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  • FBFC Board News

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  • E-mail FBFC Board Members at:

  • E-mail FBFC Board members at:

    Aja Wright — aja.fbfc@gmail.com
    Chappell Carter — chapcarter@bellsouth.net
    Darcel Eddins — darcel.eddins@gmail.com
    Gretchen Brown — cunninghamgretchen@yahoo.com
    Howard Yarborough — howardy@charter.net
    Jean Karpen — jkarpen@mindspring.com
    Katherine Caldwell — katharos@charter.net
    Mariate Echeverry — mariate.fbfc@gmail.com
    Sloan Pickens — spickens@ymcawnc.org
    Will Kaylor — will@willkaylor.com

  • Want to be on the Board?

  • Co-op owners in good standing are encouraged to consider applying for its Board of Directors. Serving on the Board allows an owner the opportunity to learn about co-op governance, the national co-op movement and to help steer the direction of the FBFC. It is a big responsibility, requiring time, study and participation. Board meetings are held monthly. There are also committee meetings, workdays, special meetings and participation in co-op events. Board work can be exciting, interesting and sometimes fun! The application can be printed out and when completed, given to any board member. (board member contact information is listed on this website)

  • FBFC Board of Directors Information

  • Thank you for your interest in becoming a member of the FBFC Board of Directors!

    Here are just a few benefits of being on the Board.
    1. Participate in democracy in action.
    2. Impact our community.
    3. Directly support cooperative economics as an economic model.
    4. Network and link with other co-ops.
    5. Learn about Policy Governance.
    6. Learn about the Formal Consensus Process.
    7. Learn about the history and current events of the Co-op Movement.
    8. Add more training and experience to your resume.
    9. Enjoy great snacks from the Co-op during monthly Board meetings.
    10. Receive a 15% discount in the Co-op.

    Please deliver your completed application to any current Board member (emails are below) OR to the office of the general manager, Steven Watts (located on the second floor). After receiving your application, a Board member will contact you personally by either phone or email.

  • Click here for a printable application packet

  • Application for Nomination to the FBFC Board of Directors

  • Board directors are required to be members of the Co-op. Co-op or grocery experience, business/financial experience, nonprofit board experience, and commitment to community are helpful.

    Board directors will be expected to attend all scheduled board meetings and to serve on committees as needed. Currently there is one official board meeting each month. Board directors will also be expected to participate in consensus process training, the annual membership meeting, at least one retreat per year and other workdays and as scheduled. Board members also have the opportunity to participate in national and regional conferences.

    Name
    Phone
    E-Mail
    Address

    You are welcome to attach a resume or CV. All questions should be answered either through the resume or by adding additional pages if necessary. Please feel free to add other pertinent information that you would like us to know.

    Application for Nomination to the FBFC Board of Directors (adopted 4/09)

    A Board director is required to be an owner of the co-op ‘in good standing.’

    Potential Board Members should:

    Complete and sign an application Have time to read and study co-op bylaws, policies, articles of incorporation,industry articles, information on the Board’s governance model and other co-op related material. Be able to attend monthly board meetings, attend board development retreats, workdays, educational seminars, occasional extra meetings in special or emergency situations and serve on a Board committee. Have access to e-mail and phone. Be able to commit to a term of 3 years. Work cooperatively with other Board directors and the general manager within the decision making process of the Board.

    Name_________________________________________________________________

    Phone_________________________________________________________________

    E-Mail_________________________________________________________________

    Address________________________________________________________________

    You are welcome to attach a resume or CV. All questions should be answered either through the resume or by adding additional pages if necessary. Feel free to add other pertinent information.

    1. Describe ways you have participated in this co-op, e.g. being a worker-owner, attending the annual meeting, participating on a committee, helping with an event.

    2. Summarize your work, education and background especially as it relates to coops.

    3. What special skills or qualities would you bring to the process of governing the coop?

    4. Why are you interested in being a Board member?

    5. Can you imagine any conflicts of interest that you might have regarding decision that the Board may have to make on behalf of coop owners? If so, describe.

    6. What qualities or skills do you recognize as important to working with the coop Board of Directors?

    7. Please check all categories that apply to your experience:
    ___Business planning or management ___Public education/outreach
    ___Financial planning or management ___Cooperative economics
    ___Board Experience ___Community service/activism
    ___Non profit organizational experience ___Policy development
    ___Personnel administration __Grocery and/or retail experience
    ___Legal experience

    8. Please state in 50 to 100 words, what you hope to bring to the position as the owners’ representative. This statement may appear on the ballot.

    9. Briefly describe your response to and commitment to the cooperative principles and the FBFC mission and vision statements.

    In signing this application, the applicant indicates an understanding of the responsibilities of being a board member, has completed all parts of the application truthfully and to the best of his/her knowledge and submits this application for consideration.

    Signature_____________________________________Date____________________

  • FBFC Ends Policy

  • GLOBAL ENDS POLICY:
    A transformative force in our community and work and to serve as a model of sustainable business alternative that nurtures social and economic well-being in an environmentally sensitive manner.

    Products:
    Maximized availability of healthful and organic foods and non-food products grown, manufactured, or produced locally with ecological and social responsibility for the community.

    Education:
    An empowered and informed community with access to education and customer assistance.

    Financial Health:
    A financially viable, transparent, ethical cooperative with equity growth, patronage refund, and community investment.

    Staff Environment:
    A respectful, responsive, and safe work environment in which a fairly compensated management, bargaining unit, and worker owner team has a strong sense of ownership in the success of the co-op.

    Community:
    Within cooperative values, an ever-widening circle of community members with healthier and more environmentally restorative lives.

  • The Seven Cooperative Principles

  • 1st Principle: Voluntary and Open Membership
    Co-operatives are voluntary organizations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination.

    2nd Principle: Democratic Member Control
    Co-operatives are democratic organizations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions. Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership. In primary co-operatives members have equal voting rights (one member, one vote) and co-operatives at other levels are also organized in a democratic manner.

    3rd Principle: Member Economic Participation
    Members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of their co-operative. At least part of that capital is usually the common property of the co-operative. Members usually receive limited compensation, if any, on capital subscribed as a condition of membership. Members allocate surpluses for any or all of the following purposes: developing their co-operative, possibly by setting up reserves, part of which at least would be indivisible; benefiting members in proportion to their transactions with the co-operative; and supporting other activities approved by the membership.

    4th Principle: Autonomy and Independence
    Co-operatives are autonomous, self-help organizations controlled by their members. If they enter to agreements with other organizations, including governments, or raise capital from external sources, they do so on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their co-operative autonomy.

    5th Principle: Education, Training and Information
    Co-operatives provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their co-operatives. They inform the general public – particularly young people and opinion leaders – about the nature and benefits of co-operation.

    6th Principle: Co-operation among Co-operatives
    Co-operatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the co-operative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.

    7th Principle: Concern for Community
    Co-operatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies approved by their members.

    Source: The International Cooperative Alliance, http://www.ica.coop/coop/principles.html

  • Policy Governance in a Nutshell

  • The purpose of 1 the board job is, 2 on behalf of some ownership, 3 to see to it that the organization4 achieves what it should and 5 avoids what is unacceptable.
    .
    The board job. It is the board’s responsibility to govern; the board has a commensurate authority to govern. Individual board members do not. That is, whatever authority is legitimately wielded by a board is wielded by the board as a group. Hence, a CEO is bound by what the board says, but never by what any board member says. A board should pledge to its CEO that it will never hold him or her accountable for keeping board members happy as individuals and will never hold him or her accountable for any criteria except those expressed officially by the full board. In other words, the board as a body is obligated to protect its staff from the board as individuals.
    .
    For nonprofit and governmental organizations, the “one voice” aspect of governance is regularly lost by having a host of board committees running about involving themselves in issues ostensibly delegated to staff. Staff members end up taking direction from segments of the board. Common committee roles do grave damage to the integrity of CEO delegation. Personnel, finance, program, publicity, and other such committees are the prime offenders. The board should not have committees either to help or instruct staff. Board members can serve on staff committees if asked (removing their board hats in the process), but foisting board help and advice, at best, makes a mockery of the board-CEO relationship and, at worst, renders the CEO no longer a CEO.

    The suggestion here, also, is that the board has a specific job to do, a specific set of “values added” that justify its position. This differs from having a job that is essentially looking over everyone else’s shoulders, reacting, and largely being steered around by whatever staff have been doing (the show-and-tell board meeting of staff reports) or are thinking about doing (reviewing and approving detailed plans). That a board has its own job to do means, if the board is responsible for getting its own job done, that board agendas should be the board’s agendas, not the CEO’s agenda for the board. Yet most board agendas are products of those who work for the board – a practice that would rarely occur anywhere else in an organization.
    .
    On behalf of some ownership. Boards rarely “own” an organization themselves. They ordinarily are a microcosm of a larger ownership. The owners may be legal owners (stockholders for an equity corporation) or more a “moral” ownership(the whole community in the case of a local social service organization).But in any event, the board speaks on their behalf, a task that requires (a) knowing who the owners are and what their desires are, (b) being able to distinguish owners from customers (clients, students, patients) and other stakeholder groups. Finding ways to link with owners even more than with management is a major challenge to any board. Most nonprofit and governmental attempts to do so deteriorate into linkage with disgruntled customers instead(watch any city council or school board meeting).
    .
    To see to it. Seeing to it implies a commitment to assure, not simply to hope that things come out right. Seeing to it that things come out right requires three steps: First, the board must describe “right” – that is, the criteria that would signify success. These are noted below. Second, the board must hold someone accountable for reaching these criteria. This is most easily done by using the CEO function, for that role allows the focusing of performance in one individual even though actual performance occurs due to many individuals. Proper use of the CEO role has been hard to achieve in business and in some nonprofits and government in that boards abdicate to their CEOs until disaster is full blown. Proper use has been hard to achieve in many nonprofits and government (though not so much in business) in that boards interfere with their CEOs, not cleanly delegating sufficient authority to them. Third, the board must systematically and rigorously check to see if criteria are being met, that is, the board must monitor performance regularly.
    .
    Traditional board operation fails in all three areas, especially in the first and third. Outcome expectations (what difference is to be made in recipients’ lives) are rarely or incompletely stated. Acceptability of practices and methods is rarely clarified. Hence, when a board tries to monitor, it has no criteria against which to do so. The result is not monitoring, but foraging about. Observe any board approving a financial statement or a budget: the board has no idea what it would disapprove, for it has given the CEO no criteria to be met. Traditional board “development” will help a board to follow this path with more ability to read financial statements, but does nothing to help the board find a more effective way to use its time.
    .
    Achieves what it should. What should any organization achieve? This is the most important aspect of instructing the CEO. The only achievement that justifies organizational existence is that which causes sufficient benefits for the right recipients to be worth the cost. What good is this organizations to accomplish, for whom, at what cost or relative worth? (I refer to these ways of describing achievement as “ends” as opposed to means.)Traditional approaches to governance have allowed boards to sidestep this crucial determination. We have focused far more on what activities the organization will be engaged in, not the consumer results to be achieved.
    .
    Consequently, boards give their CEO’s credit for programs, services, and curricula rather than demanding data (even crude data are better than none) on whether the right recipients received the right results at the right cost. In order to lead, boards must learn that services, programs and curricula have no value except they produce the desired ends. Therefore, boards are well-advised to look past these operational means and on to the ends that really matter.
    .
    Avoids what is unacceptable. Putting the board’s emphasis on ends is a powerful tactic for board leadership, but the board cannot forget that it is also accountable for the means as well. “Means” include not only practices and methods, but situations and conduct as well – in other words, all aspects of the organization that are not ends (given the definition above).Concerning itself with means, however, is ordinarily an opening for boards to become entangled in operational details. This is where micro-management and meddling are born. It is a dilemma: on the one hand, boards are accountable for staff practices and situations, yet dealing with them directly trivializes the board job. Policy Governance offers a safer way for boards to deal with this dilemma: The board can simply state the means that are unacceptable, then get out of the way except to demand data (monitor) that the boundaries thus set are being observed.

    The board decides what to have policies about, and to what level of detail it will develop them. Its policies fit into four categories:
    .
    ENDS — The board defines which human needs are to be met, for whom, and at what cost. Written with a long-term perspective, these mission-related policies embody the board’s vision, and the organization’s reason for being.
    EXECUTIVE LIMITATIONS —The board establishes the boundaries of acceptability within which staff methods and activities can responsibly be left to staff. These policies limit the means by which Ends shall be achieved.
    BOARD-STAFF LINKAGE —The board clarifies the manner in which it delegates authority and how it evaluates performance relative to ends and limitations.
    GOVERNANCE PROCESS —The board determines its philosophy, its accountability, and the specifics of its own job.