Meals minutes: 2017-09-10

Minutes:

Great Oak Meals Committee Meeting Minutes
9/10/2017

Present: Catherine, Elph, Yi Miau, Terrence


AGENDA
Welcome new committee member
Timely menu posting
Head Cook Input
New workers checkins
Training for Essential Kitchen Skills
Fall Work Days jobs
2017 Farm Meal Program Wrap Up (tabled)
Common Meal Innovations: Late dinner (tabled)
Fall scheduling update and Meals scheduler’s show-and-tell (tabled)
Scheduling our next meetings
Monkeys -- embrace things as done

***
WELCOME NEW COMMITTEE MEMBER
We are so glad to have Terrence joining the Meals Committee!! We got him
signed up to the Meals Committee email list. Yi-Miau explained the
structure of the committee and the jobs that are associated with the Meals
Committee.

TIMELY MENU POSTING
Timely menus are posted 10 days prior to the meal.
Terrence--will check in with Sunday head cooks
Yi-miau--will check in with Monday head cooks
Catherine--will check in with Tuesday head cooks
Elph--will check in with Wednesday head cooks

HEAD COOK INPUT
What’s working really well? We have just begun asking head cooks three
follow-up questions:
What did you like best about your dinner?
What were your biggest challenges with this meal?
Do you have any advice for other cooks in a similar situation?



We got feedback from a couple of head cooks to the questions.

Suggestions for Meals Committee to consider:
Buying loaf pans
Make sure head cooks know about checking the staple items they will be
using. Because the “shopper” for the kitchen doesn’t shop more than once a
week, cooks cannot completely rely on that system for replenishing pantry
items in time for every meal.
Pantry problems: It's difficult to get nested bowls off of the shelf. There
are often pots stored on the floor and even food stored on the floor, like
olive oil!

Tips for other cooks:
You can never make too many greens
I would love it if more cooks used the outdoor tables.

Some things that one head cook loves:
the big double sink
* having lots of big mixing bowls of various sizes
* Having lots of big spoons for stirring sautes and big pots of delicious
food
* Having tinfoil, baggies and plastic wrap available
* Knowing that I can go in early and do prep work before my meal
* The cost estimator on the print out that breaks down how much you can
spend if you want the per person cost to be x
* Having a table setter! Ann, in particular is fantastic at it and has
developed it into a real speciality!

Catherine will follow up with one head cook about some of her concerns.

NEW WORKERS CHECKINS
We can check in with the new head cooks and other workers. Suggestion to
send job descriptions to new workers and experienced workers. Also follow
up to ask how it’s going.
Glenn new to dinner clean (Yi-Miau)
Glenn assistant cook (Terrence)
Emily head cook (Terrence)
Emily assistant cook (Catherine)
Terrence assistant cook (Yi-Miau)
Polly assistant cook (Catherine)

Yi-Miau will send job descriptions to go-talk

TRAINING ESSENTIAL KITCHEN SKILLS
We will be offering specific trainings for “mini” kitchen skills.
Grill Cleaning: info, feedback, training survey, demo as needed and
modeling tracking questions. We should wait to introduce a grill cleaning
demo until the new spring season.
Idea to video the trainings and make them available for the future.
We will put the gas tanks in the storage “cage” and move the grills back
under the CH porch roof. Yi-Miau will add this to the fall workday job
sheet, along with a reminder to let the head cooks know about the change.

Tammy will lead the December alternative meeting about food safety.

Yi-Miau will invite Tammy to come to a Meals meeting for help with planning
the meeting.

FALL WORKDAYS JOBS
Oct 8 and Oct 28
Silverware inventory plus casserole, lasagna pans, loaf pans, mixing bowls,
cookie sheets, muffin tins
Write email to the community asking people to return things they have
borrowed from the common house.
Elph will post the numbers of dishes that we are keeping in our inventory

We received a suggestion to have silverware caddies for the tables. Yi-Miau
will follow up with the interested person to ask whether they are willing
to gather some more information--what does Sunward like/not like about
using them? We think we would still need to wash the unused silverware
after each use of the caddy, and we also would like to know how we would
keep the caddies clean.

FARM MEAL WRAP-UP --tabled until future meeting
(but all of us will continue to eat, as noelle will tell us more)

Note: Yi Miau talked to the TS Meals committee about what they are doing
with their community garden. They twice have donated approx $50 of produce
to a Great Oak common meal. They also think they are saving a lot of money
by using community gardens produce for their common meals.

MEALS INNOVATIONS (tabled for next meeting)


FALL SCHEDULING UPDATE AND MEALS SCHEDULER SHOW & TELL (tabled for next
meeting)

Identifying willing folks for work positions to train with current
scheduler. Ask Willie whether he is willing to do a show and tell after
this round of meals scheduling for people who are interested can find out
more about what the job is about.

NEXT MEETINGS:
October 2
October 29
December 10
January 14

IDEAS FROM COMMUNITY
Meals Committee asked for community input at a recent business meeting and
the following topics were raised:
Offer opportunity for people to cook meeting night meals
Pilot earlier Sunday meal at 5:30
Pre-scheduling head cooks at the beginning of the work season
Experimenting with serving some later dinners

NEW MONKEYS -- NEXT MEETINGS: 9/10
New worker check-ins--email job description and check in about how it’s
going doing the new job:
Glenn new to dinner clean (Yi-Miau)
Glenn assistant cook (Terrence)
Emily head cook (Terrence)
Emily assistant cook (Catherine)
Terrence assistant cook (Yi-Miau)
Polly assistant cook (Catherine)

Catherine will follow up with one head cook about some of the concerns that
she raised.

Yi-Miau will send meal worker job descriptions to go-talk.

Yi-Miau, for the fall work days will add this to the fall workday job
sheet:
We will put the gas tanks in the storage “cage” and move the grills back
under the CH porch roof, along with a reminder to let the head cooks know
about the change.

Yi-Miau will follow up with the interested person to ask whether they are
willing to gather some more information about the possible use of
silverware caddies.

Yi-Miau will invite Tammy to come to a Meals meeting for help with planning
the meeting.

Elph will post the numbers of dishes that we are keeping in our inventory.

RE-MONKEY We will all try to talk to community members at GO about what
they want out of these ideas. Hoop house

RE-MONKEY We will all follow up with head cooks (the same ones we remind to
post their menus) to ask how their meals went:
What did you like best about your dinner?
What were your biggest challenges with this meal?
Do you have any advice for other cooks in a similar situation?
Terrence--will check in with Sunday head cooks
Yi-miau--will check in with Monday head cooks
Catherine--will check in with Tuesday head cooks
Elph--will check in with Wednesday head cooks


OLD MONKEYS
embrace things as done
Kathy will talk to Tevah about having the farmer get the farm bill to her
directly.
Kathy will send a list to the meals committee of the people who need to
make out their Meals payment check differently.
DONE Catherine will track grill use for the rest of August and remind
cleaners.
DONE Elph will update the grill cleaning instructions and let Catherine
know when he is done.
DONE Catherine will post the revised Dinner Clean instructions in the
kitchen.
DONE Yi Miau will talk to the TS Meals committee about what they are doing
with their community garden.
We will all try to talk to community members at GO about what they want out
of these ideas. Hoop house
We will all follow up with head cooks (the same ones we remind to post
their menus) to ask how their meals went:
What did you like best about your dinner?
What were your biggest challenges with this meal?
Do you have any advice for other cooks in a similar situation?
Mary--will check in with Sunday head cooks
Yi-miau--will check in with Monday head cooks
Catherine--will check in with Tuesday head cooks
Elph--will check in with Wednesday head cooks

DONE Yi Miau will email Willie about doing a Meals Scheduler “show and tell”

DONE Mary will email Kelly to accept the donation of children’s glasses

DONE Mary will pick the children’s glasses up from Kelly.

DONE Yi Miau will check in with Patti, Gayle and Tammy about how it’s going
with the food safety planning.



On the cooler:

We will update the job description and share the job description at the
start of the new work season with people who have the job.

Review meeting night take out orderer job.

Fall work season: new jobs, trainee for Meals scheduling job, identify
meals biller, possibly new job for ServeSave coordinator
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