Phoenix Earth Food Co-op (PEFC)
Minutes, Board Meeting 04/23/2014

Location: Main branch of Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, 325 Michigan St., Toledo, OH 43604; Present: Shelly Boraby, Thomas Fine, Sándor Halász, Alyx Kendzierski, Anita Levin, Nichole Nauden, Sean Nestor, Hermann von Grafenstein, Lisa Blake (General Manager, GM). Will Mellon arrived later. Resolutions are numbered R1–R4.

The meeting began at 5:40 pm.

1. Approval of the minutes
   

   The minutes of the 3/26/2014 board meeting were approved (R1, 8/0/0 for/against/abstention) with modifications.

   Will Mellon arrived at the meeting at 5:49 pm.

2. Manager’s report (Lisa Blake)
   
   • Lisa presented the General Manager’s report together with the March (compared with Feb) and the Year-to-Date (January-March) Profit and Loss (P&L) Statements as well as the payment-card transaction statement reported to the NCGA for the January period. The negative bottom-line in the March P&L statement was in part due to outstanding payments from previous time periods.
   • Lisa reported on various outreach activity she and staff were planning to attend, including a University Church meeting(4/24, Sean and Sasha) and setting up a table at the North-West Ohio Food Council table at the Seagate Center (4/25). Lisa was also planning on staffing at the Toledo Zoo Earth Day Celebration event (4/26/2014). The Co-op would be paid to provide food at the University Church event.
3. Report of the Finance Committee (Tom Fine)
   
   • Tom presented a budget that Lisa had previously submittedto the Finance Committee.
   • Tom presented a written report of the Finance Committee meeting held on 4/15/2014.
   • Hermann displayed a modified version of Lisa’s Jan-to-March Profit-and-Loss sheet that expressed expenses, sorted by magnitude, as a percentage of Gross Profit (GP). Payroll expenses were the largest item (68.8% of GP), but discount (sales) expenses and electric expenses were also large items (6.9% and 4.7% of GP). This listing should help find ways to get expenses under control.
   • Tom reported having had discussions with the Landlord to obtain rent abatement in exchange for doing building repairs. The landlord seemed unwilling to commit any funds without a lease contract.
4. Report of the Outreach Committee (Will Mellon)
   Will reported on a meeting of the Outreach Committee and recent activities of the Outreach Committee. Specifically, the following activities were discussed:
   1. Earth Day Celebration: Will reported that he had identified volunteers and to staff the Zoo’s Earth Day celebration table on Saturday April 26.Will, Alyx, Anita, if needed, and Nichole were willing to help. Lisa will represent Co-op staff.
   2. Growing Cities Movie: A date of May 8^th was discussed for screening.
   3. Old Westend Festival (Sat 6/8 & Sun 6/8): Preparations were in progress and will be the topic of an upcoming meeting of the Outreach Committee.
   4. National Alliance on Mental Illness: Tom Fine will facilitate participation in this event.
   5. Local foods week 8/8-8/18.
   • Will Mellon stated that he would look for ways to (1) increase the outreach base, i.e. the size of the Outreach Committee, (2) find ways to improve the shopping experience, (3) improve branding and marketing.
   • To finance outreach efforts, a suggestion was made to ask customers if they wanted to round up to the nearest dollar, with the difference going onto an outreach fund.
   • A brief discussion was held as to the content of any potential written reports of the Outreach Committee. Sean suggested that it would be helpful to have written reports. Hermann suggested that a regularly updated calendar of outreach events could be a key component of a written report. Alyx suggested posting that calendar on the website.
   • Will suggested that the Board attend a MudHen game to improve Board coherence.
   • He also suggested holding regular outreach-committee meetings after each meeting of the Board, but no final decision was made on the regular date of these meetings.
5. Alternative board communications.
   

   Will Mellon revisited his idea that all board members join Yammer.com, a new forum in social media format (https://www.yammer.com) for exchanging email and documents. He demonstrated the forum using Lisa’s PC but could not get it to work on Hermann’s Mac. Sean felt that most likely privacy settings are the reason for this failure. Will announced that he would send invitations to each board member to join Yammer and try it out. Hermann asked for privacy issues to be clarified before adopting the forum.

6. Executive session—GM evaluation
   

   The Board went into executive session for the evaluation of the General Manager. Members and staff were asked to leave.

   Background: Previously, Board members had filled out a score sheet designed to evaluate the GM’s performance and staff had been asked to complete a survey to evaluate the GM in regard to staff treatment.

   Executive meeting report (Sean Nestor): During a meeting of the executive committee held on 4/22, data compiled from the GM evaluation by both Board and a staff survey was discussed in preparation for the Board’s executive session. A draft summary evaluation of the GM had been prepared based on the results of both surveys.

   The language of the summary evaluation was revised at the current meeting of the Board.

   The following further decisions were made at the present meeting of the full Board:

   1. The General Manager will be asked to complete a self-evaluation using the same score sheet that had been used by members of the Board (R2, 9/0/0).
   2. The President or the Executive Committee will meet with the GM to present to her the summary scores —not the individual scores— of both the Board and staff surveys as well as the summary evaluation prepared during the 4/23 Board meeting (R3, 8/0/1).
7. Adjournment
   The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 pm (R4, 9/0/0)

Date of next meeting: May 28, 2014, if not decided otherwise.

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Submitted by Hermann von Grafenstein, Secretary