On June 22, 2011, Skookum held its second Annual General Meeting to report on the accomplishments of the past year, let members know where we st financially,elect a new board of directors.
Thank you to everyone who came out on a sunny summer evening,special thanks to those who brought foodrefreshments…
... like this delicious buttery bad boy, contributed by Jonathan van Wiltenburg: an authentic Dutch boterkoek. Yum!
Treasurer Sharon Deane presented the financial report, which showed that although we’re just over one year old, we’re doing pretty well so far. It is the board’s hopeexpectation that our membership will help develop more ongoing sources of revenue for the cooperative, permitting us to take on larger projectspurchase common equipment. The first year was a solid foundation on which to build.
As you can see from the Report from the Directors, the year from June 2010 to June 2011 was a remarkably busy one: we took on management of Skookum Gleanersran a number of smaller projects; did some successful publicityoutreach into the community; raised a respectable amount of money;signed up a good number of new members. The overall message is that we got a lot done,that we can get a lot more done, but only with help from our membership. The board has been working on procedures for taking new projects from idea to plan to results,we need members to start proposing ideas that they would be willing to spearhead — with board assistance, of course!
As outgoing President, I want to sincerely thank my fellow directors Jan Burnikell, Sharon Deane, Nola Poirier, Giovanni Spezzacatena, Julie Thorne,Jonathan van Wiltenburg for their hard workall the delicious food they have brought to our board meetings. This board has accomplished a huge amountdone some important work behind the scenes to define policiesprocedures so that we can start to manage member-driven projectsensure that they generate value for members, for project coordinators, for the broader community,for Skookum. It has been a pleasure to meet with this group every month ( then some!) to do the hard work of defining goals, vision, values,principles;to take on the responsibility of being accountable to a membership of 84.
JulieNola decided to step down from the board to focus on other projectswe will miss them. However, we have two new board members: Jacqueline HuddlestonPete Tebbutt. We’ll post something soon to introduce these new directors to the membership.
The new board of directors will meet shortly to determine which directors will hold which offices (President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary); as a result of the term limits which our Rules impose, Sharon Deane will step down from the office of TreasurerI (David Parkinson) will step down from the office of President, as both of us have held those respective offices since our incorporation (two terms, which is the limit for a director to hold a particular office).
After we got through the election of the new board, we had a roundtable conversation about two Skookum projects; one in its second yearanother very much in the planning stages. First, Giovanni Spezzacatena talked a bit about Skookum Gleaners, formerly the Powell River Fruit Tree Project,what went on last year. Gleaners volunteer Gayle Morton talked about some of the exciting plans for this year. The fruit-picking season will soon be upon us, so the Gleaners Team is busy getting the word out, creating posters, flyers,notices to go into people’s mailboxes. This year we hope to gather much more fruit than in previous yearspreserve as much of it as we can.
Then Wendy Pelton presented Skookum’s very early plans for a bulk-buying project. Stay tuned for plenty more about that, since we need to find a couple more people to sit on the advisory committee,we need to sort out some questions about how the bulk-buying project will operate.
The theme for the coming year will be more member involvement, so watch out for that!
