February 17, 2010 Rainbow Natural Grocery Board Meeting Minutes by Charlotte Lundemo

 

Charlotte Lundemo took minutes for the meeting. The meeting started at 6:10pm

 

Board Members present: Irene Jones, Leo Huddleston, Gen Barbour, Tom Lowe and Charlotte Lundemo. Also present were, Steve Whitlow, Bob Gordon, Bruce Frazier and Luke Lundemo.

 

The board minutes from January 19, 2009 were approved.

 

Steve Whitlow’s report: February presented us with a few problems natural and man made. We had a record freeze with no water from Sunday, January 10 through Thursday, January 15 which meant we could not open the café or used the toilets. We rented a port-a-potty for the staff. We were also burglarized Saturday, February 6th around 1:30am and had the expense of replacing the front door glass, the Fair Trade door glass and the middle register drawer. In spite of this, sales continued to rise and the café had a good month. Produce sales topped 15K for the first time since October. Grocery sales fell just short of 68,000, the highest monthly total since January 2008. Because of the new POS system and the surveillance cameras, missing inventory has been reduced 80% from last year.

 

Bruce Fraser’s Financial Report: Bruce reported that our 2nd quarter profit exceeded the budget by over $19,000. We had hoped for a gross profit percent of 37.5% but exceeded that number as gross profit for the second quarter was 39.11%. Both our current ratio and our debt to equity ratio improved this month. The board approved a 2nd quarter profit sharing bonus for the employees.

 

CEO Report: Tom Lowe explained that we have 2 choices for restructuring: 1) We can convert Rainbow Whole Foods Agricultural Association to a Mississippi corporation and then merge with a Wisconsin corporation and then convert to a Wisconsin consumer cooperative or 2) Transfer our assets and liabilities to a Wisconsin corporation, and then convert to a Wisconsin consumer cooperative. 

We are still waiting to hear from Hope Credit Union about the next step in the building loan process.

The Tougaloo-Rainbow Sustainable Garden is benefiting from a grant that brought in Americorps volunteers. The forest nature trail has been completed and more work is being planned now for the garden area.  

Dinner and A Movie is this Friday, February 19 featuring the film, “The Yes Men Fix The World”.  The egroup is now at 1,168 members. It grew nearly 10% this month..

 

New Business:

There was no old or new business.

 

The meeting adjourned at 7:43pm.