Meals minutes: 2017-01-09

Agenda:

GO Meals Committee Minutes 1/9/2017

Present: Yi-miau, Willie (for meals scheduing discussion), Catherine, Mary,
Elph
Convenor: Yi-miau
Minutes: Catherine

Agenda
Meals scheduling
Setting future meeting times
Committee member “passions”
Reviewing the mandate
Matters arising

Minutes:

AGREED
People wanting to combine meal cook shifts should let the Meals Committee
know of their preference before a work survey closes. Meals Committee will
use the following criteria to decide whether a cook may combine
head/assistant cook shifts: Has this person been head cooking for the past
year? Have they canceled any of their meals in the past year?

Each of us have some cooks to support regarding posting their menus

TASKS:
Yi-miau will reserve the sitting room and put the meetings on the Great Oak
calendar.
Yi-miau and Mary will meet (possibly Elph also) to work further on the
mandate.
Wed. Jan. 11 after dinner

MEALS SCHEDULING
There was a request from a head cook to schedule with themselves (being the
head cook and also the assistant cooks).
Willie needs to know a few weeks to a month in advance of big changes like
that, in order to make the necessary software changes. Another example of
big scheduling changes was when we had Touchstone as part of the meals work
program, and when they stopped participating. Adding a regular meal to the
schedule would be another example, or adding the table setter job.
Scheduling starts late March/early April for the next work season. But we
find out when people fill out their work surveys, and that only leaves two
weeks.

First part of the discussion was to consider whether this practice of
combining cook shifts will work.

What would be the “pros” of allowing people to combine their meal shifts in
this way? We have a precedent for it. Easier to match scheduling. Allows
busy people to maximize their time and accumulate hours.

Vincent was given an opportunity to try combining clean shifts, to see how
it went. Meals could do this with other requests. But it gets into sticky
territory for the Meals committee to say yay or nay to cooks--could be too
subjective. But we could have standards such as the person needs to have
been cooking GO meals during the past year, and not have canceled a meal in
the past year.

Allowing people to do this is not the same as encouraging it. Not likely
that there would be lot of people who want to do this. This seems to be
about allowing flexibility for people who need it.

Would we want to allow people to take a head cook shift and only one
assistant? Would this place an undue burden on the one other assistant
cook? Not if the head cook starts early.

Would we want a cap on the number of people who could do this? Perhaps not
necessary at this point, but Meals committee could keep an eye on this each
work season.

Going forward, people who want to combine work shifts email Meals before
the work survey closes. Email talk about the criteria for combining shifts
when the work survey goes live.
This discussion is about shifts for cooks only--a request to combine dinner
cleans would require a separate conversation.

Note: Following the meeting, there was an email exchange about possible
criteria, regarding the timeliness of menu postings and a suggestion that
incidents of falling under [a] 48-hour threshold should be another cause
for denying such a request.

There are several ways the committee is currently working regarding menu
posting. One of them is each committee member has volunteered to take
responsibility for a few head cooks and will give them a call if menus have
not yet been posted 10 days before their assigned cooking shifts. We will
ask if they need help and offer help.

Unless MESS can supply menu posting log, tracking the timing of menu
posting might be cumbersome.

Willie will check to find out whether MESS tracks the timing of menu
postings.

UPCOMING MEETINGS:
Feb 12, 7 pm
March 6, 7 pm
April 2, 7 pm
May 1, 7 pm

Yi-miau will reserve the sitting room and put the meetings on the GO
calendar.

ENTHUSIASM!
This work season--what are people interested in working on? What are we
enthusiastic about?
Better communication/training opportunities for head cooks on food
safety--training, resources, for example, the “Food Safe” program available
in Washtenaw county. Food safety should be part of what the Meals committee
does.

Find a way to help head cooks make decisions about and post their menus
early--start phoning head cooks with reminders--we turned this item into a
task we will all help with
(Great Oak recipe book?)

Clarification of the process for when a head cook needs to cancel (have
some ingredients for making “emergency meals” with recipes so someone could
step in at the last minute)

Consistency in the food preparation process

Themed meals

Better communication with head cooks--what kind of support might encourage
people to try new things?

Video tutorials about the kitchen, or about what goes on behind the scenes
to get a meal ready?

Mary is also doing orientations with Tevah this work season--there could be
some overlap with these ideas.

Work on the job description for the food safety person--maybe they could be
more of a point person

MANDATE
Link to Meals Mandate working document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wuW6kn8gMXGNRwcn3OBxemHxH-
RyC56dwkQuHOJU9kw/edit?usp=sharing

There was general agreement that the mission should include the social
connection/social fabric function of the meals program. Our mission is to
support this and enhance it. Right now this is not in our mandate.

Yi-miau and Mary will meet (possibly Elph also) to work further on the
mandate.
Wed. Jan. 11 after dinner

FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS:
Brainstorm content of email about head cooks combining shifts of assistant
cooks in one meal
Timely menu posting (as a possible consideration for being approved to
combine cook shifts)

COOLER:
Combining dinner clean shifts
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