Sep'99 Minutes

Present:
Marshall Kovitz, Marianne Dickinson, Tracy Brown, Cheryl Plum, Kevin Keene, Valerie Smith, and Kyle Harwood.

Not Present:
Ron Breen. Management Present: Donal Kinney, Michelle Franklin.

Guests:
Ralph Powell, Jonathan Longcore, Katie Simmons, Demetra Isbell and Robyn Seydel

Management Present:

Board Retreat
The retreat is scheduled for September 19, 1999. The three main topics of discussion are monitoring, mem-bership and fiscal condition. First alternative topic is execu-tive limitations, second alter-native topic is Board process.

Editorial Policy Of Cooperative Newsletter
The group discussed the editorial policy of the membership newsletter. The discussion was prompted by the recent increase in volume of letters to the editor (and in particular a response from an individual Board member), which were not published. An outside facil-itator was present to lead the discussion. Mary Feldbluhm was contracted by the board president to act as facilitator.

Three areas of concern were identified by the group: 1) the process for publishing articles and letters in the newsletter; 2) Board member conduct and authority outside of Board meetings; and 3) when Board members write letters or arti-cles for newsletter, how to deter-mine if they are writing as individual members, or speak-ing for the Board as a whole.

The group decided to focus its discussion on the first of the three areas: the process or policy for having articles and letters published in the Co-op Connection. The second and third areas were tabled and it was agreed that the Board would set aside time at the end of the discussion to allow the individual Board member whose letter was under discussion (Tracy Brown) to respond to specific issues sur-rounding the editor’s refusal to publish it.

(After the dis-cussion, Board members left the meeting.
No such time was allotted and the issue was never addressed in subsequent meeting agendas.)

Various Issues Raised:

• We want input from members
• BOD member articles should have disclaimer stating whether they are presenting personal opinion or BOD position.
• Need guidelines limiting vulgarity
• Whether editor has the right to filter letters for content
• Whether BOD should restrict certain discussion in the news-letter
• The newsletter is a conduit to membership — placing any boundaries on discussion is censorship
• We need a decision-making process and criteria for what newsletter content should consist of
• Editor should have sole authority for the views that are allowed expression
• Editor should come to the BOD on heightened issues
• That the Board should have policy on newsletter guidelines for submission and how much authority is invested in the Editor
• Decision should not rest in one individual — some co-ops have a newsletter editorial committee

Robyn and Donal stated that they were under the assumption that they had authority from the Board to restrict all “negative” responses in the newsletter. It was pointed out that this was the statement of one Board member from the last meeting and was in no way to be construed as a Board directive to the CTL that only votes of the Board recorded in the minutes were binding on the CTL and that such restrictions on member opinion were not the will of the Board.

Proposal by Board president that any letter other than one fully approved by the Board that Robyn Seydel, the newsletter editor, has full authority to decide whether it will be published or not. Objection by Tracy: that this proposal only restated the situation that was currently being discussed and would change nothing. He asserted that the Board should represent itself in one voice but that it should debate in many voices and part of that debate should be in the newsletter for members to see and have input on.

Proposal defeated.
Proposal:
Board members Marianne and Kevin volunteer to meet as a subcommittee with Robyn to set criteria for pub-lishing articles in the newsletter. Kevin will do research on other publications’ handling of similar matters. Language for policy will be brought to the upcoming policy retreat where time will be given to vote on the policy. Until then, the current situation will not change.

Group voted 5 to 0 in favor of proposal ( 1 abstention — Tracy, Valerie and Kyle had already left the meeting).

(Language was not brought to the following retreat, a summary of the subcommittee discussion was brought to a later POGO meeting but because it contained incomplete language there was no policy forthcoming. Policy still has yet to be developed through the standard POGO process.)

Revision of October ’99 Minutes

OLD PARAGRAPH:
“Legally, we are obligated to offer employees a range of investment options, including non-SRI funds that offer strong financial performance, or other criteria that the employee can choose from. However, the Co-op does not wish to invest in non-SRI funds. Demetra has discussed this with the insurance folks, and the conclusion thereof is that the business can legally restrict the investment options it will agree to, provided it has a clear written policy from the Board that allows such restriction.”

NEW PARAGRAPH:
“To protect itself legally the Co-op needs to offer employees a range of investment options. Currently the Co-op offers only one family of funds. The deci-sion to offer the Calvert Group was made in order to satisfy the desire to offer Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) alternatives to employees. To broaden the range of investment vehicles for employees the Board voted to allow the HR department to continue its discussions with a broker that offers both screened (for SRI) and non-screened funds.”