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Steering Committee Meeting Minutes – April 17, 2019

DCO – Steering Committee Meeting Minutes – April 17, 2019

In Attendance: Mary B., Bren D., Rice S., Ann A., Rochelle S., Angie B.

Follow-up on topics from previous meeting:

  1. Discussion of important emails still going to the (un-monitored) Archive/Order Gmail account. Angie will look at searching for the relevant emails so we can direct them to the proper place.
  2. Removing the 3% charge for inventory items purchased at Pick Up. The reason this policy was put into place is no longer relevant. And, while the extra fee does help cover some DCO overhead, at about $9-$15 per cycle, it’s an amount we can live without. We also don’t want to discourage people from purchasing inventory at Pick Up. So this fee will be removed and all inventory will be priced the same regardless of where you purchase it from.

Recurring Issues that Create Extra Work (AKA Things that Need to be Solved NOW):

  1. Mountain Rose Herbs arriving late most of the time – Check in with Polly to see if she knows why this is happening; Also, decided that we can stop doing the price verification step with members that order, since we have a pop-up box alerting members to check prices on MRH website before ordering – skipping this step could help get the order in quicker.
  2. Exceptions Made:  Special orders for non-DCO items made for members – This happened once at last cycle. Decided that we will not fulfill special orders as it requires too much extra work for Admin.
  3. People not picking up their orders – Will send out a reminder to members that if there is a time when they can’t pick up their order they need to make arrangements for someone else to pick-up for them or (less preferred) communicate that ahead of time to DCO, so that we know to put it aside.
  4. Ordering not following the 50% guideline. Inventory creeping upwards. – Inventory is not at a critical stage, just something to pay attention to. Discussed that there is some flexibility with the 50% guideline based on experience of what sells easily out of inventory; need to balance not having too much inventory with member satisfaction in getting orders filled. We will keep a close eye on this.

There are a number of administrative Shared Effort Roles Needing Capable Humans:

  1. General Admin. (Somebody who understands all parts of the Vendor Worksheet, basic parts of Foodclub, and has access to all the Gmail accounts. This person can create the new cycle tabs in the VW, keep up on the yearly summary financial sheet, add new vendors and products, do basic catalog updates on Foodclub, send out emails from Foodclub, adjust member orders, give credits to member accounts, backup for archiving/opening catalogs, etc. Basically, a person not afraid of poking around the backend of websites and figuring things out.)  No ideas for someone who might fit this role at this time.
  2. Late Cycle Coordinator. (It has been mentioned several times before that the role that Laila is doing would be better served by a 2-person team. There are still a lot of things falling through the cracks at this stage that create extra work later for some of us. This is a job that could be done from home most of the time. And could be a full backup for Laila when needed. This person would track orders throughout the cycle, catching issues early enough for us to solve them before pick-up day. And could do any of the late invoice processing that comes in by email ahead of pick-up day. They could also help with reconciling issues after pick-up.) Mary B. will contact Christine about taking on this role.
  3. Processing Member Payments – Mary would like to pass this on. Mary will contact Kathy about taking on this role.
  4. CPW Catalog Updates – Angie would like to find a replacement at some point, can wait. We will revisit next meeting.
  5. Purchasing, need more people trained – Revisit this at next meeting

Tasks that need to be done:

  1. A full check/update of each catalog’s products. Ann will do a review of all catalogs she is responsible for.
  2. Somebody who can make our MRH catalog usable and correct again. Not urgent, but Ann will check in with KJ
  3. Planning a full co-op meeting? Discuss at next SC Meeting.
  4. Somebody to catch up on, organize, and post meeting minutes. Decided to not back track, but do this going forward; Ann will do the minutes for this meeting. Bren will post on website.

Other:

  1. Desire among many folks for bulk products vs. heavier packaging/single serve items – Need someone/a committee to lead this effort to come up with strategies e.g. make cloth bags
  2. “Bigger picture” discussion about our mission/condition – There is some burn-out happening with folks who have been putting in a lot of extra time, for a long time. It is a big issue that for some of the critical admin. roles/tasks there is only one person who knows how to do them; need more overlap/cross-training. There was some agreement that the system feels cumbersome & complicated. We need to have a more in-depth discussion about these things and the future of DCO. Is it sustainable in its current incarnation?

Next Meeting:

The next Steering Committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 15th at 6pm at The Broadway House (603 E. Broadway, Viroqua). The agenda will include planning for a big member meeting mid-summer. There is a need for non-SC members to help with this. Any members interested in assisting are encouraged to attend. We also welcome any members interested in becoming part of the Steering Committee.

 

A printable Doc of these minutes can be found HERE.