Welcome, everyone. I'm Eva Schachtman. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm the co-op council president. Thank you for joining us this year. It's great meeting in person and providing a hybrid option for those who would prefer to attend remotely. As you're all aware, there's been a lot of turmoil on the personnel front, including the harassment of a minor age employee. Later in the meeting, we will share more about this and the steps that have been taken since. We'll also be asking you to share your ideas on what our community needs so that we can heal. Your patience and understanding during this period of uncertainty is greatly appreciated. We will also be giving members an opportunity to respond to the question, how can we be even more inclusive at the co-op? Responses may also help the council in discussions about revisiting N's policies in the coming year. I'll be speaking later in the meeting to share highlights. Until then, let me introduce you to Bill Kavanaugh, a farm business advisor with the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, also known as NOFA VT. He works with farm businesses across all stages of scale and stage of business with a focus on beginning and livestock farmers. Bill also administers NOFA's Farmer Emergency Fund, which provides support for farmers experiencing impact from natural and unnatural disasters. Please welcome Bill Kavanaugh. See if this works. All right, hi everybody. My name is Bill Kavanaugh. I'm a farm business advisor at NOFA Vermont. My job, my day-to-day at NOFA, is I work with farmers on business strategy, business planning, cash flow analysis, some marketing support, sort of, you know, day-to-day on the business side. One of the other things that I administer at NOFA is our Farmer Emergency Fund. Our Farmer Emergency Fund is typically a, I'd say, a very sleepy sort of fund that we have, that we provide to farmers who experience emergencies like a barn fire or, you know, a big windstorm or something like that, and usually it's, we see three or four applications a year, and this year for reasons that I'm sure are obvious to you and we'll talk about, our Farmer Emergency Fund was really very necessary and very, very big support in the Vermont farming community. So really quickly, I will give you just a brief overview of my organization if you guys aren't familiar. Can I get the next slide please? Pretty please. Next slide. So the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. We are a member-driven organization and our goal is to promote organic practices that builds a food system in Vermont that is economically viable, ecologically sound, and socially just. Closer to my mouth. Sorry, sorry. Bad habit. NOFA was founded in 1971, so we had our 50th anniversary not too long ago. I wasn't around at the founding, but I was, I've been here for four years now, and we're one of the oldest organic farming associations in the United States. Can I get the next slide? Next one? Sorry. Okay, so NOFA has four sort of main focuses of our work, Farmer Services, which is the team that I work on. We support the viability of Vermont farms via technical assistance and business planning support. We have our food access team, which makes local and organic food findable and affordable for everyone. Some of you might be familiar with our Share the Harvest program, a few other food access programs that we run. We run education and community building, so we have on-farm workshops, we have our winter conference, and we also do advocacy and policy, so we've been working on that a lot lately, especially around climate change. Next one. Okay, so what happened this summer? There was a lot of rain, and so basically starting, really starting on July 9th through the 11th, heavy rains fell over the entire state. We saw six to nine inches over a pretty wide area, pretty much the whole state if you really look at the map there, especially right down the middle in the, in sort of the spine of the Green Mountains. Winooski and Lemoyle both exceeded levels that we saw in Irene, just a, just a massive, massive amount of water that got dumped, and it wasn't just flooding for a lot of farms, for a lot of farms, it was the sheer sort of volume of the water that came through, washed out, access roads, destroyed infrastructure, ruined crops that were in storage, and also in some cases killed livestock. So then we talked about the summer, so the heavy rains didn't just stop, and this, I came across this little graphic while I was putting this presentation together, and that is the 30 year average rainfall is the sort of straight line there, measured at the Berry Airport, and then 2023 is the exponentially rising blue line above it. So that was, you know, you can see the rain event on the 9th, 10th, and the 11th, but then it just really kept raining. That was something that we weren't really expecting. We were, you know, thinking in the farming community that we'd have this flood event, we'd deal with it, we'd get past it, but it just, it didn't work out like that. It rained all summer. So what that meant was farmers had a really hard time repairing from the flood, repairing damage, replanting, and it also meant there was an incredibly poor hay crop. So for the livestock farmers, dairy farmers in Vermont, this summer into the fall, the hay crop was just a fraction of what they would see in a normal year, which is obviously has a huge economic impact because they've got to pay to feed the cows, and that feed just wasn't coming off the fields. I'll take the next one. So we, pretty much as soon as the rain started, we put together, no, put together a farmer impact survey. So went out to pretty much all the farmers within our orbit, and we got 120 responses, and the average respondent said that at least 25% of their farm was flooded. So a little bit of sample bias, I mean, most people who had flooding were more inclined to respond, but it was still a really, really big number, and we were just sort of staggered at the impact. We were expecting some localized problems, some localized flooding, and it became clear really, really quickly that it just, it was a much wider impact than we were sort of thinking we were going to see. A little bit later in the summer, I'm jumping ahead in time here, but later in the summer, the Agency of Agriculture put out their own survey, and what that saw was that they were reporting an average loss, the farmers that responded reported an average loss at 28% of their annual income for the year. Biggest loss coming from hay for livestock, as well as flooded crops. And for anybody who doesn't know, doesn't work super closely in the agricultural world, if floodwater touches any sort of a harvestable crop, it's gone. It cannot be harvested for human food, it's considered contaminated and has to go. So the timing of the floods could not have possibly been worse. There was a lot of food really ready to harvest. I mean, think about mid-July, late-July, a lot of stuff ready to be harvested, and it just got, just rotted in the field. So really, really tough to see. And one of the things, and I won't get too wonky on this, but one of the things that we saw in our survey and also the agency of agriculture saw, is that 70% of respondents had no crop or livestock insurance. So we could sort of parse out the whole deal of crop insurance, livestock insurance. It doesn't really pay out much, but for farmers who don't have it, it pays out nothing. So we were seeing this really, really big economic impact with essentially no insurance type of remuneration coming. So I think the sort of main impactful number, take the next one, is the Agency of Agriculture's survey returned $16 million in total damages and losses to Vermont farms, which in the grand scheme of the world, sometimes that doesn't seem like a massive number, right? I mean, $16 million, you know, it doesn't seem like a lot. But if you think about the size of the state that we have, the size of the farms in the state, that's a huge, huge impact. I mean, this is absolutely on par with what we saw with Irene. And, you know, this is, this is still sort of a moving number, right? Because this was sort of $16 million as reported end of August, early September. And I think farmers are still just now today seeing impacts on loss of hay, you know, not being able to fully harvest all their crops for the year.  We were really just kind of blown away by, by how big that loss was. I will take the next one, please. So we wanted to talk a little bit about our response at NOFA, Vermont. Like I mentioned before, we have a farmer emergency fund. It is typically maybe usually about 100 to maybe $200,000. And it's just a fund of money that we have available. It's been going since I think 1996, we started doing it. And we knew kind of right away that that was something that we're going to need to tap into for farmers. We also knew that we were going to need to fund raise, because the loss was just really, really high. So we had our first post flood meeting, 830 on the morning of the 11th, I think it was still raining. We had the whole the whole team sort of circled up to sort of figure out what exactly our response was going to be and what we could do to help. So one of the first things we started doing is we started calling farmers. So we basically called, you know, as the Organic Farming Association of Vermont, we have a pretty deep Rolodex of farmers and we just started making phone calls. I think every single person on staff probably called about 40 or 50 individual folks just said number one, check on make sure they were okay, and they were safe. And also just to get a sense of what they needed from us and from the community. So what we heard from farmers. So one of the things about this particular event and what happened this summer is that every single farm was affected differently. It wasn't just, you know, the flood waters came, they destroyed some crops and they went away. You know, one of the things that we saw from farmers a lot was that, you know, their farm might have been okay, but all their customers got flooded out. You know, one of the very first farmers I talked to very early on in July was a woman in the sort of greater Woodstock area. Her farm was totally fine. She was up on a hill, didn't see all that much rain, but 90% of her produce went to wholesale accounts that no longer existed. These restaurants, these stores were completely closed, completely under water. I'm sure you've seen pictures. The Woodstock farmers market down there was like totally flooded out for pretty much the rest of the summer. So we were hearing from farmers that, you know, hey, like it might look like we're fine, but we've got all this harvested, highly perishable produce in the cooler, nowhere for it to go. So we also realized there are a lot of media concerns about maintaining cash flow. You know, they were like, hey, we don't know what's going to happen in two, three months, but we know that we need help over the next two, three weeks. You know, we've got to be able to make payroll. We've got to be able to just breathe a little bit and sort of figure out what's going on. And there was also, and I don't want to get too into the weeds on this, but there was a lot of question about what support was coming from the federal government, from the state government. There wasn't at the time, a very immediate response of saying like, hey, you know, we're going to have these different programs set up. There was just a lot of question.  Next one. Thank you. So our Farm Emergency Fund, I feel like I'm jumping around a little bit, but bear with me. We have a system by which applications come in for our emergency fund, and it's reviewed by a review committee made up of a couple of folks on staff, so myself and a couple other staff members, and then a couple farmers. So we have a few folks sort of on the organization side and a few folks who have that sort of on the ground experience. So again, typically, like I said, three to five applications come in a year, barn fire, someone had a frequent storm blew down one of the high tunnels. That system wasn't going to really hold up to what we saw as the need coming in. So we basically put together a spreadsheet. I won't bore you with the details, but to really rapidly turn through these these applications, you know, just to give you a sense of the scale. So three to five applications a year, I think in in 2020, we had three. And this year, since July, we've had 180 applications come in for our Farm Emergency Fund. So one of the things that we started doing like crazy is fund raise. So, you know, we have a lot of our as a as a nonprofit organization, we have a lot of channels to do that fundraising. We have a really awesome fundraising team. And we just sort of put the call out on social media and said, look, you know, we've we've got a real crisis up here in Vermont. A lot of folks have lost their houses. You know, there's a lot of a lot of various sectors have been really hit. But what we can do is support farmers. So we really put the call out. And I think everybody on the team was sort of blown away by just just how much support we saw. So and one of the one of the reasons I'm talking to you guys tonight is Hunger Mountain had a donation that they made through the and I'm blanking on the name of the program, I'm very sorry, the the round up at the register program, the give change program. And that was I want to say it was a $2,000 totally raise. I'm not sure the exact numbers. But thank you guys so much for that. Yeah, very, very awesome. And I think for myself personally, not being someone who works on that side of things, I'm usually more farmer facing, more administrative on this stuff. I was really just really blown away by by just the support we saw from the community, from individuals, from organizations like Hunger Mountain. It was just incredible. I really it felt felt good for me. And I know it felt good for the farmers because we you know, we got that feedback from them because we were able to get them that money. So I get the next slide. OK, so just really quickly on the Farm Emergency Fund eligibility, farmers can apply for up to $5,000 to cover damages does not need to be repaid. It's not a a loan of any sort. It's just a it's just a grant that we give them. They need to be a commercial farm. They need to be certified organic through Vermont Organic Farmers, which is our NOFA Vermont certification arm, or they need to be a NOFA Vermont member. So, you know, one's a bit of a higher barrier to entry. One is a pretty low barrier to entry. In a response to the disaster, we had originally a requirement that farmers would need to be a member for a full year before they could access funds that we made that day of. So what farmers could do, they could join NOFA Vermont for as little as $1 and apply immediately to access funds. So try to make it really, really streamlined. We really our goal was to not sit on these. We wanted to turn them around pretty quickly. I get that next one. So to date, we have raised $1.5 million dollars with more still coming in. I think I don't know the exact number is today, but it's a little bit more than that. And again, this is a fund that typically had 100, maybe $200,000 in it before July. So just absolutely incredible, incredible outpouring. And we've awarded that's actually since I since I wrote this about a week ago that said we awarded 165 grants. We are actually at, let me tell you, as of today, 180 grants have gone out for a total of $853,362. So again, that's that's not our money. That's, you know, you know, work of people like you and donations that we've gotten from from folks in the community who really, really care. So at our average turnaround time, I'm particularly kind of proud of this because this is sort of where I sort of interfaced. Average turnaround time from application to the farmers getting a check, or I guess I should say a check getting in the mail because that could take a little while, eight days. So, you know, it's not a ton of money, $5,000, not a massive, massive amount of money, but it is something it is, you know, it's cash flow help. It's a little bit of support for farmers to sort of, you know, have a little bit of breathing room, figure out what the next steps are and then possibly access, you know, additional funding sources. So our goal was to just get that out really, really quickly and, you know, get that, get that to folks who need it. Take the next one. Cool. So this is a quote we got from a farmer. So they said, we are so grateful to have NOFA Vermont supporting us and all the other small organic growers in Vermont. It really does make resiliency in the face of climate change to seem possible. I just really like that quote, you know, it's, it's, we feel good because we're able to sort of support farmers, you know, again, it's not us doing it. This is just us administering the money that's been trusted to us to give to farmers. But, you know, that's, it's good to sort of, you know, get that, get that feedback so that people are feeling supported, if nothing else. Next one. So when I, when I first put this slideshow together, I sent it to a couple of colleagues just to give me some feedback and I had like six slides of photos and I just got a note that said too sad. So we're going to do, we're going to do just two slides just to give you a sense of some of the variation in the disaster we were seeing, you know, there's some, there's some flooded fields that, that makes sense, right? You saw that cow there in the last slide. Now that's a, that's a, that's a cow lane, a lane way at a, at a dairy, you know, they're not, that's not ruined product. That's not flooded crops necessarily, but that is an important piece of infrastructure that was lost because of the rain. You know, we're seeing, you know, I think that's strawberries underwater there, someone's washed pack totally just completely inundated.  So, can I get that next one? Okay, so what's next? So this is something I'm kind of really excited about. Applications are still coming in for our emergency fund. I processed one today, certainly down from you know, 30 or 40 that we would see in a day end of July into August. But so it's really, it's really slowed down. Another emergency support is available. So the agency of agriculture has support. Some federal assistance has become available. It's not, you know, it feels like it's, there's a little bit more, you know, sort of in motion now. But that leaves us with about $750,000 in the fund. And we don't intend to hang on to that. So we've been really doing a lot of work internally at NOFA to try to figure out, you know, now what? We don't, we don't need that much money in the fund. And we want to really work in the spirit of these donations that we've been given to make sure we get money out to folks and help them as much as possible. So we are planning to open a second round. Possibly as early as next week, we're going to start sending out information on that for farmers who certainly if they haven't applied at all, they can and should. If you know one or are one, please encourage them to apply. But if they have applied and receive funding, we're going to go back with another $5,000 grant round. So, you know, again in the grand scheme of some of the the magnitude of loss that we've seen, 5,000, 10,000 isn't a massive, massive amount of money. But, you know, we do know that every little bit helps and the ability to kind of link up, you know, our funds, some state funds and federal funds all kind of work together to make people whole. So that's what's next. That's what, you know, you guys have really generously donated to us. That's what that money is going to be used for. It's not just going to sit in the bank. Certainly we will keep some for, you know, there will be a next time. But we are very much hoping to kind of get that out to folks really, really soon. Can I get the next one? So, and then beyond that, looking forward, I mean, you know, this was a climate change related event, right? This sort of thing is going to happen. It's going to keep happening. So, just to kind of give you a broad stroke of what we're working on internally, you know, we are, NOFA is really interested in building resilience. We really want to make sure that farmers are supported in finding ways to make their farms more resilient to everything. To climate change, be more resilient within their community. You know, we're really, we want to focus on that, you know, because these things will keep happening and the more that we can do afterwards prepares us for the next time. So, NOFA also has what we call our resilience grants, which is another grant program that we run typically opens up in the spring and that's for farmers to sort of apply, define resilience, however they define it. You know, every farm is different. Every farm thinks about things differently. You know, it could be a generator for a backup for their walk-in cooler or it could be a community meeting space on their farm to help build social resilience within their community. You know, we don't prescribe that. We're just sort of there to sort of help support. And we're also doing a lot of advocacy. So, we're really trying to sort of as much as possible, you know, push forward good climate smart goals, working at the state house, working at the federal level, just to sort of make sure these stories are told and make sure people understand that, you know, agriculture and Vermont is key to feeding us. It's key to what Vermont is as a state and the more things like this keep happening, the more we have summers like this, the harder it is and the, you know, the more that sort of impacts all of us. So, yeah, that is our, that is our next little bit. Do I have another slide? No? Perfect. Yeah. So thank you. Happy to answer any questions. I'd love to, if anybody has any questions specifically about the emergency fund, some of the work that we're doing, happy to, happy to answer. You don't have to though. All right. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. So the question was, do we work with the, with VYCC, who's sort of our, our neighbor organization in Richmond? We do. I don't personally, so I couldn't necessarily speak to that work. I know that we've, you know, done some volunteering over there. We've also done, we have a couple like growing projects going on over there, but I couldn't speak too much more about that. But happy to connect to someone at NOFA if you have like specific questions about that. I could give him the microphone so you could hear, yeah, good idea. I'm wondering about the fields that were flooded and contaminated. Obviously we lost the crops for this year, but now I'm starting to think about the next couple years and sort of the definition of organic farming, whether those fields can be considered organic and how, or how soon can they be? Or what, what do you do? Yeah. So that's a really, really good question. I don't want to speak too much to the certification side of things. My colleagues handle that and I put my foot in my mouth every time I talk about certification. What I will say is that was a question that came up a lot with my conversations with the farmers and we did a lot of testing. We helped a lot of farmers do a lot of testing, not just for the usual stuff that you would expect. We did a lot of like E. Coli testing and stuff like that. They also tested for heavy metals. So my understanding is that I, I don't know of a farm who saw any like massive longstanding contamination, but it is a really good question. I think that's something that we're kind of all have our eyes on, thinking about how do we, how do we keep an eye on that as it, as it happens? Because that is a, that is a good question. I don't know if my microphone is going to reach that far. You might have to, you might have to just yell, just yell. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. So what the, what the question was or the statement sort of was, you know, the most, the most fertile land that we have is along rivers, right? It's in flood plains. It's where the, over eons it's flooded and deposited all those nutrients and stuff like that. And I think that is something that people are thinking about. I was just out at the interval a couple of weeks ago, touring some of the farms down there. And you guys are probably familiar with the interval is very, very low, wicked fertile, beautiful, beautiful farmland, and just gets nailed when it floods. And it was really interesting seeing some of the farms down there. We toured through some of the infrastructure and they were actually showing us where, you know, you'd go to a wash pack shed and the compressor for the cooler, which nine times out of 10 sits on the ground, they've got up 10 feet. Everything, they're, they're prepared in there for a 200 year, 300, 500 year flood, everything is at, I want to say it's like a 10 foot level. It's all like eye level or above, I'm not 10 feet tall, but you know what I mean, it's eye level or above, let's say. Because the idea being, it is just going to keep happening. That infrastructure has to be located there and all you can do is adapt. And I think that is a really interesting thing to think about when we think about climate change and we think about the sort of thing that's keep happening, how do we adapt and still maintain our farming? You know, it would, it would be a loss I think to move out of areas like the intervail or some of the lower lying areas of Montpelier, both culturally we lose that farming tradition and also, you know, just economically that's really good farmland. So that's where we think about sort of adaptation, mitigation versus some other word I can't think of. Other questions? Okay. Well, happy to, I'll be kind of around for a little bit. Happy to chat. I'm Bill at NOFAVT.org. If you guys have any follow up questions, shoot me an email or something like that. I'm always happy to talk. So thank you so much. Thank you very much, Bill. Members of the co-op, welcome. Staff and council, welcome. My name is Nathan Souter and I use he, him pronouns. I live here in Montpelier and have been a member for about 10 years. I've been a consultant and a facilitator for seven years and I'm here today to support the members, staff and council as we work together to hold a positive, constructive annual meeting and celebrate the co-op. Because this is a meeting for business with a tight agenda, we provided cards on each table. There are index cards that look like index cards on each table. As questions or comments come to mind, please write them down and put them in the box right here or hand them to a staff person to make sure that they're included in the questions and comments that come out of this meeting. During the question and comment period later in the meeting, I've been charged with drawing questions or comments randomly from this box and reading them out loud. We have about a 10-minute period to do that later in the meeting. So we're trying to be equitable in terms of whose thoughts get expressed live in person in the meeting. And then all questions will be addressed to the best of the ability of the staff and leadership later on. And those will be in a blog, in a blog post and distributed via email to the membership. So we're trying to create a feedback cycle where you hear back in responses to your questions or comments. Staff, I just said that. I have a little bit of housekeeping I want to do. The first we did with Bill, just a little bit, which is anyone tonight who has a speaking role, this microphone doesn't work very well out here. It works much better when it's right here. So you have to pretend you're about to consume the microphone like it's chocolate cake. And then it works really well. Bathrooms are to my left at the back. Most of you are facing me, so to your right. Exit there. Exit there. What else have I got? I think that's my housekeeping list. At the back of the room, helping us with projection and magnifying my voice is Orchimedia. Orchimedia, thank you for being here. They're a community resource making this an accessible event. I want to remind everybody here in the room that we have a load of members who are participating via Zoom online. So welcome to folks who are on Zoom. And then there are also maybe members of the public or members in general who are watching this on the public access streaming on channel 1075 on Comcast. Is that accurate Christopher? OK, fantastic. So that's a way that we're able to include a lot more people in this meeting and also for folks who have health concerns or anything like that that can access the meeting. Let's see. Next, I want to take a quick break. I want you to look. I want you to greet the person next to you. And I'll talk about the Zoom folks in just a second. I want you to stand up, shake the hand of the person next to you, say something positive. Like, hey, you're all right. Those of you who are on the Brady Bunch, that's the Zoom, I want you all to pretend you can see the person in the next rectangle. And I want you to stand up wherever you are in your living room or bedroom.  All right, let's do it. Everybody up. OK, OK. Let's not let this get out of hand. Come on back. Have a seat. OK, thank you for indulging me. We'll have a little bit more movement break later in the meeting. Next up, I want to introduce the Co-op Council. We are joined by the Co-op Council this evening. The Council is the voice of and responsive to the membership. As such, the Council is responsible for setting policy, hiring, firing and supervising the general manager. The Council is not responsible for operations. The Council is not responsible for human resources. The Council delegates operations, personnel matters, et cetera, to the general manager. The general manager, interim general manager, is here with us tonight, Mary. General manager is responsible for operations, human resources, marketing, budgeting, financial management, and many other core roles. Council members who are here in the room, please stand when I call your name. Eva Schechtman, president. Thank you, Eva. Jeff, no, Jeff is not in the room. Excuse me. Steve. Steve Farnham. There you go. Right here. Stay standing. Help me with that. And I think that's it for folks who are in the room. Jen Poirier is here via Zoom. Thank you for attending, Jen. Jeff Roberts is attending via Zoom. Just a quick note, the only two Council members who have speaking roles this evening are Eva and Jeff. Genevieve Cambron is the staff representative, joining us via Zoom. Lauren Antler, I believe, is here via Zoom. Is that true? OK. Liv Dunton, Catherine Lother, and Ashley Moscarella. OK. Thank you very much. So now on to conduct agreements. In preparation for this meeting and in response to the tone and content of interactions regarding the co-op in the last several months, we have written conduct agreements to ensure that all dialogue at this meeting and regarding the co-op in general is marked by civility and the dignity of everyone involved. Our goal is a productive, positive meeting. We are all one community. Everyone in this community deserves respect and civility. And then one reminder is that we can have disagreements, we can ask tough questions, and we can have difficult conversations that are all marked by civility towards one another. We want members, all of us. We want staff, we want council members to continue coming back and serving the council and serving our community. And one way that we ensure that is by treating each other well. Everyone in the room and on Zoom has consented to these agreements, and we are looking forward to a civil and respectful conversation. Thank you. You can read those on the screen. If you're on Zoom, that's on your screen. So next up, I want to introduce Rowan Sherwood, who is Community Relations Assistant Manager to present tonight's agenda. Rowan. Hi, everyone. Again, welcome. I'm so glad that you are here. It is great to finally be together again after the long pandemic hiatus. So thank you for showing up. Our agenda tonight is here. It's pretty straightforward. A few things to note. We're obviously welcoming everybody now. We'll do an employee recognition. We will present the Hunger Mountain Cooperative Community Award and hear about the Hunger Mountain Cooperative Community Fund grantees. We'll then establish quorum and have a vote to approve last year's minutes. That's our only official item of business tonight. Those yes-no cards that you received while you were coming in, you can use those for that vote. Uh-oh. I need to see the agenda. I don't have it. Thank you. After that, we'll introduce our candidates running for council. You'll hear from them. And we'll describe how voting will work. Then we'll hear reports from the council and our general manager. And we'll take some questions and comments. I think Nathan mentioned this, but as questions come up, please write them down on your cards and we'll get them into the box. Given that we have such a limited amount of time, we really want to make sure that all questions can be heard. They might not be heard here tonight. So we'll get to as many as we can. And then we will respond and share out those responses in the coming weeks. So you can look for those. We will break into small group discussions. You'll notice on your tables, some of them have a little tent that say Jedi and some have a tent that say healing. So when that time comes around, if you're not at a table that is labeled with the discussion you would like to have, you will invite you to move to that table. We will have facilitators explaining how each group will work. And you all can have your discussions and take notes and, again, get them back to us. And we will take that in and report back any next steps that come out of that. And then we will close with raffles. Everyone who is here, both in the room and on Zoom, is automatically registered for our raffle prizes. And we will announce the winners. You don't need to be here to win.  But if you are here, you get to take it with you. So can we have the next slide? Just want to give a thank you. So there's a full list of raffles on your table. But we want to acknowledge Lisa Mase, singing Spindle, Spinnery, Emerge with Amy LaPage, Ashley Arnold, and Vermont Natural Resources Council for generous donations of raffle items. And again, we want to thank Orca Media and Joe's Kitchen for that fabulous dinner. Yeah. And the artists that we're talking about. So when we get to employee recognition, there are some long-term employees that we are recognizing. And they receive these beautiful plates from Pizazz Pottery and then the Hunger Mountain Cooperative Community Award. Matt C. Schultz makes us these beautiful glass apples. So we thank them very much for contributing those things. Yeah. Yay for our artists. Yeah. All right, then back to Nathan. I'm going to introduce Mary Malali, Interim General Manager. Mary is going to recognize long-term employees and present the Employee Service Award. Come on up. Hi, everyone. Thank you for being here tonight. Appreciate it. So yes, tonight we're going to talk about milestones for different, aha, milestone anniversaries for our employees. But first, I would like to take this opportunity to not only acknowledge these coworkers and their incredible longevity, but the staff as a whole. We have been through a challenging year and I want to appreciate all of our staff for their dedication and commitment to support the co-op. Absolutely. I am deeply grateful to each and every one of them. As you will see a little bit later, we enjoy a lot of employee longevity at the co-op. And this year, these staff members have hit important milestones. And as Rowan just mentioned, for those who reached the 20-year mark, they will receive a commemorative plate made by Pizazz Pottery. So this year, employees who have been with us for 10 years, Doug Barg, Justin Cote, Kurt Jensen, Kevin O'Donnell, Jared Langevin, Dan Needleman, James Sharpe, Jan Tobias, and Kate Zarielo. Thank you to them. 15 years, Terry Barber, Annie Coughlin, and Juliana Westcott. 20 years. So these are the folks that will get the commemorative plate. Oh, back. Yep, thanks. So 20 years, William Foxx, Tom Goulet, Beth Johns, Robin Joy Pierce, Yuri Prince, Jail Apolskaep, James Rosebush, and Tim Wingate. And then lastly, 25 years, Patrick Luce. Thank you to all of our staff for their commitment. OK, so on to the Customer Service Award. This year, that goes to Tyson Meyer. Yes, Tyson. So each year, our staff nominate and then vote for a co-worker who they believe exemplifies internal and external customer service. This year, our Customer Service Award goes to Tyson. He has worked at the co-op for seven years. He is originally from St. Louis. Loves seeing live music and enjoys local and organic foods. That is one of the reasons that he enjoys working at the co-op, actually. In recognition of Tyson's excellent customer service, we are providing with him with a gift to forget to bent nails to see some live local music. Congratulations, Tyson, and thank you very much. Thank you, Mary. Next, I want to present Tim Wingate, who is the CFO and Finance Manager at the co-op. Tim will present this year's Hunger Mountain Cooperative Community Award. Tim has had the privilege to work with and know this year's recipient for almost 30 years. Tim. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to celebrate and recognize one of our most valued and respected members and co-workers, Mary Wells. Mary has been with Hunger Mountain Co-op for over 30 years. And as the bookkeeper and as a pillar of our cooperative and our community, Mary is incredibly diligent. After an entire year and a retirement of just two days from the state of Vermont, Mary joined our team in the fall of 1990. And today, we're celebrating her 33 years at the co-op. Since she joined us, she has worked steadily as our bookkeeper, weekly entering hundreds of vendor invoices, matching up invoices with payments, reconciling monthly statements, researching vendor inquiries, and ensuring that the vendors get paid. She rarely misses a day. And if it's Tuesday at 8.30, you can find Mary at the AP desk, sharing her expertise and wisdom. Outside the co-op, Mary has lived and volunteered in central Vermont for many years, serving as treasurer of the Riverton Snowduster Snowmobile Club and the Berlin Historical Society. She organized and helped town meeting days, was a 4-H leader, and continues to be active in her church.  Mary enjoys the Vermont outdoors and is always willing to help and give the helping hand. She even still plows her own driveway. So if you need a plow driver. She was an early adopter of green technology and is one of the first people we know to install solar and drive a hybrid vehicle. Mary, we're so grateful for your service, dedication, and friendship. You have made a lasting impact on our cooperative and our community, and you have left a legacy that we will always cherish. It is my pleasure and honor to present you with the 2023 Hunger Mountain Cooperative Community Award. You deserve it. Fantastic. Congratulations, Mary. Thank you, Tim. Next up, Jeff Roberts. Jeff is joining us via Zoom. Jeff will present the recipients of the Hunger Mountain Cooper Community Fund grants. Jeff is a council member and the current treasurer. Jeff, you're up. And I know that back behind the curtain here, Jeff is working hard to work on, to manage the technical pieces of this. So thank you to Jess, even though you can't see her right now. Good evening, everyone. My name is Jeff Roberts, and I have the pleasure of telling you all about the various organizations that the co-op is supporting this year through its Cooperative Community Fund. We always get a number of applications, and it's always a challenge as to how we allocate the money. That money, by the way, is in part what the co-op does in the community. So we have a number of these that I want to just touch base on. The first one, Central Vermont Council on Aging, located over in Barrie. This was a project that they're doing for volunteer gardeners and older adults to grow produce and to participate in gardening. The funds will cover part of the soil prep seeds and other tools in partnership with a local farm. The second one is the Circle Organization, also located in Barrie. And this is, again, a food related one, to help them purchase canning supplies and so forth for the communal kitchen. They are a domestic violence support organization who want to provide a safe cooking for their shelter space and also to support their various residents. They're going to be using this to purchase additional equipment for the kitchen food processor, Tupperware, and so forth. Number three down in Northfield is the Glynnis Hill Farm. They're doing a solidarity CSA program which offers no-cost produce to shares, to low-income neighbors. The funds will help as a starter and also provide $25 a week for 10 weeks to four families over the winter. A really important benefit which Glynnis does in order to help their community. Number three is here in Montpelier, Ishtar Collective. This is the help with paying for the flood damage this past summer to their food storage access.  Their fridge and gardenery is actually open to everyone in need. And during the flood, the sad thing is that the refrigerator floated away in the floodwaters and then damaged to the storage area. This is going to help support repairs and new equipment. Begin a re-irrigation system. We have two additional, well, we have one more additional one and then two applications that we help support in a different way. The migrant justice center located over in Burlington, it's a statewide organization to partially fund their request towards a new public address system and computers to further their work, fighting for economic justice and human rights for migrant farm workers here in Vermont. We also then provided two additional organizations with gift cards usable here at the co-op to buy food and other supplies for their two groups. We're really thrilled about how we're able to reach out into the community and support organizations both directly, let's say, creating food here for us or how they support the various civil rights of people that we are very, very deeply concerned with. I thank you for your attention and let's keep up the great work going forward. Good night. Thank you to Jeff. Next up, we are going to establish quorum. So quorum for an annual meeting of the Hunger Mountain Co-op is 100 members, getting a little bit of buzz there. If I step away from the speaker, no one gets hurt. Look at that. Okay, so we have 79 members attending via Zoom and 121 bodies in the room. So we're well north of 100 people that establishes quorum made up of online and in-room membership sufficient to conduct the business of the Hunger Mountain Co-op annual meeting. Next up, we are going to vote on the minutes from 2022, but before that, we're going to practice. Y'all have one of these, says yes and no. It's a great relationship communicating tool. Consent is important, all those things. Now, folks in the Brady Bunch online on Zoom, you didn't get this special card, I'm sorry, but you do have a reactions icon in the lower part of your screen if you're on a laptop, and that is how you're going to vote.  So before we do something that matters for the business of the meeting, we're going to practice. One of the things that makes me feel good about myself is that I think of myself as a lifelong learner, and I used to think that a goat was an animal, but I've learned from my kids that goat is actually an acronym that means greatest of all time. So we're just going to do a quick impromptu poll. People on Zoom, you're going to raise your virtual hand in response to the poll. People in the room, you're going to, if you're voting yes, you're going to raise the yes ticket. So the query is, who is the greatest of all time between Beyonce, Taylor Swift, or Nina Simone? I'll repeat that in case that didn't sink in. Greatest of all time, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, or Nina Simone? There is a correct answer, just so you know. Okay, those of you in the room, raise your ticket if you think Beyonce is the greatest of all time. Oh boy, the beehive is hurting. Online, how are we doing? We got some virtual hands, we're practicing, okay. All right, that's a rough day for Beyonce, even online. Okay, put down your virtual hands online. Next up, Taylor Swift votes. How many Swifties? Oh my goodness, wow. Okay, at least online we got a little bit more support for Taylor Swift. All right, back it off. Last but not least, in my opinion, Nina Simone. It's a landslide here in the room, folks. And online, what's the vote count there? Well, you may have heard the phrase break the internet. I think that's what just happened to our Zoom. Okay, thank you, hands down. Good job practicing, that was fantastic. All right, now I have to get back to my script, which is a little bit drier. Okay, the way this works is because this is a member meeting. If I need a motion to approve the annual meeting minutes, I have a motion in the back. What's your name back there? Paul Olson moves to pass the annual meeting minutes from 2022, I need a second. I have a second from Steve Farnum. Okay, is there any discussion about whether or not we should approve the meeting minutes from 2022? Okay, that's the sound of crickets. All those in favor of passing the annual meeting minutes or approving them from 2022, please raise your voting tags. I can count the people who aren't raising them much more easily than those who are. We've got a clear majority in the room and I see floods and floods of hands online. I'm just gonna glance behind the magic curtain over here. Okay, at least 29 online, the rest of them are still finding the reactions tab. So we have a majority of the members attending, approving the minutes from 2022. The motion passes, thank you very much. That was the main piece of business of this meeting, not so bad. Okay, next up, this is another movement break, you ready? I thought this might take longer, so I was giving you more space between movement breaks.   If you wanna add some style, you can try to strut like Mick Jagger or something else, do a lap, get back to your seat. If you're at home and you're on the couch, you need to get up from the couch. If you're at the kitchen table, get up from the kitchen table.  Now normally I would have some background music and it'd be like musical chairs and we cut off the music and would take away your chairs, but I wasn't that organized tonight. Okay, well done. Next item of business, we are entering into the election period for new council members and Rowan Sherwood, superstar from earlier in the meeting, is going to talk about council elections.  Hi again. So each year we as members elect our council representatives. The council is our governing body and council members are our voice at the co-op. They oversee the general manager and set policies that guide how the co-op operates. They each bring their own expertise and areas of interest to the table and they are there to listen to your ideas and concerns. This year we have six candidates for four open seats. We're gonna see some short videos from each of the candidates who have submitted one and you can learn more about each candidate at our voting website, which is not our regular website. You can get there from our regular website but to actually vote you need to go to hungermountaincoopvotes.com. There will also be printed ballots in the exit way of the store as well as printed materials describing the candidates. So let's see who's running. Our wizards behind the curtain are working on it. I'm Christian Connolly, a member owner for about a decade. You and I may not know each other but you and I already share that together we own our co-op. Today we might also share valid feelings of anger, dismay, and distrust toward our council and management. Our council defers the management without blinking and both groups ignore or deceive us without reservation. It's time for that to end. Let's be the co-op of truth, transparency, and trust. Please join me by voting for change. Thank you. Hi, I'm Carl Etnair. In difficult times, the co-op needs leaders who know how to disagree without being disagreeable. How to listen to people who've been hurt and take their concerns seriously and how to respond to all types of inputs from members. As a result of my work on the council from 2016 to 2018 and then subsequently chairing the committee that revised the bylaws, members now have more tools to participate in co-op democracy. Please help me continue that work. Thank you. Hello, my name is Stephen Farnham and I'm looking to be reelected to the governing council of the Hunger Mountain Food Co-op. We've been through a lot this summer and it is my hope that I'll be able to participate in the council going forward and closely examine how we could have better handle what happened this summer and how we can better handle it in the future. My contact information is on the website and it's also posted at the exit of the co-op. Please let me know if there's any way I can be helpful. Thank you again for your support. Hi, I'm Catherine Lother. I joined the co-op in 1989. My background includes growing food organically all my life, being in private practice, doing psychotherapy and health counseling and teaching at Goddard College for 23 years where I started the BA in sustainability program, offered courses in climate change and helped the college reach carbon neutrality. I'm very grateful to be on the co-op council where I chair the sustainability committee and help the co-op localize our food sources, support our farmers and reduce carbon emissions. In terms of the co-op and what is happening now, at least some elements within the member owner community wanting to intervene and change certain aspects of how things are managed and governed and meeting with a wall of resistance and resentment from the existing council and management. It seems clear to me that we are in a learning moment. The membership needs to be heard and the council needs to listen. If we do not learn, then we will fail to come together and we will be a divided house and miss the blessing of being the best that we can be. I'm hoping for the best. So, I feel like I'm not, ah, there we are. Okay, so voting actually began at 5 p.m. tonight and will remain open until 8 p.m. on November 27th. As I mentioned earlier, we have four open seats and six candidates. You have now heard from them directly. Feel free to go to the voting website. Again, it's hungermountaincoopvotes.com and you can read their full bios and cast your vote. And again, all the information is in the exit way of the store in paper form for those who prefer that to the computer. With that, I would like to thank our outgoing council candidates. I mean, the council members. Well, I guess instead of doing that, we will, oh, okay. We're good. We can go to the next one. Okay, thank you. So our outgoing council members are RJ, Adler, Liv Dunton, and Julia Shire. And Genviev Cambron is our staff representative. They are all finishing their terms or leaving the council and we wanna just thank them for their service. So, thank you all. Thank you. I just wanted to pause. Is it, I got one report from the floor that we heard from five candidates via video, not six. Yes, there is one candidate that had not yet submitted a video. We're hoping to be able to receive that soon and get it up on the website so people can get to know them as well. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Paul, for bringing that up. Oh, there's a name. It's Elizabeth Jezdale, who is also a co-op employee. Thank you so much. Okay, next up, I wanna introduce, again, Eva Schechtman, who is president of the council, and then following Eva will be Mary Malali, interim general manager. Eva is gonna present the council report and then Mary will present the management report. Thank you so much. Do you want that one? Do you wanna hear? Do you all mind if I stand behind the podium? Okay, thank you. So, pardon me for just a second here. Okay, yeah, I gotta be right up against the mic. I'd like to start by thanking everyone who contributed to the continued success of the co-op this year. Thank you to all the co-op employees and managers with all the obstacles that have made work challenging this year. To interim general manager Mary Malali for her leadership and to former general manager Kerry Bradley for his 19 years of dedicated service to the co-op. Now I'll be sharing some highlights from our previous year in regard to our mission statement and the work that the council has focused on. Let's begin with the part of our mission that calls for a vibrant community. We ended our fiscal year with just over 10,000 members, which means that one in six people in our community are co-op members. It's really extraordinary. In our annual shopper survey conducted in February, we found that our shoppers are highly likely to recommend the co-op to friends and colleagues. Thank you all so much for your support. Our co-op cares program grew significantly in the past year as it has for the past three years. I love this program so much. As engaged members, as you all know, leadership of the co-op is vital to everyone's experience, staff, member owners, vendors, council members and the larger community. On the topic of leadership, our focus is on recruiting and hiring a new general manager to lead our co-op. Equity is the state or quality of being fair. The council has come to recognize that to be equitable, we need to address not only compensation for the work of council and committee members, but also our use of time. As a result, earlier this year, council development focused on participation in agenda planning, committee restructuring and time management training. As you may know, the council has an annual retreat every year. This year, we focused on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, and ends policies. Quick side note here on how we as a council work. We set and operate under ends policies and you may ask what's an ends policy. It's a destination we want to reach as a co-op. One example is sustainability. Years ago, the council set sustainability as an end and then directed the co-op leadership to make this a priority. In this case, one strategy is more reliance on solar power to meet our energy needs. The general manager and their team then report back to us on their progress. As Mary will report in a few minutes, the co-op has made real progress toward sustainability in its energy use in the last three years through solar power. One of the results of the annual retreat was our dinner and discussion panel presentation. This past May at the senior center. It was our first in-person event since the pandemic began and it was great to be together again just like we're here tonight.  And had a lively discussion about the issues they face. We also gathered feedback from the presenters and member owners for future council discussion on ends policies and for planning future dinner and discussions. A big thanks to everyone who made that event a great success. And now I'm going to invite our interim general manager Mary Malali to present her report. Thank you all very much. Hi again. So before I begin my portion, let me get this right. Before I begin my portion of the business report, I'd like to take a minute to acknowledge the recent structure fire at RK Miles. We are profoundly relieved and deeply thankful that no one was injured in the structure fire at the lumber yard next to the co-op last Wednesday. And then gratitude goes out to our staff and shoppers for their quick thinking, ensuring a safe evacuation. Our hearts are filled with gratitude for the heroic and tireless efforts of the first responders and fire departments who protected our community, including the co-ops building. Our thoughts and support are with RK Miles during this challenging time. While we're still evaluating the damage to the outside of our building, the swift reopening of the co-op would not have been possible without the incredible support of our community. We wholeheartedly appreciate the first responders and firefighters from Washington County. We are sincere thanks extend to Green Mountain Power, Tanner Electric, and New England Air for their prompt response in getting our systems back up and running. We are deeply grateful to Community Harvest of Central Vermont for their offer of support and fast action in picking up perishable products for charitable distribution. Our profound gratitude goes to consolidated communications for their dedication to restoring our phone and fiber lines. Finally, a heartfelt thank you to our dedicated staff for their unwavering support and reopening our community's co-op. And to our community, we extend our heartfelt thanks for your outpouring of support. In times of adversity, our co-op has displayed remarkable resilience and unity. It's in these challenging moments that this true spirit of cooperation shines. Thank you. Transitioning back to our business reports. So part of our mission calls for us to create a sustainable local foods system. This effort is supported by our 362 Vermont farmers who we purchased over $9.4 million in goods and services from in the past year.  Our customers also demonstrated their commitment to supporting the local economy by purchasing over $11 million in local products from us. That is about 40% of our gross sales. In the past year, we began several new partnerships with BIPOC and LGBTQ plus local farmers. And that includes Susu Community Farm and New Fane Vermont, Milkweed Farm in Westminster, West Vermont, and Bartlett Hill Berry Farm in Plainfield, Vermont. In addition to the co-op's local purchasing activities, which helped to improve our environmental impact due to a reduction in miles from farm to table, we have shown a reduction in propane use combined with that with the offset from our solar array production. And we have again decreased the total amount of CO2 we have emitted this year by 17%. We are also proud to be able to provide over $91,000 in donations and sponsorships this past year. The majority of these funds went to support stabilizing food insecurity in central Vermont, including over $12,000 that went to the Montpelier Food Pantry. A huge part of our vibrant community that the mission refers to is our staff. Our coworkers who show up every day and continue to contribute to Hunger Mountain Co-op success. Our team totaled 188 employees at the end of the fiscal year. 74% of our employees are member owners and 83% participate in our retirement plan. We continue to enjoy longevity with our staff as you saw in an earlier slide. With 84 employees working at least five years, 57 employees working at least 10 years, and 15 working at least 20 years, we really value and appreciate their commitment. All right, now shifting to a very brief, I promise, financial report for fiscal year 2023, which ended July 2nd. We're pleased to share that our fiscal year 2023 financial statements were reviewed by Wagner CPA. Based on their review, no material modifications to our accounting procedures were needed in order for them to be in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the US. And also note that the fiscal year 2022 financial statements were audited by Wagner CPA as well, and they expressed an unmodified opinion. So our mission speaks to thriving cooperative commerce, and one way we measure that is in terms of our own business. Our gross sales were up 6.9% to 29.1 million. We also invest in other co-ops and associated loan funds that support cooperative development as well. We currently have over $671,000 invested there. Additionally, we contribute to other co-ops by selling their products. Last year, about 1.4 million or close to 5% of our sales were from product made by other co-ops. We also had net sales of 28.4 million after accounting for cost of goods, operating expenses, and other adjustments. We had a net income before taxes of $332,000, just over $332,000. The council declared a patronage refund of just over $323,000, which we will distribute 60% of this coming March as a credit at the register. The balance sheet indicates that we are in solid overall financial health with 11.5 million in total assets. This is equal to our total liabilities of 3.55 million and total equity of 7.95 million. This equity is the net worth that we have accumulated as a cooperative community over our 51 years. That concludes my portion of the financial report. And before we transition to comments and questions about the report, I would like to take a minute to acknowledge the incidents of harassment from this spring. We recognize that these upheavals have caused, sorry, we recognize the upheaval these events have caused in our community and understand that they are in direct contrast to our values as a member owned cooperative business. Our co-op takes concerns of sexual harassment extremely seriously. We have continued to cooperate with law enforcement to ensure justice is served. Furthermore, we are committed to fulfilling our pledge to enhance our policies and procedures to create the safest possible environment at the co-op for everyone. It's crucial that we take a moment to share with you the steps that we have taken since July. We have worked collaboratively with our staff and union to update the harassment policy, aligning it with the new changes to the Vermont state law that took effect in July. We hired an external human resources expert who during their time with us reviewed our documents and procedures used in the harassment case, providing recommendations for HR best practices moving forward, conducted an audit of our current HR practices and policies and served as interim HR manager during the transition. I'd also like you to help join me in welcoming our new HR manager. As of Monday, November 6th, we have welcomed a seasoned human resource manager, Dean Valencourt, who was hired through a selection committee composed of both staff and management. We're currently collaborating with the union leadership and outright Vermont and Mosaic to provide listening sessions for staff who were affected by harassment concerns. And we're also working on setting up training for union leadership and management led by outright Vermont and Mosaic. Additionally, we plan for the future development of the all staff training on sexual harassment, utilizing insights gained from the mentioned training. And separately from this, we're planning for a more in-depth training of our management team as well. We understand that this has been a difficult time for everyone. Please be assured that our co-op is fully committed to ensuring a safe, trusted, and valuable work environment and community resource for all. This commitment remains our daily focus at the co-op both today and in the future. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Mary. Roland, to discuss the Q and C questions and comments. Right, so if anyone has a question or a comment, you can raise your hand or raise the card and we can have a few people circulating around to collect those. So if you have something that you would like to put into the mix, just raise your hand, raise your, let us know, I see one in the back and we'll gather up what we've got. Do we have, are we having some questions coming in over Zoom? Okay, so we will also pivot to those in the course of this. Any other questions or comments? All right. Well then. Yes, I know. I feel like the little kid drawing a raffle ticket. Oh, I got some more coming from the back. Thank you, Stephanie. Thank you, Winston. Okay, so we have allotted about 10 minutes for this. Winston's gonna help keep me honest on the time. Thank you very much, Stephanie. Hopefully you like my voice. Hopefully I can do justice to the tone and content of the questions. Thanks for participating this way. And just wanna reiterate that the co-op is committed to responding to questions and comments in time as best they are able, because obviously they matter. Your questions and comments matter, okay. I was disappointed to hear that no candidates spoke of their experience of overseeing a multi-million dollar organization that many, hold on, employees and vendors depend on for their livelihood and for that of their families. Thank you. I am so grateful to Hunger Mountain employees who persevered during the pandemic. Thank you. Winston, you have a clock going for me? You have a timer going for me? Excellent. Oh my goodness. All right. Comment, this is not a question. There is a question later on. There is a question later on. Rather, this is a comment about the nature of the community agreement below. I found it written in a negative way. I ask, what does the behavior at previous meetings tell you about the shadow of the organization? The suggestion that council members fear for their life is interesting to me. Have council members been able to express their silent collusion, I think they mean collusion, with an administration that has perhaps not handled things in a transparent and accountable manner? Even though that management has been removed, just asking, I would be happy to receive a reply from council who have been sitting on the board throughout this period. Why do you believe that you are being targeted? Your lack of knowing about the problems is something you need to take responsibility for. You are not the victim. You participated in a flawed system. How will you change the system to become willing to listen? How will you change the system to create a safe space for people to express their concerns and be heard in a timely fashion? How can you justify throwing money at temporary managers paying them at a rate that is so disproportionate to the staff salaries? How are the interim managers listening to the membership? Question, my question is, will the co-op board during this time change, I think they mean time of change, continue with the current governance structure or seek to receive education and training to learn about a more inclusive governance structure such as sociocracy? The Franklin Community Co-op has done this. The current governance model has allowed for a top-down structure that may very well have contributed to the problems that were allowed to continue. How open is the board to learning about system changes? Thank you for reading my comment and question. I look forward to your response. How can we get the staff employees to be more engaged with members in an open, positive manner? Question. What was in the minutes that we all approved? That's a great question. So, I can answer that one. There are paper copies of the minutes up front at the registration table. Minutes are available online on the annual meeting page as well. And I did not attend last year's annual meeting, shame on me, but were you there? You could corroborate or disagree with what's contained in the minutes. Is that okay that I answer that question? I'm just a facilitator. Okay, thanks. Hello, as Hunger Mountain Co-op's new human resources manager, I would like to attend the annual meeting for the betterment of my understanding on the current state of the organization. Thanks, Dean. Dean, as a member, welcome to the annual meeting. I think you're the Dean who's here. All right. Why did the co-op fail to address the false narrative in the media regarding accusations of sexual harassment? Okay, I've got six minutes down or six remaining? Six minutes remaining. We're gonna get through a lot of these, this is great. Hello, the whole thing is going, the whole thing is going sound here and of course, everyone is sharing facts. That's really excellent. Keep writing, keep up writing, okay. It is totally inappropriate to have us sign the conduct agreement. According to the bylaws, all members are entitled to attend the meeting. For any change to that, the council would have had a warned meeting of the members for what it's worth. There was, no member was prevented from being part of this meeting, either on Zoom or in person and the, anyway, so. But I take the point. I'd like to hear more about how the co-op is improving workplace culture, empowering employees and improving managerial accountability. My hands are getting full. This is probably good, good for other people to hear the same questions. Why has a current manager not been fired for their inappropriate actions towards another co-worker? Please explain why the co-op fought to the death to protect this person and their job while also committing actions like terminating a worker's job after an anonymous complaint and no evidence or investigation to support the claims being made. What did we get out of our investment in the HR consultant? I consider the conduct agreement to be an illegitimate attempt to take away my free speech rights. Organizers should be open to taking questions from the floor. More questions will arise in our minds as we go through the meeting and hear various ideas and comments. Part A, questions to co-op employees, hourly salaried. One, have employees' concerns been addressed regarding managers who were accused of bullying or intimidating behavior? Two, I was given to understand that Kari Bradley was an extremely good businessman, the one who brought the co-op to where it is now in terms of success, in terms of success. I'm curious after all the noise that was recently made by members and staff, if employees have been positively affected by his resignation, if so, how? Number three, have employees been positively affected by the resignation of the HR director, Jay Wissner? If so, how? Part B, questions to candidates running for counsel. Billy Donovan, who withdrew his candidacy, so is no longer a candidate. Billy Donovan harassed the bylaws committee time and again because they voted online in Zoom meetings during the pandemic. He said it was against the rules. He's still angry at those who were on that committee. Questions, A, to be elected today, many will have to vote for him online. Can he accept that? And B, if elected, he too will have to vote online during meetings. Can he do it? I'd like Billy to answer these two questions. I don't believe Billy is here and probably not available to answer those questions, but point taken. Christian Connolly sent pages and pages of emails to the co-op staff and council because bulk goods were not provided via the curbside program during the pandemic. Will Christian answer the question as to how, if elected, he would work effectively as a council member if, A, he cannot understand the concept of, quote, shortage of staff, unquote, and how staff were stretched thin during the pandemic. If he cannot understand how a business must allocate staff hours to where it is needed most, and B, in addition, how he would respond if he were bombarded continuously with numerous long emails, would it help him do his job? What is the community used to represent? What is the community used to maybe represent one, colon, six? Great question. Thank you. So in the, I think in Eva's report from the council, Eva reported that the co-op had 10,000 members, more or less, as of the close of the fiscal year, and Eva reported that that represented one in six members of the community. Is that, I understand. No, I just, I'm trying to clarify the question based on the population of Washington County. Thank you. I love it when we can answer a question right away. Can't, one minute, one minute to go. Okay, can you tell, I'm just gonna speak really quickly. Can you tell us more about what changed in the HR policies? How's the search going for the new general manager? How are employees doing in terms of morale? What can members do to help? That's a lovely closer. Maybe we'll stop there. That was nice. Let's stop there. Okay. So most of those that you saw printed out on strips of paper came in during the registration process when people registered online and they were able to add comments or questions. So I think that in the initial design, the questions and comments period was supposed to be reflecting upon the reports of the council and the management. But obviously there's a lot going on so I think it's useful to have heard questions that are on other topics. Okay. Next up, we are gonna break into groups for small group discussions. Let's see, there are two topics for the discussions. One is about community healing and what the community may need to heal. That's gonna be led by Rachel Jolly and those folks will be at tables. Right, sort of starting here and going that direction. The second topic is about justice, equity, inclusion and diversity, Jedi, and more specifically about inclusion at the co-op and how it's practiced. And that is gonna be led by Ellie Wood. People sitting at tables from to my right and your left and towards the door are gonna be participating in those discussions. If you are sitting at a table that is about inclusion and you wanna be talking about community healing, get up and move over to the community healing side and find some friends. If you're in the community healing side of the room and wanna be talking about inclusion, hop up and move over here. Rachel, will you stand up? Rachel Jolly is gonna be leading the community healing discussion. Ellie Wood, will you stand up and wave over by the door? Ellie Wood is gonna be leading the inclusion discussion. Let's give us 90 seconds to get up and move seats if you wanna move seats. Thank you very much. There's still cake. There's still cider. Don't sleep on that. It's all really good. How is it working for the folks on Zoom? So I think what's going to happen is that on Zoom, there'll be two breakout rooms on Zoom. I'm gonna hand this to Rowan who knows what's happening on Zoom. So there will be two breakout rooms in Zoom. Which people can self-select into those rooms. And each of them will have a shared document in which they can record their notes as well. So we will receive that. And we will have a few staff popping into the Zoom rooms to check in with folks and make sure that they're moving along. Let's give it about one more minute to find the right table for you. And then we are gonna hand over the floor. We won't be using the PA. Oh wait, maybe we will. Rachel, Rachel is gonna take over the microphone. Thanks. Hi everyone, for the healing groups, I'm gonna suggest that even if you are at the right table with the label, if we can move towards this side of the room that would really help for audio purposes since we don't have use of the PA just to provide some space in between the two groups. I hope that's okay in terms of mobility but just asking anybody who's interested in the healing group to move to tables this way. All right, I have a motion to adjourn from Steven. I have a second from Eva, all in favor of adjourning this year's annual meeting. Raise something. All right, raise your children, raise your hand, raise your yes tag we have. Proved a motion to adjourn. Have a great evening folks. It may be slippery out there.  Thank you all for coming. Cheers.


In Burkina Faso, a pilot project was implemented to test the feasibility of performance-based financing, PBF. Despite initial successes, the project was put on hold due to lack of political support and other contextual factors. Discussions are currently underway to integrate certain aspects of the PBF model into a larger user fee exemption policy. This article was authored by Matthew Cepi, Valerie Rida, and Paul Andresum.


The modern power system is transitioning away from synchronous machines and toward inverter-dominated systems with large-scale penetration of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Traditional approaches to integrating these sources into the grid can cause frequency instability, which can be addressed by using inverters with virtual inertia control algorithms. These algorithms mimic the behavior of synchronous generators, allowing them to appear as such to the grid while maintaining system stability. This paper reviews the current state of the art in virtual inertia implementations, including their topologies and how they relate to synchronous generator dynamics. It also discusses the challenges and opportunities for future research. This article was authored by Ajwal Tamrakar, Deepesh Shrestha, Manisha Maharjan, and others.


Welcome to start up the storefront presented by Orabora. All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to Toast It. Thanks so much for joining. We're here to talk about your Shark Tank story, what happened after the beginning of the company. For people who don't know, what is Toast It? What's the company? First of all, thank you for inviting us Diego. We're super excited to be here and we're fans of your podcast. I'll try to be as quick as I can. So Toast It is a brand of better for you Latin American food staples. We first started out by basically trying to fulfill a personal need. We moved to the States about seven and eight years ago, respectively, and started our corporate careers here and just started noticing how we were missing sort of a little bit of our culture or our traditions that we had when we lived back home in Venezuela. One of them being eating arepas every day. Arepa, it's basically like like a corn flour bread that typically Venezuelans and a lot of other South Americans eat daily almost. And it's typically made from scratch, but it can take up to 20 minutes to make. So when we moved to the States and we had, you know, this hectic lifestyles and corporate, corporate careers, we found ourselves losing this tradition and just started innovating with recipes and started thinking how we could bring this product in a really convenient way, but also using really great ingredients and keeping the recipe as traditional and as as close to the real thing as we could. And so that's how everything started in our own kitchen and, you know, it evolved into what it is today. For people who don't know, arepas are delicious. I recommend anyone to try them. This is a story. It's so funny. The story you guys are sharing. If you guys remember Junae from from Brazibites, similar story, also on Shark Tank. She was on our podcast, too, where like the pan de queso from Brazil, she just wanted to bring it back and, you know, bring that culture to the United States, which I love the mission. I love when entrepreneurs, when it's like bigger than just a business, it's like there's a part of home that they're just trying to share with the world. Did you guys have any background in CPG or in food where you were like, OK, this kind of makes sense. Yeah, I actually worked at Popsico for almost five years. I started out leading financial planning for one of their first direct to consumer brands and then went on to lead finance revenue management for their beverage business in the Southeast. My sister was more focused in marketing and consumer insights within the banking industry. But yes, we did have some experience. And when we first launched our first products and started selling through e-commerce, I was able to identify that our repeat rates were really interesting by my knowledge of the industry. And that's when basically we decided to invest more and more time on the business. And we found out that we really had something special. That's interesting. So you guys are you guys are like the dream team? Yes. But that said, just to add to Maffi's background. Well, she did have a lot of background in CPG, but at the same time, and I think you would agree, Maffi, when you start something on your own, it's a completely different story. You you start with limited resources, just learning every day about production, about so many things that you don't even know exist when you work in corporate. And so that's what makes it very interesting and at the same time, really difficult. Yeah. What was the the first product? So obviously you can do arepas, you can do a whole variety of them. And so what was like the what was the one the one you went to market with or the one maybe you just made for your small group of friends and family to test to see if the recipe was right. So our initial product was the arepas. We started out with two skews, our original traditional recipe, the one that you would eat in Venezuela and in most of South America. And then we decided to innovate a little bit with a second version, which had chia and flax seeds. A lot of people love them, they're varying on trend. So that was our second product. And then we moved on to our third arepa version, the yuca and cheese arepa. It has real yuca root, white Latin American cheese. It's it's delicious and one of our best sellers. And then we moved on to pandebonos, which if you're familiar, our traditional Colombian cheese bread, they're also super popular in the US. So we thought it'd be a great, great way to move towards a second product line and possibly continue growing our products, our products, not only to be arepas, but more a Latin American food brand. You said something earlier where you guys started as an e-commerce business. Was the play to always sort of try to dominate the e-commerce space? Or did you realize you'd have to be CPG also? But obviously e-commerce is a lot better, a lot easier, the margins are better, and then the eventual valuation of the business is bigger. But how what are you guys today? Are you still e-commerce? Is it CPG? Is it a hybrid? So no, we actually started with direct to consumer because we were that small, right? So I mean, I'm actually really proud to say that we started out very small. We started in our own kitchens, cooking ourselves. Eventually we were able to hire help. And then when we saw that the business was actually picking up, we saw that the repeat rates were really great. And there were some interest, real interest from retailers is when we were able to migrate into a more industrialized system. But we do believe that when you look at consumer behavior, it is more I guess some more established consumer behavior to actually go to the retailers to do your grocery shopping for the week more so than buying for groceries online. Still, we know that there's a population that buys their groceries online, but it's still limited compared to the percentage of people that are still going to the stores. Although we do believe that it's an interesting venue to explore and have your direct to consumer channel to educate the consumer and have the option to buy from there. If there's anyone that wants to explore your brand and try out your products. Right now, the great majority of our sales are coming from retail and we do believe that it's a faster way to scale. And at some point, where do you guys get the idea to go to Shark Tank? Is that do you guys get approached by them or are you guys seeing it on TV? You're just a fan. What was the moment you were like, I think we should apply to Shark Tank. Well, we've always been fans of the show, of course. I think it's for both of us. It has been a great avenue for understanding how businesses work in the U.S., how they can scale, how it's important exposure is and contacts, etc. asked to, you know, or compared to what our experience was living in Venezuela and, you know, founding and managing businesses there, which is so different. I just want to remind people that we've only been living here for seven years. So it has been a bit of a learning curve and everything is so different. But the show has been great for us to educate ourselves as far as how to found and grow a business. At some point, I'm going to say we're part of one of those communities around CPG in the U.S. that are so great. And someone shared a link to apply to the show and we were like, well, let's let's go ahead and try. You know, we we never know what might happen. We didn't have great expectations because it's so competitive. But we just went ahead and, you know, applied for the show with our best intentions, with without some any expectations. And, you know, be careful what you wish for because eventually we passed and passed auditions until they finally gave us a green light. That's amazing. And how long after your company was started, did you guys get on the show? So we first started selling in 2020. So it was three years after we first started. I want to ask you this just personally. And so I was born in Peru. You guys are from Venezuela. There's a part of, I think, at least for me, when I moved to America, I just thought like, oh, my God, like you can do anything here. I really felt like that because politically, you're in a safe environment. Capital wise, you realize like you can kind of do anything. There's no real rules or in the sense of like there's no one holding you back. Right. It's just up to you. When you guys moved here, did you did you always have the ambition to start a company? Did you feel like the environment was just so different when compared to South America, Venezuela, that it just felt like a different part of you could sort of explore this creativity of business? What were your like your personal journeys into that? In my case, it definitely was. I do believe that there are some certain constraints in South America to start a business to your point before about accessing capital or even certain, I guess, limitations when it comes to how seriously people could take you in certain countries. It certainly is in Venezuela. You know, we're two young women at the time. You know, at some point during our our journey, we were both pregnant, too, which could also, you know, seem like a limitation or sort of like a deterrent for some people to invest. So I certainly felt like this was a great place to innovate, to be creative. And I felt like, you know, really the sky is the limit. Shows like this also helped us a lot. We listen to a lot of entrepreneurship podcasts where you can listen to stories of a lot of really inspirational people that, you know, aren't necessarily the people that you would think would start businesses that are very, you know, successful, which are typically like people who went to certain, you know, universities or had a certain background or had certain backing, you know, where immigrants that came here, women and we were able to identify ourselves and see our stories reflected on some of the entrepreneurs that started businesses and were really successful, you know, people in later stages of life or people that didn't have the specific business background and being so successful, right? So we felt inspired and felt like we could also do it too. Yeah, let's talk about your shark tank experience. And so before you get on the show, did you do a lot of preparation in terms of who you wanted to land a deal with? Who you were hoping to land a deal with? Did you know there would be a guest shark? If did you know who it would be? Sort of give us a window into the prep, maybe the day before.  OK, so yes, we did a lot of preparation ahead of the show. So first of all, we started preparing months in advance, even when, you know, we were going through the first stages of the auditions until we finally were given a green light.  We made a very extensive list of questions of what typically gets asked during the program and, you know, answered each one of them, made sure we were really prepared to answer each one of the questions. And then sometime ahead of the program, we were actually told who our guest shark was going to be. We were actually very, very excited and actually prepared even more questions that were more tailored to his background, his businesses, etc. because we really, really wanted to close the deal with him. And so, yes, and you need to prepare because you don't know how your nerves are going to respond and how well you're going to respond at the time. So as much preparedness as you can have, I think it always, it's going to help to our surprise. I think he was sympathetic from the beginning. I think he was able to see something in us because he was also an immigrant. And I'm talking about Daniel Lubecki, which we eventually close to deal with, who's a founder of KIND. And so we were very lucky in that sense that he was very sympathetic and understood the business from the beginning and was actually not as tough as we thought he was going to be. We prepared some really, really tough questions and made sure we were able to answer in the right way. So, yes, we prepared a lot and practiced the pitch extensively until even one of us lost her voice. And so we had to stop rehearsing at that time. I know a couple of things they always touch on. And obviously Mark Cuban in the room is always in the better for you category, right? And so he always wants the low-carb option of the thing. And so you guys checked that box, which I thought was great. And then when it came to, I don't know if anyone's ever asked you this, but so you can choose at some point, basically Kevin O'Leary is on the table and so is Daniel. And so you have Mr. Wonderful and you have the founder of KIND, who you know can help you guys out. Mexican-American legend of a human. Wow, what was, internally, what were you guys thinking when you have to make the decision?  You know, it was like the bachelor. It was like, were you guys thinking at all about Kevin or was it simply Daniel's our guy? I think, you know, going into the show, we already knew that we really, really wanted to close a deal with him if we could, if he was interested. Of course, there's always what's actually gonna happen in reality and who's actually gonna be interested in your business. And then you have to really assess who's best for your business out of the people that are showing interest, right? And I think at that point we might've considered, but since we knew because of his background, because he's also an immigrant, he was able to build a business from scratch, which is also what we're trying to do. It's so much knowledge that is invaluable that we could gain from partnering with him that we were really, really interested in working with him. So at that point, I don't think it was really a question, but yes, and to my sister's point before, when we were working, you know, in corporate and had some sort of experience in CPG, yes, that is true, but when you try to extrapolate that into building your business from scratch, there are so many differences. Even from starting a brand from zero with limited resources, when you start to really craft what you're gonna try to do and where to invest your money to gain brand awareness and try to build your brand, you're talking about building a brand with millions of dollars in a budget when you're coming from a corporate standpoint, from building something with so little. And so I think the skill set and the tool set, it's completely different from building something from a corporate standpoint. And not only that, it's also negotiating with retailers when you're such a small brand that you don't have that much money to put into promoting your products. It's also dealing with co-packers when you're such a small brand and balancing having healthy margins with trying to introduce your product to the market and offer competitive pricing, right? Even though the margins we know aren't that high until you're able to reach economies of scale. So it's a different tool set that you need and it's hard to gain that from a corporate career or even corporate mentors. So we really knew that we could really benefit from having this type of partnership. And did the deal go through ultimately after the show? Yes, so we're actually still in negotiating process but we've already went through the due diligence process and are still trying to close the deal. That's awesome. Have you learned, like obviously it's sort of fresh but have you learned anything from him or has he given you guys any advice since the show that you really value? He actually has. So without having closed the deal yet which we're still in the process of doing we've been in three calls with him already and he's already shared insights and recommendations on what we should do regarding the show airing and how we should capitalize on the extra awareness, et cetera, et cetera, as far and other items related to the business that he's interested in exploring. What did you guys see just from a sales perspective after you guys aired? It's pretty significant. As far as e-commerce, I could say it's more than a 10,000% increase. We're already seeing like over 100% increase in some of our retailers. So it is pretty significant and it's only been some like I think 12 days since our show aired. Wow, that's pretty amazing. That's huge. Yes, thank you so much. Most of the companies we've spoken to I think the range I've heard has been something like between 80 to 200,000. Obviously there's a huge range in product but that's been like the numbers which has been amazing. And so where are you guys now in terms of trying to capitalize on the moment? What stores are you in now? Where can people find you guys? So we're available in about 500 public stores in the Southeast. We're also available at Walmart stores in the Southeast, Whole Foods in Florida and Winn Dixie in the Southeast as well. You can find us in the international first and food section in all of these retailers. As far as plans for the future, we're of course really interested about exploring new regions because we're very focused in the Southeast and that was of course very strategic because of our target demographic. But there's also a lot of Hispanic people living in other regions in the US that we're really interested in exploring and also exploring new product innovations that we think are missing from the market. I think that's very close to what we are, which is exploring staples that have kind of been lost into the culture here or people immigrating from Latin America to the US and have lost some of these traditions and staples that they were used to eating back at home and we're trying to innovate and bring this to the market. Do you have a hint or something you're working on like a special dish, a special treat maybe that we can see coming up from your brand? We're actually really excited about a new product that's coming in. We're launching in very soon in about a couple of months. It has plantain, so we're really excited about that. I know plantain is very popular in Latin America and in the Caribbean and we love plantain. This is actually one of our abuelas recipes that we used to eat around Christmas time and we think it's gonna do great and it's something that we've never seen in the shelves before. Wow, all right, so for people listening who are probably gonna go to the store and buy your product, what happens? So I go to the store, I'm in the international food section, I buy it, I bring it home, is it air fryer? How do I cook it? You can use an air fryer, you can use a toaster oven, your regular oven, even a frying pan, you can basically heat it up anywhere and you don't have to wait until it's thawed or anything. You can just take it directly from the freezer and place it on your air fryer or whatever it is you have. Five minutes and they're ready. And is it gluten-free also? What are they? They're all gluten-free. All of our products are gluten-free, they have no sugar added, no preservatives and made with really great ingredients. I love it. Well, listen, tell people where they can find you on Instagram, obviously you mentioned the stores before, but where can they support you and the brand? Thank you, yeah, so you can follow us at Toasted Foods on Instagram and most social media channels. Our handles are the same at Toasted Foods and we hope you're able to find us and support us and find us in the stores too. We'd love you guys to try out the products. Well, congratulations on the success, congratulations on the show, congratulations on having a baby, that's amazing, good for you, I know that's a lot. Thank you so much. And it's just really, it's nice to see South American sisters do this thing, new mothers, females, founders, so an inspiration to all. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast, thank you. Thank you Diego, thank you for the invite. Thank you so much for the support and making it to the end of the episode. If you haven't already, please leave a review and share the episode with your friends. If you never want to miss a beat on all things entrepreneurship, make sure to follow us on socials or daily content. See you next Tuesday for another great episode.