NOFC Board Meeting minutes – November 11, 2005

New Orleans Food Community
Board Meeting
11 November 2005
1203 Ursulines Street
6:00-7:30pm

Present:

• John Calhoun
• Dave Cash
• Karley D. Frankic
• Erin Laine

Proxies:

• Bridget Kelly

Absent:

• Tommy Boehm
• Lennie Halbert
• Betsy Heminway

Called to order at 6:17 pm by Erin Laine, the Chairman of the Board.

Erin Laine moved to approval of the minutes from the previous meeting; Dave Cash seconded the motion. It passed unanimously.

Treasurer’s Report.

Bridget Kelly, the treasurer, was not present to make a report.

The treasurer does not have to be board member. John Calhoun talked with Bridget Kelly about resigning as treasurer until she can move back from New Jersey. Bridget suggested Marian Comisky, a banker, be asked to replace her. Dave Cash is afraid that a banker would have allegiance to her banking institution. Karley D. Frankic reminded the board that Marian Comisky had been helpful to the board in the past. John Calhoun nominated Marian Comisky, who has previously expressed her desire to fill the position, to replace Bridget Kelly as treasurer. Karley Frankic seconded the motion and all present voted in favor of the motion.

Dave Cash suggested that we call Hope Credit Union over the phone with John Calhoun as a signator and request that they close our accounts and mail a check for the balance to our post office box. John Calhoun said that the new bank should be able to transfer funds from Hope Credit Union. Erin Laine expressed a need to complete the banking transfer this week. She wants to get the new account at ASI Federal Credit Union this week so that we can set up a PAYPAL account for membership and donations to be made online. Dave Cash want to know if ASI Federal Credit Union has a night drop for use by the grocery store. Karley Frnakic said that the Hibernia has a branch on St. Claude Avenue near the Melonheads location. John Calhoun suggested that we can make that decision as more banks reopen in the Marigny/Bywater neighborhood. Erin Laine asked what name would be on the checks of new account: New Orleans Food Co-op or Community. We will have to ask the bank if we can use co-op on the checks even though our legal name is community.

Old business

N. Rampart. Karley D. Frankic said that she spoke with Steve Kaplan, the owner of the site, and told him that the membership was leaning toward another option. He was amiable and wished us luck.

Phoenix Stables. Dave Cash recommend that we do not need to put negotiation on hold, this could get us closer to opening a large store sooner. Karley D. Frankic suggest that the low cost space at Melonheads could help us grow our membership and build our capital for a larger store.

Buying Club Transfer. Erin Laine reported that she spoke with Budd Hirons and he said that the Wednesday before Katrina, he had signed the papers and Bridget had possession of them. We need to talk to Bridget to check the current status of the transfer peperwork. Karley D. Frankic said that we need to ask Anne Sobol if the transfer needed to be recorded at the Notarial Archives. We need to update information with the Secretary of State.

Status of non-profit 501(c)(3). No report.

New business

Board member status. Erin Laine suggest that we send a letter to Tommy to see if it gets forwarded. If the president, Tommy, is not at the meetings, than the vice President, Dave Cash, can act in his place. We want to get ahold of him to find out if he is available.

Dave Cash reported that Darlene Wolnik emailed him a resignation to the board of directors of NOFC. She is happy to contribute where she has expertise, but does not feel that she can dedicate herself fully to the board now. It is with regret that we accept her resignation. We are glad to have her continued help with getting a storefront open.

John Calhoun reported that Bridget Kelly has expressed to him a need to resign as treasurer for the NOFC because of her hurricane induced relocation. She will be back in New Orleans at the end of the school year. We thank Bridget for her dedicated work for the NOFC and look forward to having her back in the city fulltime.

Communication.John Maraist is working to revamp the website and clear up the spam on the comments. The comments were unmoderated on articles posted by account bearing members and this resulted in a lot of unsavory material on our website. He is transferring the old articles over and filling out the information on the NOFC, including a list of board members and our terms and history.

Donations and joining NOFC online. Erin Laine hopes to have this set up next week. If John Calhoun can get the bank account, she can set up the PAYPAL account. We can use the post office box until the new website can show the PAYPAL option.

Melonheads. John Calhoun stated that we are not going to be able to do a storefront order, so need to have Buying Club members place their orders as normal.

Dar Wolnik, Shelly Jackson and other members are going to meet Sunday, November 13th at 11:00 am at Melonheads to work on the retail setup for the possible storefront.

Anne Sobol drafted an agreement between NOFC and Melonheads. NOFC needs to decide on some major issues before we can revise the draft. John Calhoun suggested that we work out those details to have a document for the board to vote on at the next board of directors meeting.

Dave Cash is not in favor of moving forward with the Melonheads site at this time because it woud involve turning all of our capital into goods and this is a risk, taking all of the assets that the co-op has with limited members and limited funds. He feels that making this decision requires having a memberhsip meeting.

John Calhoun feels that $10,000 is a small amount of money in the scope of the half million dollars that we planned to raise for the Phoenix Stables plan. If for some reason we open up and we are not successful at in this location, it is not a large financial risk. We have already expressed confidence that we can raise far more money than $10,000.

Dave Cash does not see the curve of capital raising to happen no matter what happens. He feels that we should focus on doing evrything right to assure people that we can do this well if not we do not want to be a failure and hurt our reputation for future development.

John Calhoun feels like this is a great time to move on opening a storefront. Erin Laine said that we need to be there for the community. Dave rebutted that we felt that we were needed before the hurricane. What happens if we don?ɂĢt work out the plans and operating procedures, we might lose customers from bad service. John Calhoun said this is why we have a diverse board to work out the details. Erin Laine suggested that these details do not need to be worked out by the board, maybe by an operations manager.

Dave Cash wants to have these details worked out before the board votes to move forward with the Melonheads site. John Calhoun stated that many people are offering to volunteer and he is giving them specific jobs. Erin Laine agreed that we need to be consistant and do what it takes to be consistant in our devotion, like workign at the store when volunteers don?ɂĢt show up. We don?ɂĢt stop moving forward towards the opening to work out the details, they can be wroked out at the same time. Dave Cash said that we are moving forward so quickly that there are a lot of opportunites for missteps. John Calhoun said that he is talking and overhearing folks in the neighborhood that are expressing a need for a cooperative grocery now. Erin Laine said that because this option is so scaled back from the Phoenix Stables plan, that it is much more manageable and able to be successful, but with some bumps in the road. Karley D. Frankic suggested that we can move forward with the negotiations and planning for the Melonheads site and continue to work out the questions as we move forward. With such a good group of members and volunteers we can work out the details at the same time.

Dave Cash moved to have a founding membership meeting for a vote of confidence on moving forward with an agreement to open a storefront in Melonheads Cafe. Due to the lack of a second, the motion died.

Erin Laine moved that we explicitly solicit input by email and phone of all available founding members about opening a store in the near future at Melonheads Cafe. Karley D. Frankic seconded the motion. The motion passed. Dave Cash want to have the survey ask if the respondant is a member. Erin thought maybe we can ask the members if we need to have a member meeting on this issue. She will send out a draft of the survey this evening.

The next BOD meeting with be Tuesday, November 22, 2005 at 6:00 pm at 1219 N. Villere St.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:40 pm.

These minutes were originally distributed as a PDF file by email.