Meals minutes: 2004-05-10

Minutes:

[[Meals]] [[Committee]] Minutes 10/14/2004

Present: Amy N., Lisa, Heather, Pam, Tammy, Melisa S.

Agenda:

10 MINS MEALS BILLING - HEATHER
update from the meals billers
There is a question about what to do if folks lose or cannot find their receipts.

30 MINS - AMY & LISA
review of the suggestion box item (MARK), most of which if not all came up in the meal review.
reactions to the meal review and what if any action might come of the review would be an item

20 MINS - MELISA S.
There has been discussion on and off about training on veg and meat cooking

Agreements/Monkeys:

AGREED: Cooks have 1 month deadline to turn in receipts for meals. Will not be reimbursed after 1 month.
AGREED: If cooks lose their receipts and cannot document cost of meal (using credit card statement, etc.) they will be reimbursed a percentage of the average meal cost for that month.

MONKEY: Lisa to start trolling around for old meals minutes to put on the Wiki.
MONKEY Amy N. to write late plate sign-up info on meals notebook; will work with head cooks as needed for exceptions.
MONKEY: Amy N. to check in with Willie about on-line meal planner to prompt cooks to enter menus.


[[Meals]] Billing:

Cooks have lost their receipts a couple of times. We don...™t have a policy for what to do. Sunward figures out the average cost of meals per month and then gives a percentage to the cook who lost the receipt. Seems like cooks should turn their receipts in within a month. Some support for adopting the Sunward policy. Do other committees deal with this? No, usually if you lost your receipt, you are out of luck. Different because we bill community for cook...™s purchase, and given frequency of cooks...™ purchases, it seems inevitable from time to time.

Outstanding balances ... what to do? Can...™t do a balance forward with our current system ... this is changing ... but people may have forgotten that they owe from previous months. Some households didn...™t pay for a few months and have now stopped attending. Encouragement to use F&L process. Heather and Rachel have gone back and reminded anyone who owes for past 6 months, so hopefully they will pay up.

Agreed: Cooks have 1 month deadline to turn in receipts for meals. Will not be reimbursed after 1 month.
Agreed to adopt Sunward policy for no receipts.

Feedback from suggestion box and meals review:

(From meeting):
* It's great!
* [[Meals]] are pretty cost effective so far
* Like Sunward shred meals but not many Great Oakers are there - I
wonder if there is a reason
* Sunward doesn't recognize Judith's allergies
* Not easy to sign up
* Too hard to go to SW to sign up
* Don't know what they're serving at SW and veg option is disappointing
* Like the sun - thur schedule
* Like menus posted in advance
* Like when head cooks set extra place setting so that we can sit
together if we come late
* My family takes whole table so we'd like ways to eat with others -
dif table arrangement?
* Sometimes quantity of food is too tight - encourage cooks to pad a
bit rather than have not enough
* Children need protein too
* Suggest - Use quinoa instead of pasta for protein
* Saved my life after I had a baby
* I love cooking for 50 people
* I worry about padding too much and there is a lot of leftovers in
fridge
* I love when we have organic food especially with meat
* I liked when suggested serving size is included
* If limited veg option post - for veg only
* Move the veg to after the meat so everyone doesn't take it
* Bring back family style so you can see what's there in quantities -
so much more pleasant to dine with children
* One concern about family style meal is that leftovers can be
recombined and saved
* Glad to have meals and work combined
* Saving $$ by taking leftovers for lunch
* Review sanitation rule about homestyle
* Like better feedback on how meals went over as a cook - people are
too polite to say they didn't like it
* As someone who comes late often late plates are problematic - should
review idea of signing ahead for late plates and make it a asst cook
responsibility.
* Want to throw out idea of dif dinner time on Sunday
* Now that we've had six mo. We will have touchstone in our lives in
3-5-6 months and should invite them
* Send comments about meals and cooking equip. Needed to meals @gocoho
* Like less cheese and wheat in veg options
* Maybe # of hours isn't enough for head coo

>From box (please note that these are condensed, + indicates multiple similar comments)

I would rather cooks say no veggie option than do a poor one. [[Meeting]]s need to have real veggie options. If cooks don...™t know what to get, ask.
Kids can tell the difference between chicken and veggie chicken nuggets. My kids won...™t eat the veggie. Please provide meat options for kids, or make very clear on the menu that you will not be providing this.
I would like to see more parity in the veggie/meat options available. There have been some weeks where all meals have been veggie; there have also been times when veggie option is inadequate. No reason for this to become polarizing ... lots of rights ways to eat, and we can come up with many creative ideas to address this.
Family style works better for people with kids, have some idea about portions, like social contact of asking other tables when you need more food. (+)
Like cooks to put menus in at least 1 week in advance. (+)
Standard closing times.
Try different table arrangements to accommodate families.
Menus not always clear. What is Zoup?
Bring back family style.
Please serve crepes and Nutella again, pref on Wed
Early food on Halloween?
Better to have more food, especially when you are only serving 2 dishes.
Set more table settings than expected ... gives latecoming families more options for where to sit.
More parity in veggie meat ... weeks with all veggie entrees with no adequate meat choice.
Overall very happy.
Fairly reasonable prices. My kids tend not to eat more $$$ meals, so I end up spending more money for that meal when all they eat is cheese, yogurt, etc,
[[Meals]] more expensive this month (Sept). 42% over $5 this month. Would like cost per person to be a big factor.

So ... what to do with all this? Some are being addressed. Like different table arrangements. We should start sorting comments according to topics. Don...™t have to deal with all tonight. Have some time set aside for meat/veggie issues, so can discuss that tonight. What concrete suggestions did we get? Move Sunday time earlier. Would need to check with people who have signed up for cooking because they would have to start earlier. Or could postpone to next work season. Cleaners would start earlier too. Could float it on talk to see if it is a problem ... would be all or nothing. If a few people had problems, would wait. If no problems, could start this season.

Several comments about cooks...™ needing to post menus early.

Late plates comment ... would like asst. cooks to do it. Buddy system works for some people, asst. cook works better for others. Once decided on 1 month trial each way, but never actually tried asst. cook way (other than in first few weeks). Have basically been ...trying... the buddy way since May. Having asst. cooks plate allows more people to participate. But some cooks feel that it is very difficult to make late plates in the critical last minutes when they are trying to get things finished and served. Cooks are more experienced, maybe easier to do now. We (at this meeting) support trying asst. cook late plates for 2-6 months, then check in with Community. But aware that this will not work well for some cooks. MONKEY Amy N. to write late plate sign-up info on meals notebook; will work with head cooks as needed for exceptions.

Scheduling updates: A few changes in October schedule ... only people involved will get info, no sense in re-printing calendars for everyone. Most current info in meals book. For next season, makes most sense to post sign-up at community meetings ... some grumbling about sign-ups this season. Some people really need to sign-up a month in advance ... makes it harder on work committee to get assignments done by 12/1. Suggestions about how to get head cooks to get menus in book earlier? Scheduler can call around, but hard on scheduler ... too much babysitting. Use on-line meal planning reminder system. Can look at meals meetings ... have present cooks put in menus, and e-mail the rest of them. Could assign cooks a menu to cook for us if they don...™t sign up. MONKEY: Amy N. to check in with Willie.

Meat/Veggie issues continue....

Appreciate that some veggie cooks have started to include meat. Concerned about the tone that this conversation is starting to take ... on e-mail and in the way some cooks have written their menus. Above all, don...™t want to see this be a polarizing issue ... need to respect diversity of many eating styles. Have had suggestions about having staple back-ups ... frozen chicken breasts, Boca burgers, etc. Hx. of valuing a good faith effort by Head Cooks to have broadest appeal possible ... why menu sheets are written that way, with meat/veggie/kid option. Maybe poll head cooks to find out what issues/problems are ... won...™t cook a certain way because of personal beliefs? Educational? Could also check out diner preferences ... see if people are voting with their feet.

Suggestions for future meals meetings:

Poll on talk: what is most likely to prevent you from going to a meal: no veg option, no meat option, seems expensive, no kid food, At my table tonight, most people were primarily concerned about cost.

If want to do organic, but expensive ... could use GOOFS. Has been brought up before ... issues are storage and need for advanced planning. Could happen on a smaller scale now ... could work together with other cooks to buy in bulk, roll excess over from one night to next. The more in advance cooks plan their menus, the easier this is.

MONKEY: Lisa to start trolling around for old meals minutes to put on the Wiki.

Next meeting ... Amy N. is polling for best times, TBA by Amy N.