CSA Core Meeting Minutes
Saturday, January 25, 2014 at 3:30pm
Attendees: Dega, Denise and Megan
Fresh Start will continue to be available to us as our distribution site.
Open Core positions:
Communications Coordinator - Updating to and inviting members to engage via
Blog
Bimonthly newsletter from the farm
Emails to members (events, share menu with EVERYTHING that will be offered on that distro)
Flickr
Takes minutes for core meetings and publish edited version to website after Denise approves.
Head Site Manager – Overseeing the conditions of the site, what materials are there, if they are clean, and if additional items are needed. Ultimately responsible for making sure set-up and distro managers are always there. Provide emergency back-up.
Set-up manager – Always responsible for set-up. Need 4 people who each do 7 shifts
Distro manager – Always responsible for distro. Need 4 people who each do 7 shifts
There should ALWAYS be a site manager on site. Email whole core for emergency vacancies or if there are extenuating circumstances.
Volunteer Coordinator – Keep the volunteer shift sign-up when checking out of the member sign up. Email the volunteer with instructions ahead of the shift. Send out email to members when more volunteers are needed to fill shift. Check in with those who have not yet volunteered or signed up for a shift and ask them to sign up. Field question about volunteering from members.
Filled Positions:
Website Coordinator - Litza will run report to tell us who has outstanding balance and who has not volunteered sufficient hours to meet requirement from the past year.
Treasurer – Denise will do this in addition to being president.
Events Coordinator – Megan will do. Pull interests/talents from the CSA members, involving the membership in sharing with each other. Ask for members to pay $5 or another nominal fee to cover costs. Set limits of number of people who can attend if it is in a member’s home. Seven events minimum.
Proposed community building events:
Meet the farmer
Strawberry picking
Pumpkin picking
End of season
Picnic at the park (NEW)
Meet up at local bar (NEW) – beer making?
Cooking class (NEW) – canning? Pickling?
General items
Price going up $1 per week.
Fruit people have been difficult to pin down season dates – Has start date but not end date. $10 per week estimated.
Denise will continue to communicate with them to refine how many weeks they will work with us this year. We will also continue to discuss whether or not we want to pre-bag fruit to ensure that a) we know that we are getting the correct amount from our vendor and
b) make sure that we will have enough fruit every distro for members.
Estimated time to open registration for members – End of February or beginning of March.
Herb share – needs to be consistently be on the share list for members.
Last year 116 shares (vegetable) – we also have some people who order fruit, but no veg, but there aren’t many of those. How many people do we want to have next year? We operated at a small loss last year. Tipped Green Thumb $1000, Fruit $500, Lewis Waite $300, Tortilla $100, Fish $100. So how many shares do we want to sell this year? Let’s keep it at 121 people.
Change admin fee structure: Old members paid half price and new members pay double price.
All will pay same price. Core members pay nothing.
PayPal
Will charge members the admin fee for PayPal – will keep option for writing check if needed.
PayPal issues – Ein was out of date will get a new one. Official address is Woosley Station Post Office, bank will allow to change, and PayPal issues will be resolved.
Low income shares: we had 9 because that is how many applied last year. Donations of $446 were made last year toward this cause. We won’t do more than 10% (of 121 members), so 12 maximum. We will continue to use published chart to gauge financial need.
Need to revamp website as far as information that is there
Be able to tell that they should put themselves on wait list if low-income
Publish information to existing members about low-income options
Currently 200-300 people on wait list, but not everyone responds. Communicate this on website. We usually 50% turnover in our membership.
Last year end of year party was $621.85 with tip.
Lewis Waite sample event was $129.47. We may want to do this at the Meet the Farmer event this year. We will make it clear this year that we will pay, whereas last year we paid for some and some for free
Meet the farmer event was $236
Just Food membership was $560
Paid $800 for Fresh Start roof
Low income shares cost us $2205
Decided that we may opt to do a “tip” at the end of the year for the positions that have been key core positions throughout the year
Litza will continue to be the web person
We will continue to offer payment plan - Litza is investigating module for payment that is different slightly to be compatible with the backend of our website.
Action items
Ask past volunteer coordinator to send past duties and instructions
Megan contacts different farmers/vendors to ask if they would like to attend the “Meet the Farmer” event. Ask Mosaic to reserve the space.
Denise will ask Pete (pickle guy) whether or not that he wants to participate in the CSA again this year.
Megan will handle communications with the members to tell them we will be having sign-ups earlier this year, that we are looking for volunteers (and which positions) and that we are researching new spaces.