PCC Board of Trustees report, September 2017

This article was originally published in September 2017

New Regular Board Meeting Schedule

(l-r, Board Members Stephen Tan and Maggie Lucas)

(l-r, Board Members Stephen Tan and Maggie Lucas)

The board has changed its regular meeting schedule. In the past, the board’s regular meetings were held at the end of the workday, starting at 4:00 p.m. and often ending past 8:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. For both the board and PCC leadership staff, this made for long days and sometimes the length of time budgeted for the meetings limited the topics and depth of discussion at the meetings.

As the co-op has grown in size and scope, the needs of the organization of how the board does its work has changed as well. As such, we are experimenting with moving to regular meetings held four times a year, with the meetings taking place during the workday, compared to our prior schedule of holding regular meetings seven times a year, at the end of the day. Committees of the board will also meet regularly each quarter.

The next two regular board meetings will be held on Wednesday, August 30, 2017, and on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, at the PCC Co-op Office: 3131 Elliott Avenue, Suite 500, Seattle, WA 98121.

New Standing Board Committees

Board committees perform much of the work of the board of trustees. In the August issue of the Sound Consumer, we shared the name of each of the board’s standing committees, as well as the board members appointed to each committee. For this issue, we thought it important to share with you what specific responsibilities the board has allocated to each standing committee. By restructuring our standing committees, the board believes it will be able to perform its work more efficiently and productively.

Audit and Finance

  • Accounting and financial processes
  • Business risk management processes, related party transactions
  • Compliance with legal and regulatory requirements
  • Finance and real estate

Governance and Membership

  • Managing governance policies, practices and guidelines
  • Composition and organization of board
  • Nominating process and election
  • Educating and evaluation of trustees and nominating committee members
  • Policies and activities relating to member recruitment, retention and relations

Social and Environmental

  • Social and environmental policies and activities
  • Defining and ensuring appropriate balancing of triple bottom lines
  • Disclosure with respect to social and environmental matters to membership and public

Management Development and Compensation

  • Compensation philosophy, policies, plans, practices
  • Review of CEO relative to goals/objectives
  • Executive officer succession planning
  • Compensation of executive officers and board
  • Leadership development

We will keep you informed as we work within this new structure. We are committed continually to act in the best interests of members and all stakeholders (staff, farmers, vendors, producers) and to maximize the value of PCC for the benefit of members and our stakeholders, and we appreciate the trust you have placed in us through electing us to your board.

Contact the Board

Members may communicate with members of our board of trustees by transmitting correspondence by mail or email, addressed as follows:

Email us at board@pccmarkets.com. Postal mail should go to the Co-op Office

A designated PCC staff member will, as he or she deems appropriate, forward communication to our board of trustees or to any individual trustee, trustees, or committee of our board of trustees to whom the communication is directed.

Also in this issue

Soil & Sea: reports from our producers

Learn about Washington's expanding organic apple industry, PCC honey vendor, GloryBee, and how many tomatoes today have lost key elements that make them taste like tomatoes.

News bites, September 2017

Artificial sweeteners, Sugar linked to depression, Fracking and human health, and more

Will we see nutrition info on menus?

PCC recently submitted comments to the Food and Drug Administration regarding the delay of rules that would require restaurants to provide nutrition information for consumers. After reviewing more than 130,000 comments, the FDA has announced plans to move forward with menu labeling – starting in May 2018.