Spiral Natural Foods
Board of Directors Meeting
January 9, 2017
Page 1
Attendance: Stacey Clark, Lynn Gannon, Matt Malecha, Alex Mohrbacher, Betty Schiefelbein, Ed Schiefelbein, Sue Taylor, and Dave Wasylik.
Absent: Carol Morgan
The meeting was called to order at 6:30 p.m. Additions to the agenda included: update on backing up the Wiki, update on consulting services, the “bike rack”, and Demo Day. Lynnmoved and Ed seconded a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion carried.
C Policy: The board reviewed the changes to C6 – Officer’s Roles and C7 – Board Committee Principles as proposed by Stacey. Prior to the meeting, Lynn provided Stacey with a suggested modification to Stacey’s changes. After review and discussion, Lynn moved and Ed seconded a motion to accept the changes to C6 and C7 as proposed by Stacey and modified by Lynn. The C policy changes were approved. Stacey will finalize the changes, properly annotate the dates of the modifications, upload the revisions to the Policy Monitoring folder on the Wiki, and move the old C Policy document to the Archive folder.
Consultant Time and Retreat planning: Sue and Matt met by phone with CDS consultant Leslie Watson. The board had four hours remaining of consulting time from 2016 that can be used in 2017. For 2017, Leslie suggested that purchasing consulting services on an “a-la-carte” basis would be the most affordable solution for the board to acquire services from CDS. The board discussed some dates when everyone could meet for a four hour retreat in January or February. Sue will contact Leslie to see if any of the proposed retreat dates work with her schedule.
Ralph K. Morris Foundation Grant: Stacey reminded the board that board members can apply for a grant to attend training or industry conferences, such as the CCMA conference which will be in Minneapolis June 8-10, 2017 (see ccma2017.com). Stacey will disseminate grant application information to the board via email.
Bike Rack: Lynn and Betty were unable to locate a “bike rack” listing on the Wiki. The listing consisted of items the board identified during previous board meetings as needing follow-up, development, or further discussion. Betty checked with former board secretary, who told Betty that she maintained the bike rack list on her personal computer, not the Wiki;Brandis no longer has any of her files related to previous Spiral board meetings.
Lynn has begun going through 2015 and 2016 board meeting minutes to re-create a bike rack list. Anyone who remembers items that were on the list should give them to Lynn.
Lynn noted that minutes from 2015 documented a suggestion that Spiral board members attend the Minnesota Food Cooperative Boards meetings. The board agreed it would be good to get re-involved with the MN Food Cooperative Boards. Lynn volunteered to find out when MFCB meets.
Lynn also noted that 2015 minutes documented a suggestion that the co-op conduct a survey of its membership. Matt said he has a survey ready to go and estimated that it would cost approximately $560 to distribute the survey and conduct a very basic analysis of the results. The board agreed that Matt should prepare to do a survey. Matt will provide a draft of the survey he would like to use and propose a strategy for distribution and analysis at the next board meeting.
Store Update:As was communicated by Matt to the board via email, Matt advised that Spiral now has a new landlord; the building was sold. The new owner has contracted with a new trash disposal service that costs approximately half as much as the coop was paying. It remains to be determined whether total overhead expenses will drop because the new costs for other expense items, such as insurance, have not yet been communicated from the landlord.
Matt said that the Director’s and Officer’s insurance policy for 2017 just arrived in the mail. Sue will go by the store to sign it.
On February 4, 2017, there will be a Super Bowl Demo Day in the store. Board members should plan on attending.
The preliminary financial information from October through December 2016 indicate that the store will have a small net loss. Compared with the same period last year, when the store lost approximately $17,000, the store is doing well.
Sara Bremer, host of the show Aprons Optional, Hastings Community TV, visited the coop, interviewed Matt, and toured the store on January 6th. The show can be viewed on YouTube at
On New Year’s Day, when the store was closed for the holiday, a valve on the roof-top condenser started leaking. By the time it was discovered, the walk-in cooler was 70 degrees and the produce inside the cooler spoiled. Matt decided not to submit an insurance claim for the lost produce because the cost was only $300 more than the $1,000 deductible. Matt did not want to risk incurring a premium increase, which would be considerably more expensive in the long term.
Matt explained that he had been discussing with his staff about changing from a tri-annual newsletter to bi-monthly or monthly, with distribution to be done primarily by email, web site, and in-store availability. Matt will prepare a proposal for the next board meeting about the ideas for the newsletter.
Lynn moved and Ed seconded a motion to go into closed session at 7:55 p.m. Motion was approved. Lynn moved and Ed seconded a motion to come out of closed session at 8:10 p.m. Motion was approved.
Cooperative Board Leadership (CBL) 101: Lynn and David attended CBL 101 on January 7th. Summer (co-op staff) also attended. Lynn and David provided information about what they learned and who they met. The discussion resulted in the realization that no one has been checking Spiral’s board email account. Stacey said she would distribute information to all board members on how to log in to check the email account. David volunteered to check the email in-box regularly.
Lynn asked about receiving the Cooperative Grocer magazine and Matt said he would update the co-op’s membership account with Cooperative Grocer and add any board members interested in receiving a copy of the magazine to the account.
Suemoved to adjourn the meeting and Ed seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned at 8:51 p.m.
The next meeting will be held on February 16, 2017 at 6:00 pm at Ed and Betty’s house.