Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market (FCCM)
Board Meeting Minutes
September 26, 2009, 5:00 p.m.

1.    Meeting Called to Order@.  Present:  Rob Leach, Morgan Macchione, Sharon Alden, Mary Christensen, Rich Seifert, Mike Emers, Cora Kelley, Helen McLean, Hans Geier by phone.   Quorum:  Yes

2.    Minutes from the Annual Meeting were read. and APPROVED.

3.    Interim Treasurer, Sharon Alden reported: $30,177 in Savings Account, $7,549 in Checking Account, $2,190 in New Memberships, not yet deposited. Rich Seifert asked if we could accept donations tax exempt.  Rob indicated yes, if accepted as a gift.???
4.    Assignments for Board seats were conducted according to FCCM Bylaws.
Board Seats “A” through “E” expires 2011
Board Seats “F” through “I” expires 2010
Assignments are as follows:
Seat A: Helen McLean
Seat B: Mary Christensen
Seat C: Rob Leach
Seat D: Rich Seifert
Seat E: Sharon Alden
Seat F: Hans Geier
Seat G: Morgan Macchione
Seat H: Mike Emers
Seat I:  Cora Kelley

5.    Committee Reports:
Communications / Outreach – Chair: Mary Christensen reported on: a.    Pancake Breakfast being held Sunday, October 4, 2009,
11 – 2 p.m. at the Ken Kunkel Community Center on Goldstream Road. Tickets are $10 for adults, $7 children under 12 years of age, and Free to children under 5 years of age. The purpose of this breakfast series is to exchange information and ideas, as well as raise funds. There will be a powerpoint presentation and a chance to visit with board members.

b.    Rob Leach will be making a presentation to the Fairbanks Soil and Water Conservation District’s board meeting, on Tuesday, September 29th at 5:00 p.m.

c.     Triple Pack Marketing Blitz to include Radio, TV and paper print advertising.  Sue Sprinkle is updating the brochure and FCCM flyer (hand bill). An emphasis was made on how important it is to get these completed.

d.    Dessert Auction: November 21st at Morris Thompson Cultural Center.

e.    The Vista Worker interview will be held Monday, September 27, 2009 at noon, 3rd Floor of Borough building.  Mary discussed that the worker will have only one supervisor and will be required to go to training.  Morgan expressed her interest in taking the training. Mary said she would like to be the supervisor, because she has specific tasks in mind for the worker. Rich Seifert stated he is a trained Vista Supervisor and that he can assist in the interim until such time someone gets the required training, and that he will be a “hovering presence” leading and assisting in the meantime.

Local Producers / Vendor Selection – Chair:  VACANT – No report
We need to recruit a Chair and volunteers to be a part of this committee.  Discussion ensued regarding the need to provide detailed committee descriptions. Mary stated they are on our website.

Store Design – Chair:  Rob Leach reported that he spoke to a gentleman named Jim with Arctic Refrigeration that will help us figure out whether we want to work with what is available for refrigeration or if we will need to buy new / new to us refrigeration.  We need to answer the question – How much refrigeration do we need? Producers / Vendor Selection Committee will be a responsible for figuring this out.

Rob also let us know that he has the building drawings on AutoCAD, and we need to ask the question?  What do we want the store to look like and what departments we want it to include –i.e. Coffee Shop, Deli, ect.

Business Plan – Chair:  Rob Leach reported that he is working on getting some help with it.

Operations – Chair: Mary Christensen reported that the committee will be meeting October 1st and will report on the committee work at the next meeting.
Finance – Chairs: Hans Geier reported that Rich Seifert is going Co-Chair the Finance Committee with him.  Rich Seifert reported that a gentleman name Sam Skaggs, a financial advisor in Juneau called him to discuss the possibility of one of his clients, a “slow money” investor who may be interested in investing in FCCM.  Slow Money investors are dedicated to investing in small food enterprises and local food systems; connecting investors to their local economies; and, building the nurture capital industry. Sam referred Rich to the book by the same name.  Rich indicated that we need to have a strong Business Plan in place before we present our cooperative grocery store to him. Rich will be going to Juneau and will visit with his friend Sam and get more information to pass on to us.
Rich indicated that any loan or investment that is made will expect it to be secured.  Discussion ensued regarding buying verses leasing a building.  Mike said it seems FCCM is set on the Foodland building and mentioned with the amount of money it will take to rehab the Foodland building we could potentially buy and / or build to suit our needs. Rich also spoke to credibility. We need to continue to build our credibility.
An architect needs to be employed to put together a rendering and start the process of asking the questions that will provide the them with the information needed to put together a conceptual design, based on our overall plan and objectives.
Health & Fitness – No Chair – No report.
6.    Unfinished Business:  No Old Business
7.    New Business
a.    Selection of Director Positions were made and APPROVED as follows:
Chair:        Rob Leach
Vice Chair:    Hans Geier
Secretary:    Mary Christensen
Treasurer:    Morgan Macchione

Board Members at Large are Helen McLean, Cora Kelley, Mike Emers, Rich Seifert.

b.    Assign Check Signors:  Based on the election of new Officers, the signors will change from Sharon A. to Morgan M., from Lela to Mary M.  Check signors will be – Rob L., Morgan M. & Mary C.   Sharon A. will handle the details.
c.    Adopt Payment Plan: A discussion to adopt a payment plan for membership fees took place from $50 quarterly payments in for one (1) to $25 quarterly payments for 2 years. The Board chose the later with a condition that at the time of official store opening, members participating in the payment plan must be current on their quarterly payments or their membership benefits will be suspended. . .
8.    Decision Making Process for the Board:  Mike spoke on how Calypso handles their “Consensus Policy for Decision Making”. When they vote, they determine the strength of a decision by the number of fingers the Board members holds up.  The number one (1) means strong support, number three (3) describes that the board member could go either way (undecided) number five (5) means no support.  It was decided to put this off until a future meeting. A proposal or proposals will be presented for the Board to vote on.
9.    Consultant for Store Design:  Rob has experience doing this type of work and has said he will prepare something.  Mary believes we need something prepared by a professional and that we need to get it started. Discussion ensued regarding the process.  Hans spoke about developing a scope of need to give to potential and interested architects.
10.    Review Committee Budgets – this will be moved to the Agenda for the next Board meeting.
11.    Appoint Executive Committee – will be moved to the Agenda for next meeting
12.    Set date for next Annual Meeting. No date set.
13.    Recommend minutes from 1st Annual Membership Meeting for presentation and adoption at 2010 Annual Meeting.
14.    $200 was approved for office expenses.
15.    $700 was approved for repairs for an existing computer, printer / scanner.
16.    Mary decided to arrange a meeting with Mary Kopf with Sunshine foods to discuss…

Meeting Adjourned at 8:37 p.m.

These are the (as yet) unapproved mintues for the board meeting held Thursday, August 27.

Present were Rob Leach, Helen McLean, Hans Geier, Lela Ryterski, Rand Petersen, Morgan Macchione, Sharon Alden, and Mary Christensen.

The previous meeting’s minutes were read and accepted.

TREASURER’S REPORT: We now have $14,844.10 in savings and $3,549.32 in checking. Advertising expenses were $2,250 and supplies were $1,594.86.

We need to get an accountant soon. Tax returns are due this year. We have to file a biennial report every two years. We filed in 2007 so a report is due in 2009. Maya Bachner is volunteering to do bookkeeping.

PRODUCTS COMMITTEE: Sue Cave had to back out due to work. We’ll miss her. She did a lot the short time she was here. We’re looking for someone to take her place and connect with the ranchers.

Rob mentioned that CSAs know what grows well in Fairbanks. Consumers need to adopt to those foods. We can get that information out. Morgan brought up watching the movie, Food, Inc.

COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE: Facebook has an announcement for the Annual Meeting; also in the e-newsletter. We need volunteers at 8:00 a.m. At Pioneer Park. Cora to rehearse power point presentation. Shaun’s friend made a quilt for our fund raising. We can display it here and auction it off at the dessert auction in November.

OPERATIONS COMMITTEE: Waiting until after the Harvest Fair to meet.

FINANCE COMMITTEE: Hans, Rich, and Bridget Schwafel met. We’re on board with the North Country Cooperative Development Fund in North Dakota. They brainstormed people to contact.

STORE DESIGN: Rob had the square footage figured out. Lela had ideas for the rest of the Foodland building she would draw out on foam board for the Annual Meeting/Harvest Fair.

HARVEST FAIR: We planned the details of which plates and cups to buy. Sue Sprinkle will make cloth napkins we can reuse. Plastic plates and utensils can be reused. Rob will get ice and put up the booth that we had at the Fair.

Dave Guttenberg will present an honorarium for Dave. We’ll ask his son, Vaughan, to receive it.

OLD BUSINESS: BYLAWS: We went over all the changes the lawyer suggested and edited the previous draft. The changes were made and copies will be available at the First Annual Meeting. We’ll make a motion to substitute the edited Bylaws.

Hans made a motion to adjourn. It was seconded. We were all in favor. Meeting adjourned at 10:00pm.