Council Meeting
T-shirt event recap: It was a great success! We had fun, made a bunch of t-shirts, sold some shares, and got some funds to put towards the store.
Yard Sale planning:We are having a yard sale on Saturday, May 30 in conjunction with the WBNA's neighborhood-wide yard sale. Ours will be held at the future store site - 1577 Westminster. We are looking for people to donate items to sell, as well as hangers and display racks. We will also need volunteers to bake goodies for a bake sale. Look for an upcoming email with more details.
Share report: we sold three shares at the t-shirt event and now have 103 shares in total.
Storefront committee report: We have been in email contact with contractor and architect – the final price quotes are being worked out and we should have an official number to add to our “sources and uses†for the build-out any day now. Once we have this number our “sources and uses†is complete and we can contract out for the Pro Forma. General consensus that we should hire Bill Gessner, who works for CDS. Once we have the pro-forma we can hire the lawyer to do the member loan program. Still no official approval from HUD, though everyone is hoping that groundbreaking will happen in June. Lastly, Bridget and Michelle went to a class, offered through Center for Women in Enterprise†on “How to Obtain Bank Financingâ€.
General Membership Meeting
Update on store: We expect to break ground in June – we are working on the final price quotes from the architect and contractor and are awaiting final approval from HUD. In the meantime we have been researching our equipment needs and possible sources, as well as financing options.
Details on finances: Our current sources of financing include grants from United Way and Food Coop 500, fundraisers such as bake sales and the T-shirt event, and member equity (from shares sold). The next sources of funding are: community Loans, member Loans, and bank loans. In order to get these loans started we need to create our Pro Forma. The Pro Forma will outline our financial projections for the next 10 years. Ideally this would be done by a certified accountant familiar with coops. We need to pay the cpa to do the pro forma. Once the pro forma is done we can hire a lawyer to create our member loan program.
VOTE: The council asks the general membership for permission to use up to 50% of the member equity towards some of the expenses outlined above. This will enable us to continue our fundraising via the member loan program. Deb makes a motion to use up to 50% of the member equity for this purpose. The motion passes unanimously.
