Meals minutes: 2018-02-11

Minutes:

Great Oak Meals Committee Meeting Minutes
2/11/2018

Present: Catherine, Yi-Miau, Terrence, Kathy for Meals balance report

AGENDA
Meal Account Balance
Meals Programming
I. Review how early Sunday meals are going
II. Update on Tuesday NOKA farm meal 2018
III. Thursday later meal proposal
New Work Season
Scheduling Meals work season
Shopper, preassign two instances
Improvements
Training
Communication/Housekeeping
Review Meals job descriptions (tabled for next meeting)
Next meetings
Monkeys -- embrace things done
***

MEALS ACCOUNT REPORT
As of the end of January, if everybody cashed their checks today, we would
have $400. That’s a little low, but Kathy is not concerned because she
knows money will come in soon.

Regarding the uncashed checks, Kathy has credited every uncashed check
which she could, writing off the ones for people who no longer live here.

We will be stopping the pantry fee for meeting night meals when the meal is
takeout. When the meal is cooked, we’ll still charge the pantry fee.

The kitchen redesign committee is wanting more pots in the kitchen. This
expense would come from the Meals Committee.

TIMELY MENU POSTINGS
We think head cooks have been doing really well with getting their menus
posted at least 10 days in advance. We’ll continue to remind people when
their meals are 10 days away if they haven’t yet posted their menus.
Terrence-Sundays
Y-Miua- Mondays
Catherine- Tuesdays
Elph- Wednesdays


MEALS PROGRAMMING I: REVIEW HOW EARLY SUNDAY MEALS ARE GOING
Terrence has been sending emails to remind cleaners and diners about the
early times.
People have been appreciative of the reminders.

How are the numbers? We usually have had around 20 diners for the Sunday
meals in the past two years. In January, the four Sunday meals had 33, 32,
40, 11. On the day we had 11 diners, the menu was posted fairly late.

Meals has requested 15 minutes for info and discussion about early Sunday
meals during the upcoming Feb 19 community meeting. The committee is
wondering if the community would like to (1) revert Sunday meals to 6:15 or
(2) continue 5:30 Sunday meal in the new work season.

MEALS PROGRAMMING II: UPDATE ON TUESDAY FARM MEALS - NOKA FARM 2018

We’ve heard back from Kelly, Sharon, Tammy, Emily, Tevah and Jennifer about
being farm cooks!

We need at least 5 committed shares of CSAs to proceed with the delivery
arrangement. Noelle from NOKA let us know we do have 5 families signed up
for CSAs already with a couple more that might be coming in.

We think Tuesday Farm Meal is on for 2018!

MEALS PROGRAMMING III: THURSDAY LATER MEAL PROPOSAL
Catherine and Yi-Miau are preparing for this agenda item, and will be ready
to present on March 15.

NEW WORK SEASON: SCHEDULING
Another scheduling issue: The current work season is 3 months long, but the
meals schedule continues for 4 months.

This work season (Jan - March) there are 52 workers involved in the meals
jobs.
They will have hours already meal assignments for April.

People’s meal shifts in the previous allocation will be credited back to
them for one month. Yi-Miau will email this meals shift information to the
Work Committee.

NEW WORK SEASON: PREASSIGN TWO CH SHOPPERS?
With the upcoming 7 month work season, we think it would be a good idea to
have two instances for the CH shopper job, so the people can alternate.
Something like what our Meals Billers do. Yi Miau will send out an email to
ask who might be interested in the CH shopper job for the upcoming work
season.


IMPROVEMENTS
New closet set-up with pots/lids is really nice, easier to put things away,
the closet feels more spacious. It wasn’t totally clear to cleaners where
to put the ladles.

The price to add an import feature for batch entering meals and shifts to
Gather is far more expensive than we’d expected. It will take many years
of usage to pay it off. We’ll just continue with manual labor by a meals
schedule entry person.

TRAINING
Catherine will check with Mary King to find out whether the kitchen
orientation happened or not.

Tammy and Patti met to plan a community training based on their servsafe
workshop.

COMMUNICATION/HOUSEKEEPING
We have had one “microwave safe” takeout container from the CH melt and
shrink in someone’s microwave. We want to purchase the microwave safe
containers.

New work season. We would like to open the Meals Committee to new
participation, and are considering creating a co-convenor position for the
upcoming work season.
Terrence will talk to Emily about being on the Meals Committee
YiMiau will talk to Tammy about being on the Meals Committee
Catherine will talk to Mary King about being on the Meals Committee
YiMiau will email gotalk about looking for new committee members


OPEN TABLE DISCUSSION Wed Feb. 21
Dinner time discussion of Meals Program with Meals Committee and any
interested community members.

UPCOMING MEETINGS
MARCH 12 7pm--It turns out Terrence cannot make this meeting. We will move
to March 18, if that works for Elph. Terrence will email Elph to check this
meeting time with him. If not, we will continue with the 12th as our
meeting date. If we move the meeting to the 18th, Yi-Miau will reserve a
room for us.

March 18 7pm (confirmed after the meeting)
APRIL 8 7 pm
MAY 7 7 pm


AGENDA FOR NEXT MEETING

REVIEW MEALS JOB DESCRIPTIONS

NEW MONKEYS
DONE Terrence will email Noelle to ask for an update, and send an email out
to let community members know how many more shares are needed in order to
move forward with the farm-to-table meals.

DONE Yi-Miau to ask facilitators about adding a poll for early Sunday meals
during community meeting

DONE Yi-Miau will email this meals shift information to the Work Committee.

REMONKEY Catherine and Yi-Miau will bring discussion of later meals on
Thursdays to a meeting.

Yi-Miau will request an agenda item for MARCH community business meeting
for 25-30 minutes.

Catherine will check with Mary King to find out whether the kitchen
orientation happened or not.

DONE Terrence will email Elph to check this meeting time with him

DONE If we move the March meeting to the 18th, Yi-Miau will reserve a room
for us.

Yi-Miau will talk to Sharon about where to get microwave safe take out
containers

RE MONKEY Yi-Miau will check on 2016 meals numbers from Touchstone. She
will send a list of queries to the Meals Committee and Tom can run them all
at once.