About 250 Honest Weight Food Coop members - weekly workers, monthly workers, Board members, and staff - gathered on Sunday, November 7 at St. Sophia's Church in Albany for the third annual "Member Thank You Dinner." Honest Weight's member coordinator, Nate Horwitz, and outreach coordinator Jessica Allen, were the overall organizers of the event; they drew on members to take responsibility for parts of the evening. Member Mary Kay DelGiacco coordinated all of the cooks; all of the food was prepared by Coop members. Peggy Steinbach directed the set-up of the hall, while Jessica was responsible for recruiting members to work that evening. Although this was a member acknowledgment dinner, it seemed that about half the members there to be thanked were also working for the dinner! This was a great reflection of the spirit of Honest Weight.

Mary Kay DelGiacco said this was her first time volunteering for the dinner. She volunteered because she enjoyed the food so much last year and wanted to get involved this year. She said that her task of coordinating the cooks wasn't that hard because she had a good base of cooks. She said that "the cooks' experience really came through." Saul Rigberg, attending the dinner for the third year in a row, attested to that, saying that "the food is always fantastic!" The happy faces of members as they filled their plates with the variety of vegetarian main dishes, breads and deserts also testified to the cooks' skills.

Members Paul Cronin and Michael Lamkin provided piano music during the evening, adding nicely to the sound of forks on plates and friends talking and laughing. There was a separate play room for children.

The dinner also served as the venue for the fourth membership meeting of 2004. Board president Lynne Lekakis interrupted the chatting and eating to make a few announcements, to further recognize members, and to open the floor for discussion. She first reminded members that according to the Bylaws, each adult member of a household should purchase a share. The work requirement for membership is based on the number of household members. Lynne asked everyone to think about if they had the right number of shares (and thus work hours) for the number of people in their households and, if not, to rectify the situation by purchasing additional shares. Shares can be purchased at the Service Desk in the Coop.

Lynne noted that the Board will be looking for new members in April and that the Nutrition committee is looking for additional members. Lynne encouraged members to consider running for a Board seat or serving on the Nutrition committee. The Board especially needs members with financial skills, while the Nutrition committee is looking for people with training in nutrition and health. Interested members should contact Lynne about the Board and Board member George Broeckx about the Nutrition committee.

Next, Lynne moved to the "thank you" part of the meeting. She asked everyone in attendance who had been a working member for more than one year to stand. (About half of those in attendance stood). She then asked those who had worked for over 5 years to remain standing (about half remained), then 10 years (again about half), then 15 (about 10 people remained), then 20 (about 5 people), then 25 (only 1 person, George Broeckx, remained standing). There were, however, more 25-year working members present. (Many were in the kitchen, working!) Lynne read their names and presented each with a token of appreciation (Spectrum Theater movie passes) from the Coop. The 25-year working members recognized were: Howard Brent, George Broeckx, Bob Fullem, Ellen Higgins, Marilyn Kaplan, Kathy Koch, Tim Maxwell, Jill Meehan, Harriet Seeley, Scott Spinner, Mark Yolles, and Pola Yolles. In conversations after the formal meeting, Board member Ginny McEwen acknowledged that the records for member labor are probably not complete and accurate, so that this list was the best that the Board could assemble. There was a round of applause for all these members.

The Board also had tokens of appreciation (again, Spectrum Theater passes!) for those members who had worked for 10, 15, and 20 years. She asked those in attendance to pick up their tokens at the T-shirt sales table. I am a 15+year member, and I was truly touched by this gesture.

The last item on the agenda was time for questions and general discussion. The questions focused on requests for updates on the strategic planning process, for the benefit of those who had not been at the October membership meeting. In response, members of the Strategic Planning subcommittees (Finance, Site Selection, Vision and Documentation, Food and Product Manual, and Alternative Supply and Products ) gave short updates. Most of these repeated what they discussed at the October meeting, which was published in the November Coop Scoop. The Site Selection PowerPoint presentation on building options was running during the meeting. Lynne also noted some developments since the October meeting. The results of a financial analysis will come in on December 1, which will give the Coop more information to use in planning for a move. After a long period of there being few sites to consider, there seemed to be more options in the last few weeks. Lynne reminded the group that "whenever the subcommittee had something 'excellent' to bring to the members, that the members would be the first to know."