Duck Soup Coop
Board Minutes ~ December 2, 2004
Present: Peggy James, John Naples, James Neale, Cynthia Nelson, Tania Nezrick, Ruth Peterson, Mary Helen Polensky, Kathy Stelford.
The meeting was called to order by President Stelford at 5:30 p.m.
Nelson moved and Nezrick seconded the motion to approve the minutes. Motion passed. Reflecting a suggestion made by James, Polensky moved and Peterson seconded a motion to post the approved board minutes on the website. Polensky and Peterson agreed that the motion should also include the provision that the tentative GMM minutes be posted with the typographical mistake (“reset” instead of “resent”) corrected. The motion passed.
Naples noted that on the Board list, Cynthia Nelson should be Class of ’05, not ’06.
Nelson requested an addition to the agenda to discuss meeting time.
James has a tally of slogans from the GMM responses and will distribute them to all board members soon.
Assistant Manager Stravers is putting out a goodly number of new things for the holidays. On December 11 and 12, DSC will have a table at the UU Fair Trade Market sale. James asked for volunteers to staff the display.
James acknowledged the lovely DSC display at the library and thanked Nezrick for her work.
November sales were excellent again.
Nelson suggested that we continue the 5:30 p.m. meeting time. Nezrick said that she might have a problem if her doctoral classes fall on the night we are meeting. She will not know until next year.
For now the following are our coming meeting dates.
January 6 at 5:30 p.m. in the boardroom
February 10 at 5:30 p.m. in the boardroom
These are subject to change if necessary.
Discussion ensued about the possibility of making board decisions between meetings other than by a face-to-face meeting. Further discussion about the way closed session meetings of the board followed.
After several minutes of discussion, Peggy volunteered to pose the question to the Cooperative Grocers Information Network. There was consensus that the issue should be investigated, a possible solution or solutions identified and then cleared for legal details before being brought to the board. Since no real action can be taken before the next annual GMM meeting, Cynthia, Peggy and Kathy volunteered to look at options and bring them back to the board sometime in the future.
Naples shared the issue of declining membership. He thought that perhaps the raising of membership fees might have affected membership renewals. James suggested that a point of sale system would help to track this kind of information more accurately.
The question “Do we need to work hard for more members?” arose. Naples suggested that they are important for the coop idea. It was suggested that this topic is something that should be dealt with at a long-range planning session. Stelford noted that while coop action tends to be very slow, people in today’s environment are not used to slow action and do not respond well to it.
James commented that people coming in lately are younger and are mostly weekly workers. They seem to want to be cooperative rather than working just for discounts. She identified membership as having quality rather than quantity.
Nelson added that she is not excited about a membership drive. James suggested that the letters for the annual renewal of membership going to every equity holder constitutes “a kind of membership drive.” Naples suggested that the displays and booths are various functions also serve such a purpose.
James offered that the best way to solicit members is by personal invitation and it always has worked that way. Business is building and those who come in are the most logical new members. They are invited to join.
Responding to the question of ready-to-eat offerings, James suggested that with the demise of the House, she is more interested in pursuing “grab and go” items. These might be supplied from vendors as consignment items. Naples asked about cooler space and James assured all that changes could easily be made so that space would be available quickly.
The meeting was declared in executive session and after a short discussion adjourned at 6:50 p.m.
Ruth Peterson, Secretary (Executive session minutes may be found in a different document.)