Board of Directors Meeting Minutes: July 2025

These are the meeting minutes of the Brattleboro Food Co-op Board of Directors meeting which occurred on July 7, 2025.

Present

Directors Present: Calvin Dame, Denise Glover, Lee Halpern, Anneka Kindler, Michele Meulendyk, Sheena Tesch, and Johanna Zalneraitis.

Directors absent: Kevin Brennan, Evan Silber.

Staff Present: Interim GM /Director of People and Culture Emilee Hobbs, Board Administrator/Sustainability Coordinator Sarah Brennan.

Other Shareholders Present: Erik Hansen.

President Michele Meulendyk called the meeting to order at 5:15 pm.

1. Welcome and Shareholder Input

1. Erik Hansen introduced himself. He’s been a shareholder for four years; he is the former Director of Operations at the Co-op. He has applied for the position of General Manager and is here to observe the meeting.
   
2. Michele reminded Board members that per Board policy, discussion should stay focused on what is within the Board’s purview, rather than on operational details.
   
3. The Board reviewed the monthly shareholder stats, which now include information on how many hours shareholders volunteered at each of our Commitment to Community partners. Sarah noted that the “active shareholder” number for June has risen since the numbers were originally pulled for the packet due to late-breaking events happening at the end of the month. The number of Food for All shareholders will rise as people recertify.

2. Approval of Minutes

Anneka moved, and Denise seconded, to approve the minutes from the June 2, 2025, meeting.
Discussion: none. The motion carried with six in favor and one abstention (Lee).

3. Board President Updates

Michele noted that there would be a short Executive Session to discuss a confidential personnel issue.

4. Training

1. Michele called the Board members’ attention to upcoming training opportunities – these are listed on the Board site’s home page.
   
2. Emilee has been attending Columinate’s “Mighty Markets” series and will share handouts. She stated that there are lots of resources on merchandising that we are already using in planning our refrigeration project.
   
3. Calvin shared his experience at the CCMA conference at the end of May. He received positive feedback and curiosity about the BFC’s Commitment to Community program and Safety and Outreach’s approach to our neighbors in need. He was intrigued by a co-op that invites local nonprofits to present to their Board each month as a means of networking and building community. Lee noted that Monadnock invites their Round Up recipients to present to their staff each month.

5. Board Committees

1. Board Recruitment: Michele noted that even with incumbents planning to run in the upcoming elections, the Board still has a responsibility to inform shareholders of the opportunity to run. Sarah will be reaching out to incumbents for their updated candidate statements.
   
2. Shareholder Engagement: Anneka summarized the committee’s report as presented in the packet. Discussion touched on the overlapping, but distinct, goals of the SE Committee, and the Marketing and Shareholder Services team. How collaboration can or should happen has yet to be clarified, but an SOP as well as a revision to policy D.9 were both surfaced as possible next steps. In the meantime, Michele and Emilee will work out how staff time is allocated in service of the Committee.
   
3. Annual Meeting Planning Committee: Board members were asked if they would be able to attend the Annual Meeting if it were to be rescheduled to 9/29 in consideration of Rosh Hashanah. (Upshot: yes.)
   
4. GM Search Committee: Michele noted that the position was posted on 6/20 through at least this month. The Committee is working on the interview questions to be asked at initial and finalist stages. Initial interviews will not happen until end of this month at the earliest.
   
5. Finance Committee: Michele stated that Kevin has met with Mudith and Emilee to learn about the assumptions used in developing the FY26 budget.

6. Board Monitoring Reports

1. Denise moved, and Johanna seconded, to approve the D.9 – Board Relationship to Shareholders monitoring report.
   
2. Discussion touched on the themes addressed earlier in the Shareholder Engagement committee conversation. Anneka noted that she wishes to push to look for solutions to operationalize these policy provisions. Revising this policy to provide more clarity would likely only happen after the GM Search wraps up. Michele will distribute the results of the 2023 Annual Meeting’s World Café exercise which was designed to elicit shareholder needs and values.
   
3. The motion carried unanimously.

7. GM Monitoring Report

1. Denise moved, and Lee seconded, to approve the monitoring report for B.4 – Asset Protection. Board members expressed appreciation for the detail and specificity of the interpretation statements and compliance data.
   
2. The motion carried unanimously.

8. GM Updates

Emilee shared additional detail on items shared in the packet as well as news since the packet went out:

1. Finances: Recent sales have been strong; we hit almost $509K for the week. Customer counts are up as well. The positive cash flow, reported in the packet at $380, has risen to $500K. We are still waiting to see the financial impact of the June shareholder promotion.
   
2. People: James has been covering for the Potash Executive Chef position; feedback from both staff and the Music Festival has been very positive. The Excellence in Worksite Wellness award is due in part to many new additions to our benefits, including two weeks of parental leave. We have had to reference the new Code of Conduct with recent visitors to the store; staff have appreciated having it be enforced. We are implementing a daily stand-up meeting for all staff — no more than 10 or 15 minutes total.
   
3. Process: We have a handshake agreement with the Town of Brattleboro to lease the former Dottie’s space for storage and other purposes; the agreement would include 8 parking spaces, half in the Preston Lot and half in the parking garage. We are also meeting with the Town and DBA (Downtown Brattleboro Alliance) to discuss how we could support a midweek Farmer’s Market in the Preston Lot.
   
4. Technology: The upstairs HVAC issues have been sorted out; we have avoided having to pull product off the shelves with recent refrigeration challenges.

9. Upcoming Monitoring Reports:

Michele called Board members’ attention to the monitoring reports to be covered at the August Board meeting. She noted that in End 1, “open” refers to the Coop being open to all, not just shareholders. She invited Board members to refer to previous years’ monitoring reports, available on the Board site’s front page.

10. What Would You Tell a Shareholder?

Meeting participants shared what they would tell a
shareholder about this meeting. These comments are shared in the staff newsletter and in Food for Thought.

11. Meeting Closing:

Board members shared observations about what worked or didn’t work about the meeting.

12. Executive Session

1. At 7:08 pm Michele moved, and Denise seconded, to enter Executive Session for the purpose of discussing a confidential personnel matter. Only Board members were present.
   
2. At 7:20 pm, Michele moved, and Anneka seconded, to exit Executive Session.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:21pm.

Respectfully submitted,
Sarah Brennan, Board Administrator/Sustainability Coordinator