In attendance: Grant, Karen, Emily, Mike, Dan M., Tony, Anthony, Greg, Malcolm, Mark, Lance

Minutes taken by: Anthony

In attendance: Grant, Karen, Emily, Mike, Dan M., Tony, Anthony, Greg, Malcolm, Mark, Lance

Minutes taken by: Anthony

Grant started by cheerleading all of us – lots of activity this month, especially in the last week and a half, both inside and out. We’re all meeting regularly and making progress. On that topic, he reminded us that there is a ton of follow-up from these meetings, and we need to get that on Basecamp.

Grant also commented that the master timeline is not moving enough, and we need to keep it updated.  Grant suggested the creation of a subcommittee to update it, and Malcolm suggested we merge that with the group meeting this Saturday to discuss Jacqueline Hannah meeting follow-up.

 Tony suggested adding a link to the timeline to each monthly check-in.

 Greg presented the finance report. 

 Karen had a question about credit card fees, and it was noted that any credit card processing cost us money.

 Greg said an additional volunteer would be joining Meg to help with finance. 

 Karen asked if we picked a new accounting firm. Greg said no.

GLURP REPORT (Grant):

Grant asked for questions/concerns about the new purchasing values. GLRP workshopped them extensively within the committee. He understands these are a big-picture view, but GLRP decided it was not productive to do a more granular view at this stage.

Took in a lot of feedback from farmers and Owners, and one thing we learned was that these instantly cause more questions – that’s why the team decided to write short explanatory statements for each bullet point in the Purchasing Values, to be made visible by clicking on the website to read more. 

Board approved and adopted, unanimously.

NEW BOARD MEMBERS (Mike):

We need 2 new board members.  Unlike last time, with Lance, where we handled it internally based on suggestions from board members, he believes this is an opportunity to solicit people to apply for the position.  Thinks we should announce at the Owners meeting, and then through other media.  Open question as to whether we seek specific skills or just let people apply. Proposed we use the same questionnaire format we used for the first election.

Malcolm wants to clarify – this is to be appointed.  Mike offers to chair a committee to vet those people and recommend candidates to the board. 

Anthony pointed out the need to message this correctly, or it might look that we are losing board members in a negative light.

Karen pointed out the need for realistic expectations about time commitments, in order to make sure that new member would be able to contribute to our "working" (versus pure policy) Board.  Karen also wanted to make sure we consider diversity.  Anthony suggested we encourage diversity enthusiastically in the application.  Anthony also suggested that we open application advertising to the wider public (while reminding them they must become Owners before running).

Mark said they wouldn’t want to open applications until the Owners meeting.  He also asked how we could figure out the appropriate expertise areas. Tony suggested expertise was less important than enthusiasm.  We discussed how to message the skills without being exclusive.

Anthony agreed to work on the messaging, and Mike to work on the process.

Timeline discussion: Anthony 

Some edits to the timeline were discussed.  It was discussed extensively what the appropriate end date of the timeline was, and consensus was reached that it be January of 2017.  A suggestion from Mark to make Valentine’s Day 2017 the target was discussed, but tabled for now because of concerns that we shouldn’t pick a particular day until we are closer to the end of the process.

It was also noted that the website version of the timeline should be abbreviated, with this longer version available for anyone interested.

Draft timeline was unanimously approved.

Karen – Talking about Volunteers

Karen showed her new volunteering graph with metrics to track engagement.  We have 45 active volunteers, with 10 new ones in September.  Five stepped back this month from active roles.

Karen noted that some people have changed their mind about volunteering, and a couple of them gave reasons – these were usually lack of engagement from the Board or slowness of movement.

Some of this comes from lack of follow-up on the part of team leaders.  We also lost a volunteer recruiter. 

Because of this downturn, the volunteer numbers might not be ramping up, right at the time we need more folks involved to share the work and help recruit more Owners.  So, what do we do about this? She recommended our volunteer recruitment process move to more of a "self-serve model" using website postings. Team leaders need to post our needs directly to the web (sub site in development) and volunteers can be directed there and then connect directly with the relevant teams more quickly/effectively. 

Lance suggested that we try onboarding volunteers by inviting them to a once-a-month meeting. Do it right before the board meeting, and then people will feel involved.  Everyone was very enthusiastic about this approach.

Malcolm and Anthony agreed to make volunteer scheduling a priority in the Website 2.0 project.

Emily – Owner Meeting

Emily presented the program for the Owner meeting. She’s concerned about timing, because it’s very short, and we don’t want people to talk for too long anyway.  She went through the agenda, and emphasized the process of Q&A and how we’re going to handle that in a way that makes all Owners get a chance to ask us important questions.  Also discussed the importance of rehearsing our presentations in advance.

Grant brought up the question of how we make the day as connected to Owners as possible – slideshows, highlighting volunteers.  Everyone agreed this was important.

Karen and Emily discussed the order of the meeting.

There was a discussion of childrens' programming – it was decided that we would put resources for children in the room with the meeting to make it easier for parents to supervise, rather than having a separate children’s room.

Hiring Discussion

The board went into executive session to discuss the hiring of a funding consultant.

After a brief discussion, the hiring was approved unanimously.

Meeting was adjourned.