These are the minutes of the 11/20/08 board meeting, as approved by the Board.

In attendance: John Calhoun, Amanda Zug-Moore, Sarrah Schoenewald, Anne Sobol, Christopher Brown, Michael Smith, and Erin Laine.

State Capital Outlay Discussion:

One of the members, Shana Hudson-Stowe, suggested we lobby the state legislature to receive funding from the state that we requested in the 2009 State Capital Outlay Application. Anne sent a link to the board so that we can view requests for the capital outlay. We were informed that we will need one person from the house and one person from the senate to sponsor us.

Shana has experience raising money for Jazz Fest from the state and Jazz Fest has specific members in the legislature that they have used.

Each board member will try to contact a legislator to get support for our funding request. This includes Anne Duplessis and Juan Lafonta.

The board also discussed sending an e-mail to our members to see if any of our members have lobbying experience or connections that could help us.

It was mentioned that Anne Duplessis is the chair of the Healthy Food Retail Study Group and is a good person to contact.

Incorporation issue:

Anne Sobol discussed the four options for incorporating, the pros and cons of each, and the advice from Peter Koerber and the Food Co-op 500.

Options:

1. Do Nothing
2. Send a letter to the Attorney General (need to find a legislator to do this)
3. Pursue changing the state statute regarding a cooperative incorporation in Louisiana
4. Reincorporate as a business corporation

Our board is leaning toward changing to a business corporation. This will allow us to give patronage refunds and call ourselves New Orleans Food Cooperative. This is what Food Co-op 500 recommends.

Our board will research this further before the next board meeting and will then make a final decision.

Discussion of the St. Roch Market:

The board discussed strategies for talking with those who are involved with making decisions about the future of the St. Roch Market. We are very interested in exploring the possibility of opening in the St. Roch Market and are on a timeline and want to be proactive and not wait for future community meetings.

Amanda Zug-Moore will try and contact Cynthia Sylvain-Lear who is one of the Mayor’s assistants.

Christopher Brown will try to contact Daphne Cola who works for ORDA.

John Calhoun will contact Ken Ferdinand who is the president of the French Market Corporation.

We discussed our Website and the RFP for a Web Designer.

Erin Laine informed us that it is easy to train people to make changes on our website the way it is. Two of our members gave feedback that the website is good enough as is and don’t favor further expenditure. Erin Laine will set up a meeting open to NOFC members to educate us on our website and discuss together what changes we want. This will help us gauge if we really need to hire someone to update our site. We will continue to receive proposals for a web designer as this doesn’t commit us to hiring someone.

The Board finalized the board retreat. The retreat will be held on Dec. 6 and 7, two hours on Saturday and 7 hours on Sunday. We are still looking for a space to hold the meeting.

Holly Grove Market:

Our board agrees that this looks like a good fit for our buying club. We support Puma discussing with Paul Baricos about the buying club moving its distribution location.

There was a motion to explore the Holly Grove Market as a location for our Buying Club. The motion passed.

Sarrah will look into the sales tax issue with our Buying Club.

John will contact Puma about finding help with the Buying Club so that it can grow.

Many people are joining the NOFC to use the Buying Club and our board wants to make it easier for new members to use the buying club. She realizes that a growing buying club necessitates more volunteer energy and organization and the board wants to help with this.

The board approved minutes from the 11/3/08 board meeting.

A motion to table the issue of the board e-mail list until the next board meeting.

The board will meet again at the Dec. 6-7 retreat.

John Calhoun
Vice-Secretary
NOFC

Hello Co-op friends!! This is your weekly Co-op news. This week
we gained one new founding member bringing our current total to 442.

Our Site Search Committee continues to search for a site for
our first storefront. We have investigated sites on Canal St., Broad
at Esplanade, Decatur St., St. Claude, and the St. Roch Market. We
were prepared to attend a meeting scheduled for tonight discussing
the future of the St. Roch market. Our board and site search
committee feel that this site could be a good fit for our co-op and
wants to explore this possibility with the city. That meeting has
been canceled and will be rescheduled before the end of the year. If
you would like to be on our Site Search Committee please send an e-
mail to (Site Search) sitesearch (at) nolafoodcoop (dot) org.

Our fundraising committee has recently applied for two
substantial grants. We have applied to the Mayor’s Office of Recovery
and Development Administration for the 2008 Economic Development Fund
Grant. In this grant application the NOFC has requested $174,000. We
have also applied to the State Legislature of Louisiana for their
2009 Capital Outlay. In this application we requested over $440,000.
Our Fundraising Committee is seeking people to help search for grants
and funding sources and compose and edit grant applications. If you
are interested in being involved with this committee please send an e-
mail to (Sarrah) sarrah (at) nolafoodcoop (dot) org.

Our next Action team meeting will be held Monday, November 24
from 7-9 p.m. at 623 North Rendon. The Action Team is the steering
committee of the NOFC. The mission of the Action team is to do all
the necessary work of opening a storefront and making recommendations
to the Board of Directors. These meetings are open to the public and
a great entry point for those wishing to get more involved in our co-op.

I would like to thank those who attended Monday potluck dinner.
We shared a delicious meal and met a few people who are new to our co-
op. Our potluck dinners continue to be a good way for members of our
co-op to get to know each other better and exchange ideas. We will
continue to host these potlucks monthly, and I’ll let you know soon
where our December potluck will be held.

Have a great week!!

John Calhoun
New Orleans Food Co-op

NOFC Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, November 3, 2008

Present: Amanda Z., John C., Chris B., Victoria B., Sarah S., Michael S., Mimi D.

A. Board began meeting with informal discussion regarding the Good Earth Farm situation. Once late members arrived meeting began.

B. Board heard Victoria’s reasons for requesting a sabbatical from participation with all NOFC activities and email lists. She read a statement by Kirsten who is resigning from the Board.
a. Suggested the Board:
i. Adopt an official Grievance Procedure
ii. Tap the current talent in the coop, rather than focus on getting new members.
iii. Work out the salient transparency and communications issues.
iv. Figure out when to remove old Board Members from the Board email list, and make it an institutionalized process.
v. Finish the very important EDF Grant Application (DUE NOV 18!) and have a debriefing about the grant-writing process.

C. New positions
a. Michael elected as the new Board Secretary
b. John elected as the new Board Vice-Secretary

D. Board Retreat Discussion
a. Board retreat will be held December 6 and 7: Two hours on December 6 in the evening and 7 hours on December 7.
b. Need to find a location for the Board Retreat.
c. Can house facilitator at Sarah’s or Michael’s house, depending on location of retreat.

E. Returned to Discussion of Good Earth Farm issue. Main issues are total lack of communication and distribution of the insurance payment on lost crop.
a. Chris volunteered to make contact with Budd to meet with Tim the farmer.
b. Would be good to work out issue between all concerned parties without litigation.

F. Return of Member Investment
a. One member who is only partially paid requested a refund.
b. Board previously voted not to give refunds to paid members.
c. Board voted unanimously to refund the woman’s money on the grounds that she is not a fully paid member.

G. EDF Grant is due November 18. Needs final revision.

H. Hiring a part-time NOFC Coordinator and website manager
a. Coordinator
i. Amanda Z. will write a job description for the part-time coordinator position.
ii. Coop members should be given preference
b. Web manager
i. Chris B. will write a bid for the job.
ii. Job includes remaking the website as well as managing it.

I. National Cooperatives Association’s meeting in New Orleans
a. Last week of January, 2009.
b. They request our involvement however we can help.
c. Jonathan Russo of the Everman Coop in Pensacola is the organizer.
d. Board expresses interest in being as involved as possible with the event.

J. Incorporation Issue
a. NOFC lawyer Peter Korber suggested we request an opinion about our incorporation status with the Attorney General of Louisiana, in order to pre-empt a problem.
b. If there is an issue, legislation may need to be prepared.

K. Potential Agenda items for next meeting
a. Incorporation Status Issue
b. Good Earth Farms Issue
c. Communications / Transparency Issue
d. Board Retreat
e. Nat’l Coop Association event

L. Next meeting to be held Thursday Nov. 20, 6-8pm at LHA in Midcity.

New Orleans Food Cooperative
Board of Directors Meeting
October 20, 2008

Attending: Amanda Zug-Moore, John Calhoun, Christopher Brown, Kirsten Schlewitz, Victoria Baker, Sarrah Schoenewald, Michael Smith, Gabriel Soria, Mimi DiMassa

Election of Officers
Election of officers was conducted in such a way that each person was able to voice their preferred position and let us know why their talents fit with that role. It was noted that the bylaws require a treasurer, secretary, president, and chair (although it can be voted to suspend the chair and have the president assume duties). After a motion by Amanda Zug-Moore that was seconded by Christopher Brown, the following officers were adopted by a consensus of the board:
Chair: Amanda Zug-Moore
President: John Calhoun
Vice-President: Christopher Brown
Secretary: Kirsten Schlewitz
Assistant Secretary: Victoria Baker
Treasurer: Sarrah Schoenewald
Liason to the Action Team: Michael Smith

Meeting time and place
NOFC Board Meetings will be held on Mondays at the LHC from 6:00-7:30pm, with a 15 minute participant feedback session at the conclusion. The meetings will be held at least monthly, but sometimes bi-monthly, on Mondays on which the Action Team does not meet. Motion by Amanda Zug-Moore, seconded by John Calhoun, motion passed by consensus.

Board Training and Retreat
The 2008-2009 Board of Directors would like to invite Mark Goehring, from CDS Consulting, to help train the BoD on strategic concepts, legal duties, government/accountability, and more. The cost would be $1600 with the 20% CDS discount, as well as the price of travel and lodging. The dates proposed are December 6th-7th, with a late Saturday/all day Sunday training. Motion to invite Mr Goehring for this training made by Kirsten Schlewitz, seconded by Sarrah Schoenewald, approved by consensus.

Committee/Board of Directors Communication Discussion (To Be Continued)
We began and will continue a discussion on transparency and the various email lists associated with the co-op, including the BoD list and the committee lists. There are two main points: Should every member have access to the BoD email list; should any member be allowed to receive emails from a committee listserve? What we must remember are the three points of confidentiality that the board must keep: Business competition, real estate issues, and personnel issues. A tentative proposal regarding committee listserves is that the use of the email lists would be established in the committee charter.

Next meeting: November 3rd, 6PM, LHC

Hello Co-op friends!! It’s that time again for your weekly co-op news. This week we gained two new founding members bringing our total to 441.

Our monthly potluck dinners are back!! On Monday, November 17 at 6:30 p.m. at 623 North Rendon we are hosting our monthly potluck dinner. As always this dinner is open to anyone and everyone. This is a great opportunity to share a meal with other co-op members working to open a co-op grocery store in New Orleans. Our potlucks are also a great time to find out more about the co-op and how you can get involved. We can use some help distributing flyers. If you can help with this please send an e-mail to john@nolafoodcoop.org. Also, there is a flyer document attached to this e-mail.

Get involved!! There are many ways to help your co-op. We need people to help with our fundraising committee. This includes researching funding opportunities, writing grants, and editing grant applications. We also need people for our communications committee. We can use help with media contacts and our printed material such as brochures and flyers. If you can help with either of these committees send an e-mail to info@nolafoodcoop.org.

Our Site Search committee is continuing to search for a site for our co-op. If you know of any information in regard to a possible store location or would like to be on our site search committee, please send an e-mail to sitesearch@nolafoodcoop.org.

I hope to see you at the potluck.

John Calhoun
New Orleans Food Co-op