The HWFC Board of Directors met on Wednesday, December 17.

Facility

The Board approved the expenditure of $4,300 for a new oven for the deli.

Strategic Planning

This committee will stay intact but has reorganized into a Building Search committee and a Vision committee. Regarding building search, the Operations and Administration Coordinator will be contacting the landlord about options with the current facility. The Strategic Planning committee recommended that the Product group be made a subcommittee of the Vision committee. It was noted that the Product Manual is a function of the Nutrition committee under the bylaws, and that the Product group and Nutrition committee have already met together and will continue to do so.

Advertising Task Force

The staff person in charge of advertising had emailed a report on actions and expenses to the Board. The Board decided to assign the Vision committee the task of drawing up a statement of what the Coop would like to accomplish with regard to advertising. This will be due in February.

Governance

Part of the Governance committee’s role is to help the Board make sure actions taken are in compliance with the bylaws. To this end, a committee member will attend Board meetings in an advisory capacity. The committee also made suggestions and will be writing guidelines for running meetings and conducting voting at events like the November 2003 membership dinner.

Finance

The Finance committee presented guidelines for the use of net income after taxes for fiscal 2004. The Coop will donate 5% of net profit back to the community. After this, the next $50,000 in profit will go to retained earnings; the next $1 to $50,000 will be disbursed to staff and working members prorated by hours worked; the next $1 to $40,000 will go to retained earnings; the next $1 to $50,000 will go to staff and working member bonuses, based on either hours worked or productivity.

Personnel

The committee is working on the tool to be used for the evaluation of the Collective Management Team.

The Board agreed that the Employee Manual approved by the Board last month, with the typographical errors corrected, is now in effect. Any additional changes will be brought to the Board as requests for amendments. There are several items currently being discussed, so the Board delayed printing a large number of copies until these immediate changes are finalized.

Board
Self-Evaluation

The Board planned a special meeting for its self-evaluation.

Nominating

The Nominating committee will start publicizing the upcoming Board elections and looking for people interested in running. There will be four vacancies to fill.

Community Room

In response to a question on the use of the community room, the Board agreed that the Coop does not rent the room; it is to be used only for Coop-related activities.

Executive Session

The Board met in executive session at the end of the meeting.

Minutes

Minutes of all Board meetings are available at the Coop. Minutes of the most recent meeting are posted on the bulletin board.

Upcoming Meetings