Meals minutes: 2005-05-03

Minutes:

[[Meals]] [[Meeting]] Minutes 5/3/05

Attendance: Rachel, Heather and Divya, Diana, Amy N., Tammy and Liam, Pam, and Katie.

Monkeys:
Diana: -- Redo the meals sign up sheets and send them out to Go-[[Meals]] to be decided on online.

Amy N.: -- Contact Mel about kitchen equipment.
-- Move picky eater's fridge to her basement.
-- Email Rachel signage about change in fridges.
-- Start email discussion of meat and veggie cooking classes.
-- Present the meals sign up sheets change at the next community meeting during announcements.

Katie & Tammy & Willie: -- Pick two dates & send them out to GO to see which one gets more support.
-- Ask for help again, specifying which jobs they will need help with.
-- Sell tickets in advance

Rachel: -- Get booster chairs (either ask Rowena at Sunward, get donated chairs, or go buy some).
-- Figure out the basket thing for the picky eater's fridge, clean it out & let Amy N. know when it's done.
-- Put up signage about where the picky eater's food went.
-- Look at shopping list and talk to Mel about what will be needed for picky food. -- Talk to Mel about salad dressings supply.

Pam -- Figure out the basket thing for the picky eater's fridge, clean it out & let Amy N. know when it's done.

[[Meals]] Billing Discussion: Rachel says that things are going fine since the start of the $50 late reimbursement rule. She has had 100% compliance since then. Kathy is done with meals billing and Heather has resumed her role again.

Fundraiser Brunch: Tammy, Katie, and Willie will pick two dates and send them out to the community to see which one gets more support. Once they have a date, then they will ask for help again, specifying which jobs they will need help with. They are thinking about selling tickets in advance, rather than doing it as part of the meals billing system. Will encourage people to invite their friends and family too. [[Rod]] has already graciously volunteered to do cleanup and Eric will very generously serve as the barista for the event.

[[Meeting]] Frequency Proposal:
Proposal: That the [[Meals]] [[Committee]] meet 2 times per month, for one hour each meeting.
Discussion:
-- Good idea. -- Good idea, but I can't necessarily come to every meeting if we meet 2 times per month.
-- I have a concern that we will then have 2 very lightly populated meetings where only 2 or 3 people are discussing important community issues and we will not get a representative sample of the community opinion.
-- Ask that people still continue to be up to speed on email, even if we are meeting more frequently.
-- We should try and increase participation in the committee so that the attendance does not dwindle as people continue to only attend one meeting per month, even though there will now be two.
-- Many of the committees have had a lot of problems with attendance, though.
-- Use the announcement of the 2 meetings/month change as a chance to encourage participation by reminding people of how integral the meals system is to the community.
Decision: Passed. We will try it for an indeterminate period of time and see how well it goes.

Reviewing the [[Meals]] Mission:
Amy N. wrote the original mission, got feedback from the community, and amended it based on that feedback. She brought it to the community again, got feedback again, and amended it again. She reviewed it, in it's current state, with the committee.

Picky Eater's Fridge:
It's May and the fridge is still there. Now it's full of salad dressing! Rachel and Pam will figure out the basket thing for the picky eater's fridge. They will clean it out and let Amy N. know when it's done so that Amy can put it in her basement for the Clarks. Rachel will put up signage to keep people from freakin' out about where the picky eater's food went. Amy will email Rachel signage about change in fridges. Rachel will look at shopping list and talk to Mel about what will be needed for picky food. Rachel will talk to Mel about salad dressings supply.

Meat and Veggie Cooking Classes:
Amy N. will start an email discussion about meat and veggie classes. Willie has already agreed to do veggie meals class, with Katie assisting.

Meat and Veggie Money Presentation/Discussion:
Pam went through some of the March meal's bills. She did not have a chance to get through all of them, but this is what she found: She found that 8 meals in March had both meat and veggie protein. 5 meals had no special meat protein (a completely vegetarian meal). 7 meals had no special veggie protein (a meal that had a base meal and then meat in addition for meat eaters). For meals that had a meat protein option but no veggie protein option, the amount of the subsidy that the vegetarians were paying per meal ranged from $0.20 to $0.74. At one meal, the vegetarian option cost $1/vegetarian for their portabella mushrooms vs. the meat option which cost $2/meat eater. Only one meal that Pam came across had a more expensive vegetarian option than the meat option. But this does not consider the fact that the organic vegetarian meals might be more costly than some meat meals. If someone buys an all natural vegetarian meal from Arbor Farms, it will cost more than a non-natural meat meal bought at GFS (* editor's note: Pam has not yet researched that, so that may be an assumption, so we don't know for sure). The average price of a meal is approximately $4.20/diner now. This has steadily been going up. This is an ongoing discussion and it always will be. It will continue for as long as Great Oak exists.

Special Needs Menu Items:
The need for non-dairy food has come up for a few members over the last few months. Take a check in of how these people (or their representatives) are feeling, how this is working, and how things can be improved. Rachel feels like things are going well. People are going out of their way to make things for Maia and Linda. She feels some guilt that people are going out of their way for them. Maia feels guilt too. Pam found it easy to replace dairy items in the meal that she head cooked. But she also was an assitant cook at a meal that had dairy in almost every dish.

Some of the food allergies have been an issue as well. Shellfish, eggplants, peanuts, what else? Only shellfish needs to be avoided in the common house completely? The key thing for the other foods is how they are presented. That it is clear in the sign up book that a particular food will be cooked, and that it is clear in the presentation of the food that it has a particular allergen in it. So we will change the sign up sheet so that there are check off boxes for dairy, peanuts, wheat, eggplant, etc. There can also be a check box for whether the cook would feel comfortable making an alternative for that ingredient, and the diner would need to contact the cook ahead of time to let the cook know that the diner needs the alternative meal. This is not an imperative, and if the cook does not wish to offer the alternative, they do not need to. Diana mentioned 3 different types of allergies:
(1) You have it or you don't. (2) It is pervasive in our foods. (3) It is airborne and can cause a reaction if breathed in. We need clarity on the shellfish and other allergies. Diana will redo the meals sign up sheets adding check off boxes for dairy, peanuts, eggplant, shellfish, a section for notes, and instructions to get back to the cook, and will send them out to Go-[[Meals]] and we will decide on them online. Amy will present the change at the next community meeting during announcements.

[[Meals]] System Basket Feedback:
-- The clean-up crew on Tuesday March 15th left the tables cruddy (3 tables) and the trash can unlined (i.e., people then put food trash into the unlined bins). They also put serving silverware in the regular silverware. They didn't take out the full bins of paper and bottle recycling.
-- Loved the LiLacs brunch this Sunday! (3/13) People from all communities were so welcoming and friendly.
-- On Tues 4/12, Wed 4/13, Thurs 4/14, all the veggie choices do not include protein and we have to pay for the meat we don't eat. It would be great if the veggies could have something with protein, like tofu or TVP, etc. and it would be fairer. -- Mary King and Debbie.
-- Could we please serve meals as family style whenever possible? 1) Better proportion 2) Easier with kids. Thanks, Patti.
-- Prefer more elaborate deserts than cookies. -- Unnamed.
-- I loved everything about Sunday's dinner -- the hummus/baba, etc. -- was all scrumptious, including the lamb kabobs. Yum! Thanks Tammy! -- Jillian.