that performance. So, that’s why we don’t do gain share bonuses.
Sam: I’d like to request the case citation [that dictates the individual must have 100% control over performance].
Eric agrees to show Sam the citation privately.
Eric: When employees do what managers deem above and beyond performance, we give a small bonus ($50 to $1000) depending on the impact it has on the store. If a manger is really good at meeting margins, they could receive an award. It’s discretionary, and meant as a morale booster.
Stacie: Last year I tried to put forward a policy to expand the list of people who we protect from discrimination, and I’m still interested in expanding the group. I would have liked to see the bylaw change that we put forth last year regarding the dismissal of members who threaten staff included in this; it impacts the safety of staff. We also instituted a policy about how often the grievance procedure was used; it was not used this year.
Kevin appreciates the level of detail in the report
Motion: Steve Reynolds moves to accept the monitoring report
Seconded: Desmond Jolly
Motion carried unanimously
4.5 B3 Compensation & Benefits – Monitoring
Discussion:
Steve: Individual employees manage their 401ks; are they given menu choices or can they put it anywhere?
Eric: There is a menu including a range of choices from socially responsible to “just going for the bucks”.
Kevin: Do we ever cover how many super worker hours we cover?
Kenna: On a monthly basis, the Membership Department puts that together; it could be easily put together for the board.
Kevin: I would like to hear an annual report on this.
Doug: It’s clearly not compensation or benefits, so you need to figure out where you’ll review this.
Desmond: Our status as a model employer (paying better wages, etc.) may conflict at some point with some of our other goals, like making profit. I’m good with that, but we need to be clear about how our ends rub up against each other.
Sam: I thought that inherent conflict was noted in the beginning of this report.
Eric: I have noted it.
Desmond: As a board, we need to be prepared to deal with that when it comes.
Steve: I appreciate the level of detail in the section on staff productivity. For instance the breakdown of things like “what percentage of our dollar goes to education.” That might be the baby we throw under the bus should economic troubles continue. Eric, when you report to us, please continue to track these costs.
Janie: Some of this wording is not good, I think C2 is just really terrible, and some of these things are California State law and don’t need to be in here.
Kenna: I don’t see our policies creating an inherent conflict that Desmond speaks about.
Stacie: We had a discussion last month about projecting our health care costs and where we couldn’t continue to afford it.
Eric: This year we shopped around and changed our carrier to maintain the same level of coverage.
Motion: Sam Citron moves to accept the monitoring report
Seconded: Stacie Hartung-Frerichs
Motion carried unanimously
4.6 E1.1 Cooperative Principles – Monitoring
Discussion:
Eric: On Principle 2, the Democratic principles, I’d like to propose the creation of video candidate statements to increase voter turnout. Our goal is to stay on course with our Education goals. We are actively engaged with Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op to preserve local farmland for future farmers.
Sam: With respect to the video candidate statement, why not go with something even more educational, like allowing candidates time to debate with each other.
Janie: I think that would deter people from running. Sometimes people are fearful of even giving a topic at the annual meeting.
Kevin: I really like this; it gives a lot of detail. Rather than a video maybe a questionnaire might be good.
Stacie: I like that because it’s a little more private than a debate and people might not get nervous.
Doug: The idea about video is that many people are comfortable with doing chat cameras. With a questionnaire, we have to broach the questions: who writes it and what questions are asked?
Stacie: In the past we’d talked about removing the cooperative principles from our Ends policy and I wanted to reiterate the way that the Cooperative ends constitute our roots. I also wanted to mention the potential innovation of online voting.
Doug: I have a vendor who’s trying to sell us that.
Sam: Talk about a can of worms in terms of validity though.
Kevin: One semantic comment, you call these things “goals,” I think, given their specificity, they should be called “objectives.”
Eric: That sounds good.
Sam: I noticed you have an objective of increasing turnout of annual meetings mentioned here, but I didn’t see any goal about increasing turnout of the election?
Eric: We’ve been in the upper quartile of turnout for Co-op elections. The best way to increase turnout is to do something controversial. Higher turnout is not necessary a good thing. Candidate video statements might provide an avenue to increased voter turnout.
Steve: We have two demographics: an older one and a younger one. I think the older one may be more comfortable with paper ballots. Also, it’s not simply controversy that increases turnout; it’s anger.
Stacie: If we were getting 2 or 3 percent voter turnout, we might worry. But since we’re in the upper quartile for this, we’re not worried.
Motion: Steve Reynolds moves to accept the monitoring report
Seconded: Michael Ulrich
Recess at 8:12; reconvene at 8:20.
Jack leaves the meeting.
4.7 Merchandising Policy – Monitoring
Discussion:
Eric: I’m going to let Beth walk us through this, because she is the author. This is written as a positive rather than a prohibitive guide.
Beth: This is used, in part, as an introduction to our Ends. Hopefully it grounds staff in the idea that everything they are going to do is based on our Ends. The report introduces our staff to our competition, our marketing messages, and the principle behind our merchandising and marketing messages. The back page details limitations for items to be put on promotion and are things we wouldn’t want in the deli or bakery. I think I’m going to invite Julie Cross, someone from Grocery and someone from Wellness to review the list soon.
Steve: Items with ingredients listed as “unacceptable,” we don’t put on promotion?
Beth: Anything under “currently excluded” or “unacceptable” is not promoted. The “currently excluded” category covers items that are generally accepted, but for which we have evidence suggesting that they are dangerous.
Eric: The background on this: we used to have a list of items we would not promote. And we were also trying to figure out what we would and would not vend in the deli. It’s a living document; if it’s in “excluded” or “unacceptable,” we wouldn’t expect to find in a natural or organic product, so we wouldn’t tend to promote it. There are exceptions.
Janie: I want to call time. Can we focus on the monitoring?
Kevin: I like this message of “quality you can trust at a price you can afford.” I like the word “affordable.” One thing I notice is that there is no mention of the bulk section, where you can choose a smaller quantity at increased affordability.
Beth: This is not a marketing document; it’s a merchandising one. The messages do refer to marketing, but they are there to show buyers how merchandising fits in marketing by enabling a buyer to understand whom they are buying for. We do have marketing messages for bulk.
Stacie: I’m curious if a new point of sale system will affect your merchandising.
Beth: It will take us almost a year to have the data to answer that question.
4.8 Administrative Policy – Guests – Policy Revision – Second Reading
Discussion:
Kevin: I realized that there was just kind of funny language in other places, so I cleaned up the language throughout. The main idea is: how do we accommodate members who want to speak? Like other boards, I decided they could speak before an agenda item, and then during the next period of time, they could only institute a point of clarification.
Sam: I like that a lot. It indicates a respect for their time as well as ours.
Stacie: Julie had emailed a comment on E.i (which says that each person has three minutes). Julie writes [reading from the email]: “E(i) would appear to be committing us to hear from any person who attends, whether they are a member or not, which I don't want to do. I would prefer that all comments be given during the member comment period, rather than throughout the agenda.”
Kevin: First of all, present policy allows members to speak whenever they want. I’ve changed from “member owner” to “person” in case a vendor, or someone who isn’t a member owner comes to the meeting. This would give them a chance to speak.
Stacie: Do we want to see this as a third reading next time?
Steve: Yes.
Consent Calendar
6. Consent Calendar
6.1 Motion: Adopt consent calendar:
Presented: Consent Calendar Items
Retained by unanimous consent
6.2 Accept September 2009 Minutes
6.4 GP5 Board Task Force Principles and GP6 Board Renewal and Continuity – Policy Revision– Third Reading
6.6 Monitoring Chart
6.7 Board Calendar
6.8 Task Force Report
6.9 Board Member representing the Co-op Report (events, electeds, service providers, vendors with whom you meet in the role of Board Member)
6.10 2009 – 2010 Board Budget
6.11 Date of 2010 Annual Meeting
Removed by objection: 6.3 and 6.5
6.3 BGM4-GM Performance – Policy Revision - Third Reading
6.5 B4 Budget and Financial Condition – First Reading
Motion: Stacie Hartung-Frerichs moves to Adopt consent calendar as amended
Seconded: Steve Reynolds
Motion carried unanimously
7.1 Conference Discussion, Task Force Findings
Discussion:
Janie: The task force met twice and communicated over email. We think it would be a reasonable and exciting thing to host the conference in June. The scope of what the Co-op would be responsible for is limited. We compiled a list of responsibilities from talking to the conference director and former hosts. Julie Cross said she would like to see a report from staff on how many hours it would take to accomplish these goals next month.
Sam: I’d like to hear more about how hosting the event upholds our Ends.
Janie: The task force felt that hosting supported our Ends pretty directly.
Sam: What is the process of getting to host?
Janie: It’s not certain we’d be selected, but we do need to decide as a board that we’re 100% interested in doing this before we pursue it further.
Steve: Are we talking about Davis hosting it alone or would the conference be split between Sacramento and Davis.
Janie: The events would take place in Davis, but people would probably need to take lodgings in Sacramento.
Stacie: We would like to approach the Sacramento Natural Food Cooperate about co-hosting, but we wanted to make sure that we’d be willing to host the whole thing, if they aren’t able or willing.
Kevin: I think one of the big costs is sending members to the conference, and I’m wondering if the costs in your budget should reflect that accommodations and travel for Directors would not be necessary.
Janie: Yes, good point.
Teddy: I think this would be a fantastic opportunity for us, especially in terms of member-linkage. Instead of a big onerous “Well, how do we teach Policy Governance to our members,” we could use the conference.
Steve: When you start thinking about our employees being able to go, I think there is some real benefit there. I am concerned that we’d be signed up to support it. I’m worried that people wouldn’t be in Davis except for the trips.
Janie: We could potentially get the Mondavi Center, and I think we could definitely plan events in Davis.
Stacie: My only other comment is that the board was worried about drain on staff time. We’ve considered hiring someone to help plan it. We did try to quantify it.
Sam: Have you checked those numbers against other hosts?
Stacie: Yes, this is a higher budget than the last two years.
Sam: In terms of member-linkage, what is the cost per person of this?
Stacie: We would not likely address member-linkage via members attending the conference, but we would have the opportunity to increase linkage around the event.
Sam: Does the conference determine cost?
Janie: Many of the panels are not interesting to members, but we could plan to have a member event to coincide with the conference.
Eric: I think if Sacramento co-hosts, I’m very excited about this, but I’m worried about hosting it alone.
Steve: In terms of member linkage, if people wanted to pay a fee ahead of time, maybe members could go on the tours.
Steve Reynolds moves that the Board of Directors commits to hosting the 2011 conference, contingent on being selected to do so. The Board authorizes the Conference Task Force to explore whether such a selection is likely, whether suitable accommodations and sites can be secured, and whether a budget of no more than $20,000 would be sufficient if selected. The Task Force is further charged with exploring the interest of local cooperatives, particularly Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op, to assist with or co-host the conference.
Seconded: Janie Booth
Motion carried unanimously
Janie: I’d like to give credit to Doug for help with this motion.
7.3 Member ends/linkage task force charter
Kevin: I talked to Eric a little bit about this, and in one of his reports today he talked about doing a statistically valid survey this year. So we might add the Member Ends Linkage survey to the end of that survey. That would reduce the cost of the survey proposed here. The second question is: how do we do the focus groups? We might seek members with experience running focus groups to provide help setting up focus groups. The aim of the focus groups would be to have members give us feedback on the existing ends, ask if they think any ends are missing, and do an interpretation of the ends. Then the board uses that information to rewrite the ends. Then we could use a survey to prioritize the ends. Then we’d have member feedback on priorities, and their interpretations, and as a board could write ends to determine the direction of the co-op for two or three years.
Eric: We budgeted for a survey, so Kevin is proposing adding on to our survey.
Kevin: The cost might come down to $3,000 dollars for us to add on to the existing survey, but it wouldn’t be the whole $9,000.
Stacie [reading an email from Julie Cross]: “I […] suggest that this Member Ends task force consult with Marilyn Scholl of Cooperative Development Services before going any further - we may be "inventing the wheel" on this when we could just buy it ready-made from CDS!”
Teddy: We’re already talking with CDS.
Desmond: The last time we brought this up, I was definitely in favor of it, but the more I thought about it, it occurred to me that there is a risk that we would proliferate Ends. As we proliferate new ends, we proliferate new work for staff and directors, and I think we’re at capacity now. I’m wondering, how to do we curtail the proliferation of ends?
Steve: What I want to see is how much money we’re authorizing.
Doug: On Task 1, where do the proposed future ends come from? I don’t want someone putting proposed future ends in the survey without having them go through a review process. I don’t like that task as written. It was also discussed that the winter retreat be used to rewrite the ends, is that what the board wants to do?
Stacie: Is the January retreat mentioned in this charter?
Kevin: It’s currently unknown if all of this would be ready for the January retreat. I’d reduce $9,000 to $3,000 dollars budgeted for the survey. We have 7 existing ends, we’ve talked about reducing them and we’ve talked about adding to them, so it seems reasonable that we’d consider adding ends, instead of looking at our ends as fixed. I propose putting those 3 other ends out there: one regarding staff, one about customer service, and one on price. We’d decide whether or not to rewrite our ends after the focus groups and surveys.
Janie: If we do authorize $3,000, we’ll have to cut money from something else (i.e. the annual meeting, etc.)
Sam: I think it’s important to have the question of whether we want to be open ended about asking people what they think Ends should be. If it’s too pre-formatted for them, they might resent it.
Michael: I have a hard time envisioning any clarity coming out of this process. We’ve spent a lot of time agonizing over these Ends. I think the positive feedback Eric’s been getting on our current Ends, shows that we are getting satisfying results. I don’t think that a survey or a focus group of members will really tell us if we need new Ends. I wouldn’t think that any existing ones need to be changed, maybe just add the staff and customer service Ends.
Eric: In terms of the survey, keeping it simple might be best: for instance, asking members to prioritize the Ends, and then asking, “If we were to add another end, what would you add.” Changing the Ends frequently is problematic, because taking this information to staff takes time. I would hate to see us change too rapidly, because we currently have staff thinking in a certain direction.
Kevin: I don’t think that this is going to cause a lot of problems. I think the Ends need editing for clarity. From what I understand from Policy Governance, the most important place to include members is in the Ends. Prioritization of Ends is one of the more important things a Board of Directors does, and we don’t do it. I think the prioritization is more important than changing the Ends. We should rewrite them once, and they’ll hold for years.
Steve: I see two things going on, one is grabbing an opportunity to get feedback from the members. But I don’t think it’s appropriate to delegate rewriting the Ends to focus groups.
Sam: There have been a number of comments that there is the potential for this to make our lives more difficult, but the purpose of this isn’t to simplify our job, but to do it effectively. And to do it effectively, we have to know what our members think. I think something along the lines of what Eric proposed is the best idea I’ve heard yet of soliciting feedback. I personally would prefer that to the focus groups. I think it’s essential; I think we should devote whatever funds are necessary.
Stacie: We need to figure out where to get the money for this. I’m concerned about members commenting on the ends. Julie Cross also had another comment [reads from Julie’s email]: “I still feel that $9,000 is too much to budget right now. I request that expenditure of these funds require Board authorization BEFORE any actual expenditure”. I think that should apply to Ends too: before you run new Ends by members, run them past the board first.
Kevin: I like that. If you could take out the money issue and approve the charter we could get to work on it.
Desmond: I think the discussion has been clarifying; the discussion has narrowed it down and provided more focus.
Sam: Prioritization of ends seems like a really subtle thing, and I think it’s difficult for an outsider to come up with. I think an outsider might be able to come up with input on whether we are representing their own thought process, in terms of what Ends should be.
Janie: What do we need to do to authorize this task force?
Stacie Hartung-Frerichs moves to charter the task force by authorizing the task force to develop and recommend a plan (including budget) to involve members in prioritization of the Ends.
Seconded: Janie Booth
Approved: Janie Booth, Stacie Hartung-Frerichs, Theodora Consolacion, Kevin Wolf, Michael Ulrich
Opposed: Sam Citron
Abstain: Desmond Jolly
Motion carries
7.3 BGM 4
Janie: I pulled BGM 4 because of what Julie Cross said in her email [reads from Julie’s email]: “[This] continues to say, in paragraph D, that Boundary Policies will be benchmarked. We have never asked that of the GM, and should not start now.”
Stacie: In the first sentence change “All Ends and Boundary policies” to “All Ends Polices.” Then make, “All boundary policies that instruct the GM will be interpreted and monitored” a separate sentence. I’d like to take out F.
Stacie Hartung-Frerichs moves to accept the revision as amended
Steve Reynolds seconds
Motion carries unanimously
Janie: thanks to Kevin for persevering
Meeting Evaluation
What Went Well?
Desmond: The only thing I’ve noticed is that the agenda is really packed. We’re almost condemned to run over.
Kevin: Normally we end at 10 pm.
Steve: Frankly, I appreciated the ambitious goals of the agenda.
Janie: I think we get bogged down in details. We have to hold ourselves back, stick to the policy and its relevance to our discussion.
Stacie: When I started on the board, we typically had one agenda item that we’d spend a half an hour on. But now we’re monitoring, so I struggle with putting in half hour chunks of time. If there is a topic that people want to delve into more, the board has typically entertained things like this.
Doug: I hesitate to make an evaluation comment, but it might be useful. I appreciate that people give me the space to talk. I think that some of the debate people would need to go into over controversial issues is taking place over email, I think that there are some things legally that need to take place face to face and that come across better face to face. I don’t know if all the emails have been bogging people down. But some of the grinding through has gone on in emails.
Kevin: Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op was impressed with our meeting last month, and I think our meetings are doing well in terms of efficiency.
Janie: I do think people are staying on task more than in the past.
General Comments:
Kevin: I’d love to have a master binder compiling all of the past policies in the library.
Stacie: It’d be nice if we each had the policies and the 2009 interpretations.
Next Meeting –
Facilitator: Steve
Time Keeper: Teddy
Recorder: Nathan
There being no further business to come before the meeting, it was adjourned at 9:36 p.m. by a motion made by Stacie Hartung-Frerichs, seconded by Steve Reynolds, and passed unanimously.
/s/ Julie Cross, Secretary
__________________________________ ______________________
Secretary, Davis Food Cooperative, Inc. Date Approved