The New Orleans Food Co-op cordially invites member/owners and the public to its first grocery store Design Charette/Workshop, to be held Wednesday, December 16, at the New Orleans Healing Center (2372 St. Claude Avenue - old Universal Furniture Store, corner of St. Claude and St. Roch).

Community potluck dinner will be held at 6pm.

Design Charette to begin at 7pm.

Please join the NOFC and veteran co-op store designer P.J. Hoffman from United Natural Foods, Inc. Store Development Services to participate in a discussion about the design of our flagship grocery store, scheduled for grand opening in October 2010. We look forward to hearing what you think is importnt in your new grocery store!

NOFC Board of Directors Minutes June 16, 2009

In attendance: John Calhoun, Michael Smith, Victoria Baker, Scott Galante, Amy Lesen. Meeting held in New Orleans, LA 70119. Meeting called to order at 6:40pm.

1. Official Board Minutes: The board amended the previous meetings minutes. John C. moved to adopt minutes as amended. The board approved the minutes unanimously.

2. Selecting a new Treasurer. John C. read the bylaws section about the Treasurer, (Bylaws Article 3, Section 6). The Treasurer does not have to be a board member. The Treasurer will be in charge of financials, that all accounts payable and receivable are reconciled.

The board discussed potential members of the community to tap for a new treasurer.  The board could send an email to the whole membership requesting qualified members who are interested in becoming a treasurer to contact the board. This email notification could include a call for members interested in sitting on the board to also step forward.

John will update the member list and Victoria will create the email and send it.

3. Letter of Intent with the Healing Center. The NOFC board entered into

     executive session to discuss the Letter of Intent with the Healing Center.

4. Member Loan money. The NOFC is guaranteeing the members who are making loans that the loan money will not be spent until all the financing is in place. Some members, preparing to make loans, have asked about the time period that the co-op will allow until the NOFC returns the loan money.

The board needs to create a mechanism for keeping the loan money separate from the coop’s general funds. An Escrow account could be created to keep the money separate until all the financing is in place. This Escrow account could be made to bear interest.

The board should talk to an escrow attorney to gain advice about how to escrow the loans. The board should also talk to HOPE credit union about creating an escrow account with HOPE.

This type of mechanism will gain the NOFC credibility, allows a safeguard for the loan money, and create certainty in the process and time frame for the member loans.

5. Planning a board retreat. Scott G. offered his house as a place for a day long

board retreat. Sunday June 28 was floated as a date. The board would create a structure for the retreat before hand.

6. Alternative Business Plan. This could have more personal language, and use first person. The document would be available on the website, and could be given out to anyone who was interested. This document would not include proprietary information, such as information from the market study. The sources and uses budget would be included, but the 10 year financial projection would be left out. The business description already being distributed could be based on and potentially be replaced by this document. The new document will be referred to as the Executive Summary of the Business Plan.

The Project Assistant’s role with the co-op. The board entered into executive session to discuss the Project Assistant’s job description.

7.   Co-op liaison. Victoria is acting as the NOFC liaison with the Healing Center.

8. Board email list. The board email list should be open only to board members.

Meeting adjourned at 8:20pm. The next meeting of the Board will be at the Board Retreat, tentatively scheduled for 10am June 28, 2009.

Elections of the NOFC Board of Directors

The most important aspect of the annual member meeting is the election of the board of directors. The board is the governance body of the co-op. This next board will be negotiating with developers and working with consultants leading to the opening of our retail store. Our by-laws provide the rules for this election. According to these by-laws, if you can not attend this annual meeting, you can send your proxy to me, as secretary of the NOFC, via e-mail.

We are electing up to 9 board members to serve until the 2009 annual member meeting. We currently have three candidates for the board and I am presenting them now, in the order I received them, for your consideration. Again, you can vote for them now, by sending me an e-mail or via secret ballot at the annual member meeting in two days.

NOFC Board of Directors Candidates:
http://nolafoodcoop.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/candidates.pdf

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Annual Member Meeting and Potluck

Please come to the New Orleans Food Community, Inc. annual member
meeting Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 7 p.m. in the Holy Angels
cafeteria at 3500 St. Claude, at Gallier.

6:30 p.m. - potluck dinner, bring a dish if you can, meet you fellow member-owners
7:00 p.m. - meeting begins, introductions, state of the co-op, discussion
8:00 p.m. - election of new board of directors to serve this next year

Following the election will be more discussion and members may propose by-law changes or other matters if they desire. We will adjourn by 9:00 p.m. or sooner.

The Future of Your Store is at Stake!

A cooperative is a member owned and member run business. The New Orleans Food Co-op needs you. We are in urgent need of candidates for our board of directors. While several of our board members hope to be re-elected for another year, we also welcome and need more board members. This coming year is pivotal to the opening of a store. Please consider
stepping forward and offering some of your time and ideas.

If you can serve the NOFC on our board of directors, please email me no later than Monday Oct. 13, 9:00 a.m., mailto:erin@nolafoodcoop.org. Please include a statement of why you would like to serve. I will gather all the candidate statements and send these out to the membership, and also bring to the meeting, to help members decide who to vote for.

I look forward to seeing you on October 15 as we come together as a co-op and come closer to our dream of opening a cooperative grocery store in New Orleans.

Sincerely,

Erin Laine
Secretary, New Orleans Food Community
erin@nolafoodcoop.org
504-314-1301

When the New Orleans Food Cooperative first began meeting to talk about and develop plans for growing cooperative grocery in New Orleans a couple of years ago, we split our efforts into several committees to investigate different aspects of the problem. One of those, the Supply Committee, met regularly to learn more about how groceries end up on the store shelves. We wanted to know more about production, transportation and availability.

We discussed local and/or organic food availabilty, the inelegant homogenization of the grocery industry, the environmental impact of national and international distribution, the loss of family-owned farming operations, the environmental and economic un-sustainability of corporate farming, labor practices that rely on underpaid and uninsured laborers, the impact on the local economy of grocery suppliers that are owned and controlled from outside the area and the insecurity of centralizing food production in the hands of a few national distributors.

When one considers grocery stores, it is apparent that we are all involved in the selection of the products available to us and the practices by which they are made available. Without consumer demand, the food industry will neither take steps to create a unique local identity in any grocery store, minimize the environmental impacts of long-haul transportation and wasteful packaging, nor invest in sustainable farming operations that do not pollute the environment. Without a concerted demand from consumers, unfair labor practices will persist and industrial farming will continue to chip away at the disappearing heritage of small family-owned farms. The only proven way for consumers to affect change is via demand by supporting organizations, suppliers and products that reflect these issues. This is evident today in the increasing number of organic products appearing on grocery store shelves as a result of consumer demand. Consumers are demanding them, and food producers are responding. Consumers expressed their reluctance to buy genetically modified potatoes, and the fast-food industry virtually eliminated the use of GMO potatoes in this country and Europe by refusing to use them in their fries. However, supporting organic products does not even begin to address all of the inequities and potential disasters befalling our national food production.

In time we became overwhelmed. When we learned of the details of many of these issues, we realized that the chances of just a few of us of effecting change were slim. To top it off, we didn’t even have a platform from which to address these issues credibly. This fact, combined with advice from a few local progressives interested in supporting the growth of local cooperatives, led us to begin operation of a Buying Club.

We now have flyers for download to promote the Art For Co-op Sake event, many thanks to Amanda for the quick work. There are two versions here available for download and distribution. The one-sheet version is suitable for posting around public areas. The four-sheet version is meant to be printed and cut into quarters and then it is perfect for handing out at events. Pictures of each are shown here, you can right-click and choose “Save as…” on the links below each picture to download PDF versions of each that are ready to print.

Here is what the one-sheet version looks like :

Download printable version of Art Auction Flyer 1-sheet (pdf)

Here is what the four-sheet version looks like :

Download printable version of Art Auction Flyer 4-sheet (pdf)

Questions or remarks? Simply use the comments field below…