KONA COFFEE FARMERS ASSOCIATION
BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING, October 20, 2015
CTAHR Conference Room, Kainaliu
Board Members Present: Tom Butler, Anita Kelleher, Bruce Corker, Kurt Schweickhard, Chris Coleman, Kally Goschke, Randy Phillips, Judy Schuman, Suzanne Shriner, Cea Smith. Colehour Bondera arrived mid-meeting.
100% Kona Coffee provided by Chris Coleman. Thank you, Chris. Coffee next month: Kally Goschke
Call to Order at 3:16 pm by President Tom Butler.
GENERAL ITEMS
September Minutes—Kurt moved to accept the September minutes with a second from Judy. Motion passed.
Treasurer’s Report—Kurt reported on and reviewed the Profit and Loss for September 2015 and the Balance Sheet as of October 15, 2015. Bruce moved to accept the Treasurer’s Report with a second from Cea. Motion passed.
Approval of Membership Applications—No questions were raised as to the two membership applications submitted by the Membership Committee and the applications were approved.
Consent Agenda—Bruce requested that the “CBB Task Force” item be removed from the Consent Agenda and added to “Old Business” to get a report on matters from the 8/20 Honolulu meeting on CBB quarantine issues. With this change, the Consent Agenda was approved.
OLD BUSINESS
Consent Agenda—Tom requested consideration of incorporating the Board Meeting Minutes and consideration of membership applications into the Consent Agenda procedure. If questions are raised concerning the minutes or concerning any of the membership applications in the Membership Committee report, any Board member can move those items to the meeting’s regular agenda by request. Anita moved to adopt Tom’s suggestions, with a second from Chris. Motion passed.
Holualoa Village Coffee & Art Stroll—Anita’s PR/Marketing Committee Report is included in the “Committee Reports”, below. Anita further reported on the status of preparations and thanked the KCFA members who have agreed to assist in working at the Stroll on Saturday, November 7. Chris and Randy offered to work on making arrangements for packages of KCFA coffee to be offered for sale at the KCFA booth. This event—one of the highlights of the Coffee Festival—is co-sponsored by KCFA and the Holualoa Village Association.
House Finance Committee Luncheon Meeting in Kona—At the request of Rep. Nichole Lowen, KCFA is co-sponsoring with the Hawaii Coffee Association a luncheon meeting with the members of the House Finance Committee. Suzanne said the luncheon would be at 12:30 pm at the Historical Society’s farm site in Captain Cook. KCFA representatives participating will be Suzanne, Tom and Bruce.
EXPO—There was discussion of whether KCFA should hold its annual Kona Coffee Expo in 2016. The consensus of the Board was that the EXPO is an important signature event for the KCFA—and that we should continue the event in 2016 if a location and someone to organize it can be found. Cea mentioned the idea of hiring Nancy Miller as an organizer. Hale Halewai was suggested as an alternate venue to Old Airport Pavilion which is not available. Chris said she would contact Nancy Miller.
CBB Task Force—Suzanne reported that there has been no written communication between the HDOA and the Task Force Shipping/Quarantine Committee since the 8/20/15 meeting in Honolulu about conflicts between HDOA positions and the formal Hawaii Administrative Rules (HAR) concerning green coffee quarantine requirements (HAR 4-72-12) . She indicated that she would be meeting with the Task Force Committee Chairman on October 22 to address these issues. Kurt reported that there have been no Task Force meetings since June. He has been seeking to have a Task Force meeting scheduled before the end of October.
NEW BUSINESS
Promotional Idea—Donna Meiners—deferred.
Dr. Robert Hollingworth CBB Meeting—Bruce reported that he had been contacted by Robbie Hollingsworth, PBARC’s new CBB co-ordinator. He suggested a talk story meeting with KCFA representatives to review PBARC’s CBB work and for him to get feedback from KCFA farmers. The meeting was tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, October 28. It was agreed that we should accept this invitation. The following agreed to participate: Tom, Bruce, Kurt, Chris, Kally, Suzanne—and Bob Smith is also invited.
Annual Meeting Date—After discussion of various dates for the AGM in January, Cea agreed to check venue availability and gather Board suggestions and preferences.
Nomination Committee—Tom indicated that the committee to develop a slate of candidates for election to the Board of Directors includes: Chris, Bruce, Cea and Tom. An initial meeting of the committee is scheduled for October 28.
Retention Policy—Kurt presented a document retention policy and recommended its adoption to the Board. Suzanne, with a second from Judy, moved to adopt the policy. Motion passed.
By-Laws Change Suggestions—Tom reviewed three by-law changes that the Board may want to consider for presentation at the AGM: (1) Incorporate the requirement--which HANO advised is required by State law—that email votes of the Board must be unanimous; (2) whether the proxies votes at Board of Directors’ meetings should be expressly permitted or prohibited in the by-laws; and (3) whether the requirement that Voting Members “support 100% Kona coffee and the objectives of the KCFA” should be expressly stated—as is the case for Associate Members.
Meeting adjourned at 4:16 pm.
Submitted by Bruce Corker, Secretary
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
COMMITTEE REPORTS below for Tuesday October 20, 2015. Please review and come with any questions so we can reach an “agreement of committee reports” according to HANO’s Best Practice suggestion. Mahalo.
Education – Bondera and Shriner
KCFA Executive Committee (Pres. V-Pres, Sec. Treas. and Past-Pres.)
2016 Board Nominations
Finance - K. Schweickhard
Circulated via email: September P&L, Balance Sheet and copy of suggested Record retention policy. Mahalo, Kurt
Fundraising/Social Events BOARD
Kona Heritage – C. Bondera
*Branding –Corker and Smith
*Estate-Coleman
Legislative-Corker Legislative Committee Report—for 10/20/15
Legislative Committee members are developing a response to the request from Sen. Mike Gabbard, Chair of the Hawaii State Senate’s Water, Land and Agriculture Committee. Sen. Gabbard asked for feedback from the Kona Coffee Farmers Association on agricultural issues prior to the start of the 2016 Legislative Session. In the October edition of the “Independent Voice”, KCFA members were encouraged to send in suggestions for feedback.
*HFUU-Bondera
Membership-D. Meiners
There are 274 Active Voting Members, 35 Supporting Business members and 44 Associate members =353 Members
1. New Active Voting member:Sandra Nyquist, Aikane Kona Coffee, Holualoa [email protected]
2. New Supporting Business member: Lorraine Samuels, 4415 Hillside dr., Rogers, AR 72758 Business Advantage Market Solutions [email protected]
Renewals: 1 Supporting Business, 2 Associate members, 10 Active Voting members
Zero renewals from the expired member outreach but one lifetime member rescued.
-Donna Meiners
PR/Marketing- Kelleher -PR Chair
We have a new ad coming out in Keola for November/December issue.
- The main focus now is The coffee and Art Stroll.
- I have 15 Volunteers including Kurt, Judy and Tom and Randy. Suzanne is bringing and picking up the Coffee shack.
This should be enough if everyone shows up. Thank you in advance to the Board members that can help.
- It is all shaping up well. We have 35 farmers setting up booths.
- There will be some really great food vendors.
- The Chefs are from Holuakoa, Mi’s and Lava Java for the Chefs Choice Award.
- The People’s Choice Award and voting booth are ready to go.
- I am sending an “About Town” to West Hawaii Today for the Stroll and Chefs Five Star 100% Kona coffee Award.
- Kurt and I attended the dinner at Roger Rittenhouse with the Cultural Festival folks that was well attended with yummy food and meeting new friends.
- Kurt and I also attended a meeting with the Holualoa Homeowners Board for the Coffee and Art Stroll to work out details.
- I am scheduling the volunteers and assigning numbers to the farmers and creating the vendor map presently.
- Kurt will be emailing the 35 farmers instructions for the set up, parking etc. in the next week.
- I will be emailing the volunteers with the schedule next week.
- If anyone has jam,honey, baked goods etc to donate for the KCFA booth to sell that would be appreciated. Either get them to Randy, Kurt or myself or bring them to the booth early morning on November 7.
- I have leftover bags of mac nuts that were donated for the fundraiser dinner I am bringing for the table.
- I will have posters for any member that has a place near their home or area to put up. I will be bringing them to the meeting.
Aloha, Anita
Pest & Disease-B. Smith
*CBB Task Force-K. Schweickhard
Website-C. Smith
- Updated Comments and info on “What is Kona Worth” (WIKW) each time. Posted WIKW page to the KCFA FaceBook (FaceBook reports that this posting of WIKW performed better than 85% of my recent posts”?).The WIKW page gets the most hits on the KCFA website. Members encouraged to send prices for cherry, the location and the buyer to [email protected] anonymously
- Posted Minutes and Newsletter to website.
- Sent Newsletter out to Active Members only. Sent out Member emails( Coffee and Art Stroll volunteers needed, 2 notes to Expired Members, Distributor of Botanigard/Mycotrol Meeting)
- Cleaned up the Inactive farms from our website. We have 222 active 100% Kona Farms. Fixed some Farm listings that did not preface web info with <http://www.name of farm>. Members should review their Buy Direct from Farm info and be encouraged to post photo/s and give relevant info to spice up listings in time for Holiday salesAd hoc
Board Development- Executive Committee
HDOA Grant- C. Bondera
