The Sustainable CO-OP Store weekly meeting #9

Okay, what's up, Erica?

Hi, I'm gonna be muted most of the time. I have a big crowd around me.

Oh, okay.

Mom's around and, uh, and so is, uh, Zen. You're muted, but I'm gonna assume that's— sorry, I'm saying your mom's around and Zen?

Yes, yes, they're, they're right here. And Jeremy, everybody's here.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, Adam, what's up? It's recording.

Where?

On my computer.

Oh, I kicked off the recording here. We're all recording, if anyone's wondering. Calvin's here.

I think we have everybody besides Russell.

Russell's always a couple minutes late, so. Let me kick it off.

Annie's not gonna join us tonight, right?

Yeah, unfortunately, yeah, she's not gonna. Um, oh yeah, speaking of Annie, a small change. Calvin, um, uh, we, we incorporated you into the, into the, uh, like schedule of people taking on projects and stuff. That said, I thought I would swap you with Annie because I don't know how often she'll be able to join going forward, which is something I wanted to chat with the team about at some point. But would you mind taking minutes? She was supposed to take the minutes today. Oh, not at all.

Yeah, I saw that on the, on the roles thing in Miro, so I pulled up the last minutes that you'd sent in the email and made a copy, and I'm ready to go.

Cool, cool. Everyone's got their own style, and so don't, you know, I think the, the focus we try to suggest is just try to grab the main highlights, particularly the action items. The action items are the big, big thing, right? Um, okay, we used, we used to like create an agenda from there oftentimes, but otherwise, you know, don't try to— I wouldn't stress about being super duper like absolutely every detail, otherwise you might not be able to participate yourself. So yeah, that's true. Cool.

Brad, do you want to kick things off?

I think you're the facilitator.

Oh, sure. Yeah, I think we're ready. I wasn't— we can wait for Russell, but I think we should just get started.

He said that he would be kind of delayed, uh, start in meetings, so because of the kids and stuff like that. He said just, you know, generally get started. He's always going to try to get on time, but sometimes with the kids and, you know, family.

This is meeting 9, right?

This is meeting 9, yeah.

So it says— oh wait, okay, I see, I see. Okay, Russell has the icebreaker this time. That's the chink in this plan.

Yeah.

Oh gosh. We, uh, yeah, we're kind of— we keep breaking the icebreaker rule anyways, because I think we— what was the situation last week? Somehow we switched who had the icebreaker.

Calvin stepped in last minute to, uh, help out. Jennifer, did you have an icebreaker from last week that maybe you did?

Yes, we can use my icebreaker from last week.

Perfect. Oh yes.

Yeah, uh, it's just, uh, where have you traveled, and where of those places, where would you like to go back to?

I'm sorry, can you repeat? I missed it.

Where have you traveled?

And then where would you go back to? That was the second part.

Of those places, where would you—

We gotta make sure we keep it short. Cool. We do only have 2 hours too, so keep that in mind.

Okay. Just where I have, uh, where nobody, no long, long stories about, uh, travels.

Okay.

So yeah, let's jump into it. Um, I think that's a great icebreaker. Um, does the facilitator start now? I don't remember. The answering the icebreaker?

Is that—

yeah, I'll go first. I'm—

okay, yeah, yeah.

What's, um, Canada and Mexico, France, Portugal, and Spain. That's about it.

Where would you go back?

Oh, I would go back to any of those places.

It's a good list.

Who should go next?

Uh, Erica.

Hi, um, hi, everybody. I have traveled to, um, Germany, France, Austria. I've traveled to here because I'm not from here. Guatemala, Belize. Um, yep. And I would go to Iceland next. Yes. And next, um, Adam.

Um, I've been to a lot of places. I'd probably go back to, um There's a few spots that I went through that I didn't realize had like some really interesting archaeology, like Bolivia and Peru and Egypt. So I wouldn't mind going back to those three.

Vivek, what about you, bud? Yeah, yeah, I've been to a bunch of places too.

Name 20.

That's, uh, this is why I said we gotta I'm gonna have to cut it short.

Yeah, so I think, um, probably the, like, two favorite places I would like to go back to that I didn't feel like I explored sufficiently would be— one would be Tanzania. Uh, I didn't get to do, like, climb Kilimanjaro. That would have been awesome. And we re— the two of us recently went to Alaska, and I loved it there. I'd love to go back, and hopefully we will. So yeah, uh, I'll pick Yeah, this is a really good one.

I've been to Hawaii. I've been to— my family, we traveled to Cape Cod in Massachusetts a lot, and we've gone to Florida a couple of times. And a place that I think I would go back to, or at least near, for my honeymoon, we went to Nice in France and it was just like super beautiful. And we kind of, we did like a ton of stuff in Nice. So I think I've kind of done everything in Nice, but like the Mediterranean, I think like pretty much anywhere in the Mediterranean, but, um, kind of like probably Italy is from where I either want to go back to.

Oh, sorry.

Um, Calvin, did you go?

I haven't yet.

Nope. Okay.

All right. Uh, Ben, uh, In my like memoryful years, so like before I was 5, I've been to Maine, I've been down to Florida, and, you know, I grew up in Michigan. So not too many super interesting places. I loved hiking in the Appalachian Trail, Northern Georgia and Tennessee area. So I definitely go back there. That's awesome. I just love hiking.

So. That's where I'd go.

Okay, that is everybody. Or is Russell here now?

Yeah, I'm here. How's it going? What are we doing? I came a little too late to understand.

Icebreaker, and it's, uh, where have you traveled and where would you like to go back to?

Um, you know, I've traveled mostly in the States, the, the East Coast, and then I have gone on a cruise where we went down in the Caribbean area and, uh, we hit up Jamaica, but we were only staying for like date, like partial days, so it wasn't really enough. But yeah, I've, I've gone all along a lot of different places, but I think I'd prefer to stay in the States and I'd prefer to probably go south. Yeah, just because I like the warmth. So if that's everybody, I'll hand it over to the facilitator. Oh, go ahead.

I've traveled to Mexico, Germany, Czech, Slovakia, Sweden, but where would— and around the United States. Vivek already took Alaska back where I would definitely go back. So if I would have to pick a different place, maybe Sweden, definitely would like to go back.

Cool.

Thanks, Jennifer, for stepping in for Russell on the icebreaker.

That was a good one. We did get everybody, right? So next step, I'm going to read through the agenda, and then, and yeah, if we have anything to add, we can add it. So we did icebreaker, agenda 3, business model canvas. We're going to go over The value proposition again, and after that, mission statement update and vision from Adam. Miro training from Ulla and Erica. Then how do we make sure we are making smart decisions from Vivek. Feedback form review. And then how did the meeting go and anything else? So does anyone have anything else we should add?

It's me.

Oh, sorry.

I like, like, reach out to Emily who attended a couple of our first meetings, but she cannot continue, but she wants to support us and she's connected.

You can just say later.

I would like to add something, like update my, yeah, whatever update from Emily and kind of talk about her offer.

Okay. Do you think we should do that? Do you want to do that at the beginning or is that something appropriate at the end?

It's fine. Yeah.

Okay. Let me add it so I don't forget. So you said offer from Emily?

Yeah. Like a meeting, like a meeting, an event offer.

Event offer.

Oh, event offer. Okay. How do you spell Emily? Is it an American spelling? Is it a, uh, is it Amelie?

Amelia. Ends with E. I-E. Is it I-E?

Okay.

I-E. American would be with Y. Ah, okay.

I would, yeah, sorry. I would consider that the American spelling.

Okay.

So business model canvas, I'm gonna do, since I'm the facilitator too, I got my little, I got my cat timer to keep us on time.

Nice.

We're gonna see how this works. Hopefully it's not too noisy. I don't know if, can you hear it clicking? Yep. I'm gonna try to keep it, trying to make it so that's not too—

It's not clicking now.

Oh, good.

We could hear you winding it.

Okay, cool.

I was hoping to add some intensity.

That'd be really good. We have to do it right now. Let me bring up my, uh, this is not again. Oh wait, I have it linked in here, don't I? Um, so we went over it, uh, value proposition a little bit last week. If people remember, we got some ideas. And I definitely want to get back to that. And hopefully people have more ideas for what we can add to that list. Oh no, wait, where am I going?

I want to be—

sorry, I should have got this on my screen before. But before we do that, I want to do like a little brainstorming exercise. Yeah, okay. Let me share my screen too. Wanted to do a little brainstorm. I wonder if we can just do this. Let's just share Chrome. Brainstorming exercise to get us in the, get us in the mood for thinking of these key propositions that we're gonna provide. So I wanna take, I don't know, like 5, maybe 10 minutes depending on how it goes to talk about our experiences trying to get to zero reusable plastics, I think is kind of the big one that I think, you know, but definitely if there's other value propositions you want to talk about, I think you can definitely incorporate. But I want to talk, have everyone kind of talk about their experiences that they've gone through. Because I think we've kind of all been on this journey of trying to get to either zero plastics or more sustainable. I guess I'll start. This is, I guess, I haven't really thought about going to zero plastics, but I think my family's been trying to do definitely more recycling and have less just like black bag, I would call black bag trash, where it's just like trash that's just going into the landfill. In general. And something that we actually haven't been doing recently, but we did all last year and worked out pretty well, I think it's kind of counterintuitive too, is shop at Costco. And you may think like Costco is just kind of like has nothing to do with sustainability, but a lot of the things they do are really actually pretty sustainable. They don't do any single-use grocery bags, if you know those plastic bags that are constantly being littered everywhere. And a lot of the containers are actually reusable. So like a good example, if you see my video, this is like a pickle jar that's like plastic that I'm reusing to grow some seeds in. So it's like things like that where it's like we're constantly using those things and they use a lot of cardboard packaging and stuff for fruits and stuff like that. So switching to, switching to Costco is kind of big, was like a big, big thing for my family.

I can go next.

Yeah.

So my wife is the market maven and she is the person who purchases at my in my family for the most part. She finds the deals and everything. She's conscious of my desires to have less plastic, although it's not really, it's not really like as important for her. However, she knows that it bothers me. I try to do similar things with like that plastic that you showed where you're starting seeds. So I save a lot of plastic from going in the landfill, but you know, there's a lot of single-use plastic and I've just kind of decided like, that stuff's just going to get burnt. Like, I know that my— in my region, we burn our trash instead of landfill, and they try to recapture energy from it. I have no idea. I've never did a tour of the facility. I have no idea if that's true or how good it is or how much pollution it produces. But yeah, I kind of do that. As far as like paper products, those don't leave my house. So like paper gets composted. So that includes cardboard boxes and everything. I use that for gardening. There's a technique called sheet mulching where you can actually put cardboard down and then smother grasses out on turf. And you can grow garden beds really easily that way without having to till. So it saves a lot of back-breaking labor. So yeah, we don't throw away And so we kind of have— I've kind of set up separate bins at my house where I have compost, which is any kitchen scraps. If it was alive, it goes in there. And they can throw paper in there too, although if it's really bulky, I ask them like, hey, don't throw all that paper in there. That's just going to be a mess for me to figure out. And then, you know, plastic, if it's recyclable, goes in the recycling bin. And then there's trash, and I try to keep the trash to the minimal. Because I know that I can't do anything about it. Another, another weird thing I do is I'll only bring my trash out if it's completely full, because that prevents the, the, uh, the trash truck from stopping at my house, which the starting and stopping of a garbage truck is actually like what uses all the fuel. So if it doesn't have to stop, it, it doesn't use as much energy. So I usually put my trash out once a month, which is not that much, but it's pretty good. So that's really it. Like, I could talk for hours, but I'll let somebody else— I'll kick it over to Erica.

Okay, so I— the biggest change I've made, I would say, in the last year is definitely trying to reduce, reduce plastic. Like, I used to seeing that you could recycle everything, so I felt comfortable using, like, for instance, this is a good example, buying already disinfected lettuce in those little plastic containers, and then I would just say, oh, it gets recycled. So then I learned that just a small percentage actually gets recycled. So now I do more things from scratch, like I wash my own greens. And I bring like reusable produce bags, like canvas bags. And if I'm going somewhere, instead of like just picking the wok that's in the store in the little plastic container, I will make it myself. Yeah, trying to avoid as much as I can. And I've been lately doing like some— testing some like waste-free products. Is special cleaning supplies. That's— we have made some big changes. There are some things that are still hard to find or like very expensive when you buy like in bulk, like cheese. It's like just— and that's just garbage, like the cheese wrapping or like, yeah, all the like cold cuts that my family all eat meat. Those packages, like, that's been really hard to cut. And yeah, like, remembering to bring my bags everywhere. Something that I learned from Vivek is bringing my container when I go to restaurants. Like, so if I have, like, if I want to take something home, I just fill up my own container. To take, try to order, like if you want to eat sushi, we go, we try to go to the place because it comes with so much plastic when you order and just making like these small changes. But it's been quite a journey and it like, it has required my family to make some major changes. So yeah, that's why I'm so enthused about this because I wish I can make it like way easier for everybody else. And next, Calvin.

I have like one story of like an instance where we reduced our plastic use. Brad, I wanted to make sure, is that the— like, what's the prompt for what we're talking about?

Yeah, it's not— I mean, we don't even Necessarily everyone doesn't have to have like a whole lot, I guess. It's, you know, I guess I just want to get into hearing our own or thinking about our own stories of going on this journey. So it could be something that like, even like you really wanted to do this thing, but it's been like, I like the cold cuts are really hard, that kind of part part of it that Erica said, like, so stuff that like you've noticed, like we use a lot of these and I just can't find, you know, something that's like, I can't find, you know, cat food that doesn't use, that doesn't use plastic or something.

Gotcha.

Gotcha.

Okay.

So anything relevant to that that I can think of? I found it extremely difficult to like what words to look up because using Google, you need to have something called Google Food. So what are the terms used to describe these products that, that are made and packaged and delivered in a way that is, you know, measurably sustainable, like that achieve a certain threshold of like acceptability? And I wanted to mention that we, we had a hard time finding shampoo companies that would let us mail back and forth their containers and just refill them. And we eventually found a shampoo company that sends out sticks of light conditioner and shampoo. And we found deodorant companies that will resend back and forth the container. And maybe that's counterproductive because in just mailing it and sending it back and forth, the petroleum use there is bad. I don't know. But the last relevant thing is there was a really cool grocery store that you could go in and have a beer at. In Lansing, Michigan, out on the west side. It was called Horrocks. And at Horrocks, they had a station full of these huge columns full of different types of beans, like pistachios and peanuts and walnuts. And you could bring your own container and you could fill it. And then they just weighed how much the container was when it was empty. And then they weigh it when it's full. And then you got to take your thing home, have a beer, walk around, eat their like aged cheese on display. And I loved it. I loved the experience. So hope that helps.

No, that's some good stuff there.

Yeah. Who wants to go next? Raise a hand for me.

Okay, yeah, I can go next.

Do it.

Yeah. So the story is long already, but I remember how I started. Like, my friends were calling me Recycling Sergeant because everywhere I would go, I would kind of—

Sergeant, not surgeon. Sergeant.

Search through their garbage and I would tell them, hey, why are you throwing this to the garbage? And they were all really resistant, so I was persistent and I would go through the garbage literally and pick the glass bottles, cans, plastic, and put it to the recycling. Then eventually, we like, for example, when we met with Vivek and we When we went to the restaurants, I get like always extremely hungry over this. I really am, and I like over-order. So he started telling me like, you know what, like, why, like, you have a limit for your order. You cannot bring any leftovers home, which was really difficult for me because I wanted this and this and this. So we made this kind of, I don't know how to call it.

A deal.

A deal that if I overorder and I would get the container, I had to donate like $10 or $20 to some organization. And that's, you know, in the beginning I had to do it a few times and then after a few times it kind of made me even more cautious. You know, before I was like picking at my friends, but actually I'm doing the same when I go to the restaurant. So I somehow it happened that I stopped doing that. I ordered like exact the food that I needed and I didn't bring any containers home. And eventually we started bringing our containers to the restaurant. Just in case. But other than that, like, we also do compost, which is not easy where we live. So sometimes, most of the time, we actually— I bike like 20 minutes to drop off the compost once a week. Our whole freezer is full of compost, nothing else, from the whole week. And then, yeah, we just go to the spot. I mean, I can, I can talk, so maybe since we live in the same house, Vivek can take over.

But yeah, there's some good, there's some good like behavioral changes in there that kind of ties into, I think, like the educational part of it, of just like learning, learning different ways to, uh, learning different ways to reduce waste.

Yeah, not just, you know, recycling, or not just, uh consuming less. But yeah, just learning from the small behaviors because we think we actually are kind of eco-friendly, but then you see the hardcore people and, you know, it makes you realize that, oh, there's so much more I can do. Um, yes, uh, who wants to go next?

Let's do like, uh, if we do like a couple more short ones just so we can keep moving. A little bit, because I do want to, you know, do a little more brainstorming.

I can do a short one, actually. So like, mine would be really summed up in that I think this one, like, sentence that Adam actually shared with the group a while ago when we were looking at mission statements, which is like, even if you want to be environmentally friendly or eco-friendly, it's really hard. And I like that to change. And basically, in summary, there's this— if you want to buy a bottle of water, you want to buy food, almost always it comes in plastic packaging, and it's very frustrating. It would be nice if that wasn't the case and you could do the things you wanted to do and there was an alternative packaging material. So that would be my— I don't know if that's clear or makes sense to you, Brad, but Yeah, I think that makes sense.

I could go real quick. Um, yeah, at my house I'm the recycling officer, but I'm hoping one day to become the sergeant.

As you sit in front of a flag.

Exactly right. Um, can I, can I share my screen real quick?

Oh, sure. Do I need to? Do you want to, um, can I—

you just switch it, I think.

Oh, okay.

Did that, did that do it?

Yeah, you got it.

Anyway, yeah, Vitamix makes this new product that, uh, it's a composter. It's pretty neat, um, and we're, we're considering buying it, um, and, um, small and efficient. Um, the neat part about it is like you could add, um, all sorts of stuff that normally you couldn't compost, like chicken bones and stuff like that. So, uh, yeah, I'm— we're considering it. If we do, I'll get back to you. But, um, um, yeah, the thought is to be able to use this thing to, uh, to do the composting.

That's it. Yeah, but it's a good one.

You guys might find—

I had seen, I had seen something similar, but it was bigger.

And I mean, I don't know how much this cost, but the, the one I saw was like It's like at least $1,000. It might've even been like $2,000 or something. So it was like, you know, you really wanted to have to have come to a composter stuff.

I think the price point's $300 for this one.

Okay. That's definitely better. No, consider, I mean, like, you know, hypothetically composting is free. So it's like, for me, like spending a lot of money just to get compost didn't really make a lot of sense.

Right. Right.

But like $300 is like probably in a good spot. Yeah.

For a long time I would just throw all my like peels and stuff outside because we have a decent amount of land. And, but I realized like it just, the, all the wildlife was just eating it, which isn't that great. So yeah, I was like, oh man, it's just disappearing into the ground. This is great. I'm so, so green.

But now the thing I do now is just kind of bury it. Like I just dig a hole, like we have a, bucket that we put in, and then I just like dig a hole in the backyard. And I don't know if it's actually like doing anything, like it could be just sitting there.

I mean, I can talk about— talk to that. Yeah, it's doing great. Like, um, that's called trench composting. So it's been— people have been doing it forever, longer than— longer than the internet.

That's one of the best composting guys. We should— you should ask him a few questions.

So what? Oh yeah, that's Russell, the pro at composting.

Yeah, he has a whole YouTube channel, Compost Everything.

I forgot about that. It's a good channel. So yeah, like a lot of good stuff there. I took a bunch of notes.

Jennifer, maybe also just—

Oh, Jennifer, did you, did you want to—

I'll just add that I compost under the sink with red worms and it works really well. It doesn't stink.

That's the thing in our house. My, my, my wife hates that I compost stuff because it's the smell that gets us. But you said it was red worms?

Red wigglers, yeah.

Red worms are really good at eating things.

Yeah, cool.

How do you buy those worms, or you bring them from outside?

I got mine at a place called Lower East Side Ecology Center. They, they go to the Union Square Farmers Market, so Yeah, you can get the worms there.

Jennifer, beyond the composting part, any other like tidbits from your journey? Like, you know, you're very engaged in these communities and I know you've been very active in general. I'm sure you have beyond composting, I'm sure you have something else that maybe—

Well, actually where I'm living right now, the building doesn't even— the recycling doesn't even get recycled. Recycled at all. So, um, and I'm, I'm not composting here because my roommates don't want to do it. But, uh, when I was living uptown, I was really impressed with how little garbage I could make, especially composting.

Yeah, cool. So yeah, um, I think there's like a lot of good stuff here. We covered on a lot of points. Now that we're kind of in that mindset, I think this is a very specific way to think about key propositions. But the way I like to do it is to start with that, start with like, think about your journey and then think about what are like, I guess, kind of like at the high level, like what are the things to, what are the things to get you that got you there? And like, how can we, like the things we could provide to get other people there, if that makes sense. Right, so like I think we talked a lot about kind of educational stuff like learning, like getting used to bringing containers to a restaurant with us or learning terminology. I think, what are some other good like educational ones that I, you know, learning to Finding companies that do, that you can ship, ship the containers back to, you know, like, you know, or ship, you know, shipping, like, is having people ship us containers back, is that something? I think that's like a good example. Is that something we feel like we, we could do?

For as far as part of the key value proposition?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. As like a, like, we, you know, we'll accept, you know, containers and fill them again.

I think, I think we would want to be more generic, but I'm not sure if that helps.

Generic to like what?

Well, we were saying that it may be more expensive to, or maybe worse for the environment to ship the empty containers. So perhaps there would be a way to— maybe we have a part of our company is to have a way to help people recycle or compost. And that could be teaching them, that could be telling them where they can drop off, like you love doing stuff like that.

I'm going to do, I'm going to do like an education section here and do Where to drop off?

I'm not completely against having people sending off their containers back. We can have like a day, a week, or even a month for things like shampoo and things that last, and maybe have like a minimum of like you have to ship 3 containers back or like or like a plan that would be like kind of like a subscription that will also include sending the containers back. Because yeah, we will have to actually do some research to see like what's worse, right? Like this shipping, like try to find like the most How's it called when the shipping is not— like, I want to say green shipping. It has a name. Carbon neutral shipping? Like, sorry?

Like a carbon neutral shipping?

Yeah, carbon neutral. And I think recycling is like much like more— has a bigger impact because they have to ship it, I don't know where, to get recycled in the first place. Um, so yeah, that's something that I would definitely be interested in, in, in doing research— what has the biggest impact.

Okay, so I'll write it down and we'll research, you know, what it would take. I think that's definitely like gonna be like something we're gonna be doing for each of these.

Why don't we call it like a, um, a reuse program instead of a recycling program? A reuse program. So we can figure out how to reuse these things, not recreate them, but like use the same exact bottle, right?

I think, yeah, like figure out how to— it's kind of came up a couple times. So do you think something like that where like, you know, I guess in, in this case we would fill like a container with some sort of bulk food that we would get and then they would return it and we'd fill it again?

Like, yeah, bulk bins I think are interesting. The container component though, I would like to like imagine us thinking beyond, especially if it's plastic. Obviously if it's, or more specifically if it's like a plastic container. I mean, you're gonna have to use some kind of container for lots of things, whether, you know, but plastic container, I would like us to think beyond that. Because once plastic is created, then it really doesn't go anywhere. It's not gonna go anywhere for, like at least 400 years, a lot longer. So, like to me, you know, I would like for us to imagine beyond a plastic container of any sort and trying to like urge and try to be a catalyst for people or for products to be made in other types of containers.

What do you think like the cutoff is for any material? As far as either like how many times you could reuse it or when it would, would need to break down?

I think, I think if we like, if we tried to do a reuse program, I think if we kept it to one in one in plastics number one and plastics number two, that would probably be the what we would do. And then if we were going to manufacture or purchase in, we'd probably want them to be plastic number one or plastic number two. Because those can be reused almost indefinitely until they start to actually break down into microplastics. Then they should be burned.

But what about aluminum containers?

They, um, that— some companies are switching to aluminum containers now, and, um, I, I think it's a very good alternative.

Or no container at all. Like, I just got a shampoo bar with no container. Amazing.

But that's again, like, if we— yeah, that's the ideal, but like, no, not everybody's going to switch into a shampoo bar.

Sure.

Right? Or like a body lotion. So I've been getting— I've been trying to look for these aluminum containers, like products, and I found some. They seem pretty good. I don't see why wouldn't we choose—

Yeah, aluminum's amazing. Recycled aluminum is amazing.

Yeah.

I have a feeling—

I think we should draw a line. I would like to urge that we consider drawing a line where even plastic at all, because even 1 and 2s, which is— yeah, I know your point, Russell. The concern is, people are like oftentimes not wise to recycle it. Like I think the recycling rate across the country is around like 25%. And then secondly, just like considering microplastic, fossil fuel industry, all these things. Like trying to be a catalyst just to find alternative materials and making it like people feel, like know that they, when they enter our store, that they are buying from a store that's like, it's very, it's thought, like thought through all these problems, like to something kind of like, like, and when you buy an Apple device to a degree, like that's kind of what their marketing is. It's like, we've thought about everything for you. You don't have to do any thinking at all. Like we've, we've kind of really made this like seamless for you.

Yeah. That's also the difference between what online products are and in the store. In the store, I would say definitely no containers. And we could have the choice, like, either forgot their containers or is it the first time, they can either buy the container or take one and leave a deposit. But when it's online, maybe we're going to have fewer products that can— only the ones that we can, in my opinion, commit to ship without any plastic packaging specifically. But in the store, I would say we can commit to no selling, no containers, or very, very, very eco-friendly ones.

Yeah, I actually think this is actually a great solution. If we have same product in the store, let's say shampoo, that you can bring a bottle to refill, And we would encourage people to bring no plastic container, but the same shampoo can be shipped and we bought online and shipped that is in, in aluminum or something that is definitely recyclable. So the same product, just different packaging. Yeah.

Yeah. So in that situation in the store, it's kind of like a bulk store where it's just like a dispenser, right? Yeah, but they're just bringing in, and then like we have like a standard sized aluminum container that they like can fill up.

Oh, it can be like, like what Calvin was mentioning, you bring any container you want basically, and then you weigh it. Yeah, and then you weigh it again.

Yeah, it's basically important.

It's called like tare weight or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. What was it? I should write it down.

Tare, yeah, t-a-r. E, maybe? T-A-R-E? It'd be kind of cool if, you know, we built a brand around it where people started to seek out our packaging and to keep it, you know, I got one of these, I got an Altoid box. I remember kids used to collect Altoid containers, the aluminum containers, just because they were cool, right? It'd be really nice if people like had that our brand and like, don't throw that away, you can reuse that sort of thing. Yeah, or just, just like generally useful for others, you know, or it's, you know, that's worth money, you don't throw that out.

Because people could bring us containers.

Yeah, that'd be awesome. Like, yeah, like we could have our community bring in containers and we use, we use their containers to like, for if someone wants to fill like, I don't know, rice grains in a what was a peanut butter jar before, like, permanently.

And often, I mean, I've seen some companies that would, like, if you buy a product from them, they already attached like a kind of label, how can you reuse the product. For example, candles. I bought like those candles in metal containers and then they told you, oh, you can use it to plant a tiny plant. You know, so we could also encourage this depending what kind of packaging we had. We can always suggest, oh, what else can you do with it if you don't use it for, for the same reason?

There's also like stickers, stickers that say the dimensions, the tarp weight, in case you bring the container again, it already says. What's the weight of the container? And also I've thought that like, if we should have like a nice like line of containers that we provide for people, like for the first time experience, if people don't want to bring their containers, just sell the containers with the idea of selling them once. And that can be part of the business too.

Well, that's what I was thinking. Um, when we were talking about bringing a container to a restaurant, You know, that we just, you know, we have a container, we sell containers that are purpose for, you know, like taking out for like bringing— I guess I don't know what to call it— taking home your own carryout, like your own. Yeah, takeout.

No, you're right.

Yeah.

That's not exactly the same.

So selling, it's like selling containers, but there's nothing in it, you know what I mean? It's just like, like buying it from The Container Store.

Brad, I have a thought on like on this, but I think it might be something that's in another direction. And it's something that I think Vivek was touching on is the topic of like how much of our company, especially on its founding, is going to be an invention process towards whole new ways of holding containers. So I came from the slightest of grazings with an engineering background. And I imagine them thinking of foldable aluminum containers that could be folded flat and mailed, but all they need is a wax paper lining, and then they become something that can hold something as elusive as olive oil and be shipped back. So it's the cheapest when it's shipped out flat, and then it can hold whatever you wanted it to. It's not made of plastic anywhere in the process. And I'm wondering, like, you know, and other great ideas that are in that direction, like hard-pressed cardboards or something. Is this a good place to talk about it, or should we— or does anyone ever want to talk about invention later?

Yeah, I think— well, I think if you have a specific one that you think we we can research. I think this is a good spot for it. I think new— I think saying new, we're going to bring new products that, you know, are new to the market is a little too vague, if that makes— does that kind of answer your question?

Or like creative ways, creative packaging, you call it, or innovative packaging, or—

So this conversation is more about How can we best utilize existing technologies versus creating new packaging technologies?

It's, it's actually both.

It's a little bit of both. I just want to be more specific. Yeah, I guess we just need to be a little more specific then. Creative, innovative packaging, I think, is, is, you know, heading in the right direction.

We use Pyrex. We use Pyrex at our house, which is glass, and I think the tops are rubber, but I'm not sure if they're rubber or plastic. But those are heavy though, so that would be hard to ship.

Yeah.

But they're great for food. Go ahead, Vivek. I think you wanted to talk.

I think Ulla wanted to say something.

I was thinking about it. Maybe once we are already kind of known, I feel like maybe there will be companies who would actually come to us and offer us, hey, we can offer you this innovative packaging that you can ship It's not like— because to have this kind of department, I think that would be— that's very ambitious, eventually would be great. But I think once we would have— once we would be out there, companies would shout to us.

I'm gonna write down— yeah, I think— I think—

sorry, you can write Or would you say, yeah, I was trying to say partnerships maybe, right? Packaging, partnerships, like consulting, recognizable, hmm, packaging, uh, partnerships.

Okay, potential partnership, yeah, yeah. Okay, thinking, thinking like very specifically within the context of, um, this, I think this is like the value proposition section. Like, um, like I often think about, um, like when I think about co-ops in general, I often think about Organic Valley and how they were successful in a very tough industry back in the '80s and they're still actually continuing to be successful. And I think that like the really unique thing that they brought back then and they continue to be like a brand that represents that is organic. And they actually didn't even start off with that as their branding name, it was like a different name. But in the '80s for sure they stood apart and they've continued to like lead the way of being a thought leader in organic and grass-fed. And so for us, that's why I would, I think, thinking about taking a really strong stance of being very sustainable packaging and maybe having some clear definition of what that means as we determine what that means for us. And hopefully that will resonate with our customers. And I think in my mind is easily compostable, easily biodegradable.

So are you thinking— what comes to mind for me is something that like on the packaging it says this is how many times you can reuse it and this is how you can dispose of it. Yeah, like a line at line.

Yeah, like what does this end life look like, right? End life is going to be— you can just like, you know, just toss it, you know, in the backyard, or it can be easily recycled. And yeah, I think that would help us really stand apart from a lot of bigger name competition.

You know what I was thinking about? Um, creative, innovative packaging. Made me think of, I was in, I want to say Traverse City, Michigan, and it was a little coffee shop and I've never seen, I haven't actually seen it since then, I don't think, but they had water and like a milk and like a, like a paper and like wax milk carton. Have you seen those?

Yeah.

I'm trying to think of the company that did it, because I haven't really seen it since then, but it was so like, I had to get one because it was like, I've never seen this before. And it probably still tastes like water. It's like, just, it was just water. It was like, there was nothing fancy about it. It was like spring water from—

I think that might be the company name, Just Water or Only Water.

It could be.

It's like water in a box or something like that.

Yeah.

But I think, you know, packaging things like water in containers that are not usually used for water, it, is kind of like a feature in itself, if that makes sense. Do people agree? Or I didn't want to just write down my own ideas, but—

I don't know. I think more people should get filters for their tap.

Yeah, I guess I didn't mean water. I guess like you could take— like, could we take soda and find someplace that will put soda in a— like a paper and wax container or something like that, you know what I mean?

Well, even the glass—

well, soda's actually— aluminum's actually really good. It's like of all the materials, maybe soda's not a good example.

Maybe we could put shampoo. Could you put shampoo?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like aluminum. Yeah, ideally that would be— and that's what I've seen for these stores that are doing this, and I'm sure Erica can speak to it. She— I know she does like she knows this market pretty well. She does like product analysis for competitors.

Okay, what did I say?

I was just saying that I know you check out our competition and how they find like interesting packaging for a lot of these things. Yeah, I'm using a two-page right now. That's in, it's in, it's in like an aluminum, recycled aluminum, like toothpaste container.

Which was really difficult to find.

Yeah.

For not like a killer price. First of all, even find it. It wasn't that easy.

I think that's the problem is we need to help people find it.

Yeah.

That's the key value.

Exactly. I like that phrase. And the price also, like I bought this precisely like shampoo and body lotion in an aluminum bottle that you can ship back, but it's $30. To me, that's a lot. So it really like, I really think twice before buying and I was like, okay, yeah. And I don't know why it's that elevated. If it's aluminum, it's nothing. Fancy.

It was actually interesting when I was looking for the toothpaste, like, super quickly. I went to 8 stores and I asked, do you have a toothpaste in a metal, like, aluminum tube? And everybody said, I don't know, I don't think so, but is it important? One person actually asked me, is it really important? People didn't even know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eventually I didn't find it. Vivek found it online, but not in physical store.

So that was 40 minutes. I don't know if everyone heard the— from my alarm go off. Um, is there anything else? Was there— did anyone have lingering ideas we want to get down before we, we move on?

Or, um, I just wanted an mention that I feel like at some point we should talk about our baseline of what's acceptable and what's not.

Okay, yeah, yeah, we've kind of went very far down containers and I don't think that's necessarily going to be our focus. So I don't, you know, we can do a lot more brainstorming on, um, other things too. Um, maybe we'll follow up, follow up next week. But I kind of wanted to go through this exercise. We can kind of go back to a little more high level too, but I wanted to go through this exercise because it kind of helps ground you in like actual, like what actual things are we going to do? Or like what actually, like what are our products going to look like?

I think what Adam was saying was like, what are we not going to do would be a good answer.

I see what you mean.

That's a start to try to to brainstorm at some point.

Okay.

Yeah.

I made the mention of like plastics 1 and 2 and Viv is like, I don't know. And so we, we eventually will need to figure out what that means for us.

Okay.

Do you feel, how does everyone else feel about that? Does, is that—

Yeah, I'd, I'd personally love to know all of these instances of like attempts at sustainability and which ones do we feel make the cut for us and our vision, which ones don't. And I'd specifically love it to be tied to which examples, because that— and then that implies that we'd need to know kind of like what are the data points behind some of these examples that appear to be environmental but might not be.

Yeah. I also think that on every item that you do sell in your store online, you'll have a Co-op Store stamp on it and it'll be like, we grade this product a 3 out of 10 for sustainability, 10 being the best, 1, you know, whatever, 0 being the worst, and then have some sort of metrics to that.

Yeah, that would require rubrics and grading and massaging data.

Yeah. Do we want to do— I feel like we're— we could do— we could definitely do another week on these. Do we want to do— do we plan on next week going into what we're not— like starting to set standards and talking about what we're not going to do and where we're kind of start talking about that. We're talking about where we draw the line on things.

Yeah.

We want to focus in on that. Does that— everyone's— how do people feel about that? Yes or no of just focusing on setting standards for us?

As part of the key value prop or the value prop or the key prop?

Yeah.

Maybe as part of it, I think it would be nice if we can get to another one of these boxes too, because as we each week will be wanting to go back to other boxes. So I feel like if we keep going through the boxes, that'll be best for us.

Okay, good. Let's do, let's do a vote, um, in the chat. Um, so, uh, let's say, do, uh, do we want to move on to the next box for next week? So yes is moving on to another box, no is staying in key propositions, uh, for next week.

I, I kind of— sorry, I would be sort of in between on that. I hear Russell's point, like, I think it'd be nice to, to start tackling a little bit of another box, but I, I certainly don't think we've finished here key props. So yeah, yeah, I kind of agree. I kind of on both, like, I definitely think, yeah, there's value in trying to tackle a little bit of the next one so we feel like we're making some, like, movement on the board, but Okay, let's just unpack here.

And do you think we'll come back to it? Is that kind of—

I, I would suggest, um, um, a couple people do research on what we were just discussing and, um, potential baselines, um, between now and next week, and maybe spend half the time on this former box and then half the time on, you know, introducing the next one.

Okay. Do— yeah, do we want to do— people want to volunteer for that? I think that's a— I don't know if we would have to vote on— I think we can just take some volunteers and have them follow up next week.

And we do research in what exactly?

So, Adam, I'm going to summarize. Researching standards. And standards for the products we would do, what we would not want, what exactly we would not want to sell and what we would want to sell. And I guess researching what are the actual— Calvin, you were saying what your point was, what are the actual benefits to some of these? Like, are— is aluminum more sustainable? And doing a little research around that. Calvin, was that Do you summarize your point there too?

Uh, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I'd say so.

Does anyone want to volunteer for research? That was kind of a lot. I mean, I guess you can, you know.

Yeah, I can definitely do a portion of that research. Like, I could maybe find all existing technologies and give like the skinny on each one.

Okay, I think that's good.

Someone else should probably help Calvin, that's a lot.

I can try to help you out, Kevin. Maybe we can try to pair.

Yeah, I'd love that, that'd be fun.

All right, um, I once did like, I just put a bunch of like companies, like competitors. I made a presentation that I never shared with you guys, and it has information of what they sell, what they don't. I share with you, it might serve as a good baseline for research. You can research these companies. Yeah, it's just examples. It actually talks about the annual revenue and things like that, but they— it actually mentions what they sell and what are their sustainability standards. So I'll share the link and put it here in Miro.

I wanted to ask you guys, because recently I've been reading about this company, Danimar Scientific, and they— if you will be interested, I can present what I already read. And they came up with 100% compostable plastic. So if you want, I can next time talk about it.

Yeah, what I'm thinking Russell and I can do is we can focus on just making a list of all of the like major sustainability and packaging areas. Whether it's compressed cardboard, 100% compostable plastics, right? They're not actually plastics, they're like a wax composite, and other things like aluminum, aluminum return and reuse programs. We could look, we can make a list of all those major areas and then we'll ask all of you in the Slack, hey, here's the list so far, who can speak to these already so that we're not duplicating extra research, and then Russell and I will fill in the gaps.

So we'll coordinate on Slack.

I think those compostable plastics are called plastics. They're just made out of, uh, like corn oil and things like that.

Yeah, yeah, it's made of oil. Yes.

Yeah, I, um, I put up my, uh, my fingers in quotes, um, because I didn't know how else to refer to them. Sorry.

So one cool thing, when we were talking about, do we want to go into the invention stuff, is I've already kind of been doing my own lab work at home to actually test out if stuff composts. And let me tell you, not a lot of it does, even though they say it does. It just doesn't.

Yeah.

So there's— somebody said there's something called an industrial composter, that they break down in an industrial composter, but not in a regular compost.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And I would also kind of question like who's testing if it really does compost in an industrial composter. Do you know what I mean?

Like almost nothing. There's like, they basically don't exist either in this country. So there's a lot of like, that's like an area of greenwashing.

I think Seattle, somebody said Seattle does the industrial composting. And so that it works if you put it in your compost in Seattle, but not most places.

Since we need— since we would need everyone to respond to this list by a certain date, so this would be a task for everyone, would be to check our list that's created by a certain day and then have checked it and responded to which ones you can speak to and attest to by a certain day, and then Russell and I know what to look up before the next meeting.

And actually, we've had that pattern before and we decided, I mean, we usually have meetings on Wednesdays, so we tried to get it done on Friday, Friday night, like me and you would try to get done. Um, but I do know that we, we might want to talk about the meeting. Do we want to talk about the meeting today, Vivek? Meeting times and stuff?

Yeah, we'll see. We'll try to get to it.

Um, I can add that to the agenda so we don't forget it. Okay. I think that's good. We'll get the list of companies to be researched by Friday, and then Russell and Calvin will take it from there and then present next week. Does that sound good?

Sounds like a plan.

Okay, cool. Let's move on to— Adam and mission statement update. Adam, you want to take over the screen? Yep. Yeah, cool.

Can you see it?

Yep.

Oh, great. Okay, so I just took this from about 3 or 2 or 3 articles I found online. Task was to quickly in, I believe, 80, 70 seconds, enlighten you into what the vision versus mission is. So this is not my writing. This is from a couple articles I tacked together. So mission, vision, values. We've heard this trio rattled off countless times, rapid fire, like they're one catchy phrase, when in fact they are three distinct concepts for organizations. The difference between a vision and a mission, the vision statement focuses on tomorrow and what the organization wants to become. The mission statement focuses on today and what the organization does. So one example here is TED. Their mission is spread ideas. The vision is we believe passionately in the power of ideas to change everything. Attitudes, lives, and ultimately the world. So essentially their vision is telling the why, like why, why are they spreading ideas, you know, to hopefully change the world for the positive. So your mission statement drives the company. It is what you do, the core business, and it comes from the objectives and what it takes to reach those objectives. So it's what you're doing every day. It also shapes your company's culture. The vision statement gives the company direction. It's the future of the business, the goal of the business, which then provides the purpose. The vision statement is about— is about what you want to become. It's aspirational. And again, let me mention, this is people's opinions. We could take this in any way we want. I just wanted to give an idea of what— people have been— some companies use for their vision versus mission. So for Amazon, mission: we strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost convenience.

Their mission—

their vision is to be the Earth's most customer-centric company where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online. One last example, Patagonia. Mission: to build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and to use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. The vision: a love of wild and beautiful places demands participation in the fight to save them and to help reverse the steep decline in the overall environmental health of our planet. Why it works. Building an implementation in Patagonia's mission convey what they achieve each day. The tone of the vision changes dramatically, showing a company who will rise up to protect the future. Okay, so this is what I wrote as just a theoretical for us co-op store, and just to kind of fit in with these other examples. So the co-op store, Their mission is to enable and embolden all people to consume with less environmental impact and to engage in cooperation and fairness in all our practices for the sake of our customers, employees, and partners. Our vision is a healthy, clean, and just planet that can only exist if we work together. The Co+op Store envisions a just and cooperative economy that gives all people control and clarity in every purchase that they make. Every person deserves the opportunity to easily and affordably choose the eco-conscious option. Sustainable living can and should be available to the masses. And I put in a little why it works. If the co-op store gives people the opportunity to shop kindly, avoid plastic, and avoid abuses typical to our existing supply chains, we can achieve the vision of a more equitable, healthy cooperative planet. One yields the other. The mission can be enacted every day to create the vision of the sustainable future that we desire. So that's my brief intro into it, and I really wanted to be quick on that. So I'd love to hear what you guys just think of that part of things.

I want to say thanks for presenting again. Great work. I personally like it, so I'll just end it there. I like it.

I think consuming with less environmental impact, I think that's in the mission statement. I think that's really good.

How does this fit with that TED Talk that we watched? Does the vision kind of play as the why and fulfills that role a bit more rather than the, you know, the mission? The mission is the doing, the vision is the why or the propelling force.

To a degree, yeah, I think so.

I would say, I would say that The vision is a how. Because this is—

Or the what.

What would you envision, or the what, yeah. And the mission is a why. We want to enable, embolden. This is why we're doing it. It is, so yeah, like the mission includes the why, It also includes what, if it makes sense, because we are saying like to enable people to, which is like enabling and involving people to consume, is the why we want to do this. And then cooperation and fairness practices, that's the how actually. And I was going to mention that I don't think that it is necessary. It's not necessary to include that in the mission, in my opinion. I have the idea that the mission should be like very short and straightforward and with like few keywords, because I've read a book where they mentioned that when companies have like a mission that has like too many keywords or that can go in many, in different directions, then it's hard to remember why you're doing it. What is your mission? So like what, like we can get lost. Okay, like our mission is to, in my opinion, is to make it easy. So make it sustainable, attainable, make it easy for everybody to shop without plastic and this. Now we're doing it, we are, we happen to be doing it with a co-op, right? But the co-op is not the mission itself. It's just the way we're going to do it. I don't know if it makes sense.

Yeah. No, I think that, I think that makes sense.

Sure. Yeah, I'm with you there on keeping the mission really succinct. I guess my thought is the vision, like the mission is to enable and embolden all people to consume with less environmental impact. It's not like we're— that if people consume with less environmental impact, then our vision of a healthier, cleaner, and just planet can therefore exist. The environment will be improved. That's the vision, to improve the environment. Um, but let's go, uh, the— let's see, um, well, this just brings up one.

Yeah, sorry.

No, no, no, actually, Vivek, go ahead.

You can go, dude. I'll speak up afterwards. I think you're going to show something. I don't know what you're exactly— well, I was going to go back to that, um, uh, to the different suggestions.

Yeah, the Miro survey. Um, they just got updated, but I don't think it's that. And we, yeah, we could go over it, but go ahead and say whatever you want.

I think there's a couple things. So yeah, you know, I don't know if everyone got a chance to check out that TED Talk. I assume everyone did. And I don't know if people— I think that was one of the points about this discussion was like, you know, did we think differently? Do we have different feelings about the votes that we made and the vision state or the mission statements talked about? I think it was, I really appreciate you explaining the difference between the vision and mission statement. Like, now I see more clearly why it would make sense to have it as part of our literature. And personally, at least, that's how I feel. But, you know, I think the one tricky thing that I would like that maybe we think about versus like long versus short, like, you know, And though that TED Talk didn't talk about it, like it talks about sort of high level, like what is a company, like how a good company sort of expresses itself to its customers, to its team. But like, I think one thing we've been all lacking is, and I wanted to bring this up, is like, do, like, I don't know how to judge. Like, I feel like I don't know how to judge a good mission statement or a good vision statement. You've given some examples and those sound good, but I don't know if I'm judging it right. It almost feels like if I were to— if I had no knowledge of art at all or something and I was looking at a couple paintings and someone presented some paintings, would I be the right judge of what is a good painting or a good piece of art? I think, I think we'd help all of us because as far as I know, like, none of us are like pros at mission statements or vision statements. Like, you, you definitely spend some time looking at them, and but like perhaps it would be helpful for all of us to like have some gauge, like, what makes these, like, makes it really powerful, like, versus just our opinion, which is like some, some of us might think a shorter mission statement is better, or someone might think it's like a better, like a longer one's better, or, you know, someone might think, you know, Combining them or— I don't know if we're like, we're the right judge. Like, I, in retrospect, I feel like we might have jumped a jump like a little quick to like just add our opinion on something. But yeah, I don't know if that makes sense.

So what do you suggest we do? Or like, With how can we be, how can we criticize our own work, or be judges of our own work, without needing any extra outside parties to tell us we're doing, we're going in the right direction? So that's the question. Vivek?

I think we need to start a little bit like a poem where just like, is this word necessary? Because in a poem you sort of, you don't want any unnecessary words, you want all the words to be just the right word.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, I think I wonder if this is feeling like too monumentous of a task, and I wonder if if we just try one on like it's a new pair of pants and we have a sunset date and we say by sunset date we're gonna say this one's no longer a mission statement, let's pick another after we've like worn it for a while and see how it felt. Or maybe we just say, hey, this sunsets at the creation of the actual company beyond the steering— or I'm sorry, business beyond the steering committee. And then we, you know, we won't feel like oh, we didn't know what we were doing, or it's— I believe it's always amendable based on consensus here, but I also feel like perhaps, you know, we're feeling the weight that goes behind crafting a mission statement, and we're going to spend a lot of time trying to make it fit perfectly when we need to experience it some and like see what it's like to reference it and get feedback from it. So I wonder if we just pick one sooner but agree that we're not the perfect poets and that it will have its end time. This is for the steering committee and that's to get us going kind of thing.

I think that's great.

That's a great point, Calvin. But the only thing I would just— only reason I actually bring this up is it's coming to a later agenda item that I've added. It just like— yeah, I'll bring it up now. I didn't feel like, you know, we were like, we were exactly like understood exactly how to do a mission statement or a vision statement. Like now, like Adam's more clarified exactly how they, like what the distinctions are, but even it would be helpful even just like understand like how, like some of the, how people or marketers break these down, like to make it powerful and punchy and valuable for customers and users to make that judgment. But maybe, maybe for now we can just pick one and then, like you said, we can always, we can always like change it later, especially when we break into committees and there's a committee that does like the marketing and they'll fix it.

Maybe.

Yeah, I think this one's pretty good. This mission, vision, why it works. I think that It's pretty good, like Russell said.

So do we think that we— do you think that we could try to get consensus on using this as a mission statement tentatively?

Well, I like the idea of having it be a mission statement for the steering committee.

I like that too.

I think Calvin, Calvin, you said that one.

Okay, so could we vote on that?

Yeah, should we do— you want to do a vote? Let's do just, uh, I guess, yeah. So yes is, um, should we say yes is, uh, taking this mission and vision to be the mission and vision for the steering— just for the steering committee? And then no is, I guess, we keep, we keep working on it.

Because did anyone, like, uh, did anyone take a second look at, uh, the statements that are on Miro? Because I think there, there were a few that were added, or so, like, actually I took off my points. I, I thought something happened there and my points were somewhere else, not where they should be. But I also noticed that I think 3 people, like 3 new statements were added. So I thought now we will be kind of reconsidering again, but.

That might be like, that's true.

Through all of them again, I don't know.

That's true, we did, that was one of the action items, wasn't it, to retally? Did we, did we, and we did do that?

Uh, yeah, I retallied them.

Okay. Did you, so did you retally and then build, uh, write this one from the real retally or, um, no, I was just kind of a separate.

Well, there was one question though, but like, so I mean, I guess one of the questions was, did anyone feel like they wanted to change after their after their viewing of the video, like, did they feel like their scoring was accurate? And then secondly, I'm just like, on a— I, after like reconsidering that video, I did take another shot at writing a mission statement that I thought like more captured that why component, but I don't know if anyone got a chance to look at it.

Did you add it? Is that the one at the bottom or one of the—

the third to last and second to last.

Uh, here.

So I didn't, um, I guess there's also like lots of comments on the other ones, so I was just really thinking, um, I guess people added it and now we should kind of rethink and, um, maybe to Calvin's point, maybe we should just—

this is like, is it good enough for now? We kind of come back to it.

So we don't get like in this loop of going over this mission or, or, or, you know, do we have one that's maybe not tentative, but yeah, we, we assign a committee and the committee provides and presents the research for, you know, what, what makes up a mission statement and a vision statement, which ones have worked well for companies. They do that presentation. We do our final edits and then we, we take a final go at it, but, but later on.

But I feel like we already kind of did that, like Adam did that work. Um, oh yeah, I'm gonna be quiet.

So I did see, I did see the video, um, and I did, I did spend a lot of time thinking about it. I don't know if we really have gotten to why, to your point, Vivek, um, but I still did like where I voted before. So I didn't really, I didn't change it. Now I didn't, I didn't notice that there were the couple at the bottom, so I guess I didn't consider those, consider the new ones. So maybe that would change it a little bit, but I think there are 3 new ones and there were some revisions.

Um, I wouldn't mind like going over again, but if everyone wants just to stay with this one for now.

Yeah, I personally didn't like change my, my, my votes. If you see, I still have the Fibonacci sequence numbers, so, um, I would like to, to, to vote again if that's okay.

Does it have— how many other people want to vote again?

If we're allowing for an editing period and like to give suggestions, because today is when I finally got around to voting and I even gave suggestions to some of them, like Option I, I said, oh, if there were one thing changed, I would really, really love Option I, whomever wrote that. I'd be pleased with voting again after an edit period. So based on what we have here, so maybe not doing a long presentation and such again, but, you know, individually leaving suggestions, having an edit by date, and then making sure you vote after that edit by date, I think would be—

Okay.

Can we do edits until Friday and then voting from Friday till the next meeting?

That's good.

Does anyone, anyone opposed to that?

What's the— Adam, can, can I ask you to, like, uh, can we have, uh, um, can we view what you just presented? I would like to read it again to myself. Yeah, the whole thing. Would it be possible? So you post it somewhere on Miro, or maybe next to the—

to this, to this frame? Yeah, yeah, just Sure. Thank you.

Yeah, it was great. Yeah, it's very helpful.

Um, I can also share some, like, the only thing, the way I can think of it is like pictures of the, of the book that I read, like the pages about like why that are short and long, I can, I can add those pictures right next to the, to the frame if it's helpful.

Okay, there's notes.

Yes, thank you.

Yeah, that's good. Okay, so we'll make changes to it and make some edits until Friday, and then everyone will have to re-vote again on their mission statement. And we'll look at it next week.

Does Adam— do you want to continue to work solo on this, or does anybody want to— I don't actually— I'll leave it at that point. Like tallying or things like that, would you like help?

Tallying takes about 30 seconds, so no stress there.

Yeah.

All right.

Appreciate it, though.

I wonder if it'd be good to, maybe not this time, but there are kind of a lot now. Maybe we do, maybe we pick the top 4 or something and do like a, what is that called? Where you do like a, you vote, you know, you cut out the bottom, like, you know, bottom candidates and then vote again.

It's an instant runoff is one type of voting where you cut off like a, lowest threshold.

Does that make sense? Or is that overthinking it?

But that would be two votings, or how does it work?

Well, I guess we would, you know, we would do— we would tally it next week and then, and then vote again. I guess we can decide then. It was just, just something that came to mind.

Okay. Spread, uh, like widely, maybe, uh, then yes, we can consider it. Otherwise, maybe there's like 5 there, 0 points, so automatically they will be cut off.

Okay, cool. We can— yeah, we can call—

are we for now?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. So we'll all vote again, uh, on Friday or after Friday until the next week. Cool. So let's move on to the follow-up on the Miro training.

Okay, so we had a new idea sort of to, in a way, I mean, the kind of proposition for us, uh, instead of taking like the precious time of the meeting, we actually recorded— I mean, Erica created this nice frame, and then we recorded a video where we are kind of presenting what is on that frame. So we, we propose that you guys just watch it at home. Now we show it where it is, what is there, and if everybody can go through it, read it, and watch the video that we recorded. We could save time.

Okay, yeah, we are kind of running a little behind, so.

So we want to do that after the call or just send it out later?

Homework, yeah, we can send it on Miro.

I think Eric is trying to share.

Eric is going to show it now, where to find it and how is it actually organized, and then everybody can— that could be an action item that everybody could work on. Watched this video.

Okay, that's good.

Nice shades, Jeremy. Erica, are you there?

Yeah, so yeah, my mirror froze, so maybe you can, you can show it. Yep, thank you.

Do you got it? It's on the how to mirror.

Yeah. Oh yeah, thank you. It's the frame 2.

You got it, or do you want me to do it?

Uh, if you can do it, that'd be great. Thank you.

All right, this is it. Is it here at the top?

It's that— is that the, um, actually the next one to the right? There's 2 more. There's the practice, and then there's a new one. Oh, okay. Yeah, that one. Yeah, so yeah. We are going to cover like all there is to know about sticky notes, about how to add text, structure our board content. So it's the same as last week, like if you click on the card, if you open the card, you will see, yeah, like some like explanation and then at the bottom there's the link you can visit. And then, yeah, you just like, you can go to the sticky notes and check and check it out. And these are pictures of where the things are found. Here is the link to the video where it says, please watch this video in the bottom left. The Buddha's YouTuber, just kidding. And then on the right, there's another frame that's completely empty. That you can use to practice what we are showing you, trying to show there. And that's it. And it's like, yeah, it's pretty simple.

It's basically what we would have done during the meeting, but we just recorded it.

Yeah, cool.

So we should watch the video first, or should we be clicking on the cards? Like, what's the process of operation, would you say?

Maybe, yeah, I will read the frame, like try to explore the frame and then watch the video. Maybe you'll have more context.

I think it's also individual. For me, I'm more like watching video first and then going there to know, but it's very individual. It's it, yeah.

And just to be clear, is that cool with everybody? Like, do we feel like we can honestly take this on, like, beyond just, you know, sometimes I know, like, sometimes these tasks can feel like, oh, like, it's not a big deal, but obviously this would be helpful, but I just want to make sure people feel, like, comfortable that they would be able to do this or they'll make time to do it.

Meaning, keep it or are you going to skip it?

Maybe that you can leave your Practice on the practice frame. You have to.

This is homework.

Yeah.

I think this is good. I think, I mean, the more I've gotten to Demiro, the more I've liked it. So the more practice, the better, I think, even if it's just a couple of minutes.

Yeah, I like it too. It struggles on a few of my computers, but I like it. It works pretty good on my phone, to be honest. I was messing with it on my phone the other day. But yeah, I do like that you guys are— I prefer to learn on my own, so the video is probably the best for me. So I thank you for that.

Cool. Cool. Cool.

It looks really nice, the frame you guys— last frame was awesome. This one looks even more handy, so thanks, man.

And I do like how we're doing— we're already doing like education. We're already learning how to teach each other and teach communities.

So yeah, that's actually a really interesting idea to just have like a big mural boards for like different educational things of, you know, where to go to compost, how to compost, what containers are good, what are not good.

Public mural.

Well, I think you guys may or may not remember, but education is a huge key principle of cooperatives. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm glad we're doing that. Helps us all become not just gears in the machine but informed owners.

So cool.

Maybe we could create a frame like what just Brad said, and then it's kind of like almost, I mean, brainstorming or giving your own ideas. If you guys want, I can create that frame and everybody can write something there. I can—

for what?

For, let's say, where to compost or what to compost or not, what's plastic, is good or not.

Like, like a sustainability line of frames?

Yeah, or a new word. To each other.

Oh, okay.

Because that's how I learned the most from, you know, other, my friends' habits.

So, so maybe our best habit or something, our best sustainability habit, maybe a board for that or something.

It's not, that's good.

A frame only.

Sorry, frame, I mean.

A frame. I think that's a good idea to kind of, kind of remind us of that idea or to test out that using Miro for that.

Yeah. It kind of reminds me of our key value, uh, process we did today, right? I learned a lot. Like, I would have never thought to bring my own package to a restaurant. Like, that, that makes so— that makes such a good idea.

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we do.

Yeah.

I never paid you to pay for it.

You know what's great about that too is that I think you show up at a restaurant with a container and other people will be like, what, what is that? Why do you have a container? You get to talk about it, right? Right, but it's like automatically like—

which is, which is why I was, which is why I was saying the brand, like having a brand branding-wise where people brought their, they brought their sustainable co-op package to like Outback and you're like, yes, right? Because that's free advertisement.

Exactly.

Like SpongeBob, like, uh, you know, we can go like, look, oh, our friend has this fancy container that folds to flat. I'm like, oh, where did you get that?

Yeah. Okay, so, so just to be clear, so Calvin knows, so action items to review the, is it moving that forward? And also I think, Ulla, did you volunteer to create a, okay, create a frame to just to share our favorite, um, tips, tips and habits on living sustainably so we can all learn from one another. Share as you desire, I guess.

Nice. Cool. Yeah, that's good. All right, let's move on. Vec, this is your next. How do we make sure we are making smart decisions?

Yeah, um, you got it. Yeah, I didn't create a presentation for this. I should have. I was thinking about it, but I just didn't get a chance to. So, um, like, uh, the mission— the mission statement thing Later on to me, it felt like one of the areas where, you know, like, can we make smarter decisions? How do we make smarter decisions? How do we all, like, you know, if we're not marketers or if we're not a developer or if we're not, you know, like human resources, like how can us as owners make smart decisions going forward? Right, as a group. And so it just like made me think like, yeah, how like while we saw some great examples and Adam put some great examples together for mission statements and some of us wrote some of our own as well, I still didn't, at the end of the day, I didn't feel like I was, like I could discern a really good one versus maybe an okay one. Like even if I read Nike's versus I don't know, Adidas or New Balance, like would I know like if New Balance's mission statement is better than Nike's, like are they equally good? Like I didn't know, I wasn't sure, like I didn't know the rules of a good mission statement. And so I kept like thinking to myself like I would love for us, and this is just an initial kickoff kind of conversation, I don't, I'm not trying to solidify anything, but just try to get like I feel like if people agree and try to create some sort of process on our system to like allow all of us who are owners right now, we don't have particular roles of any sort and we're trying to make the best decisions possible around anything. You know, today it may be around the value propositions and tomorrow it might be about like, where are we gonna be located? Or like how we get to market, like how do we as people that may not be pros in certain things provide it, get an insightful perspective. And right now, like the way I'm thinking about it is a little bit like also that, that video that we shared, the TED Talk, and Erica and I talked a little bit about this in a I took some inspiration from her, so maybe she can also add to it. But thinking about this, like, oh, why, how, what, and then having some metrics. Meaning, so if we're looking at— if we're going to take on a task, we should be asking ourselves, like, why are we taking on this task? And be very clear to the rest of the team, like, why are we doing this? Like, why is this important? Important. Then, then talk about— so then we understand like, okay, does this, does this make sense? Like, as a group, can we like— does this logically make sense? Okay. And then how— it's like, um, how do we resolve that, that task that we want to do? And then what does it look like? And then finally, like, the last key component is like, how do we judge that? Like, how— is there some sort of metric? Do we just like judge it against? Is there like, these are the rules of writing a vision or mission statement, or these are the rules of like, of how to— like, I even asked you, Brad, you know, in the Slack, how do we judge if we're doing this business model canvas correctly? Like, I don't— I'm not like a pro of this model canvas. Like, I think we're tackling it, you know, correctly and we're, you know, being insightful, but like, I don't know. And you provided like insightful answers. You're like, well, they should be all connecting. You know, there shouldn't be like, you know, anything that's like kind of out in a zone without connection to another square in the box. And I was like, okay, that seems, that seems pretty reasonable. You know, so trying to think about like a process in the future so that we can all make really wise decisions and we don't, we don't just get lucky that we like put together, you know, a good business model canvas, or we got lucky that we, you know, figured out a good launch campaign. But like we actually have a system, and that's sort of what I'm putting together a little bit is like, is this first when we present something or do something, thinking about the why, thinking how we're going to execute it, what it's going to look like, and finally, and how do we determine if we, if this is good, like the final product.

Yes, yeah, Vivek mentioned that, and then right after I watched it the talk, and we talked, and then he said, like, why don't we use the same golden circle, I think he called it. Can you guys hear me?

Yes.

Yeah, okay. And maybe, like, every time we have an idea or, like, we're tackling, like, some research or, like, we are going to do values or mission or everything, we use the same, like, okay, we're going to present it, and then we can even create a template And say, like, why? You start telling the team why, why you think it's a good idea or why your research says that's important. And then how. And then finally, what is it that you're proposing? Just as a means to always back up our proposals, basically, or our ideas. And also, like, something that I found very helpful from the video is, like, the failure and success examples that he gave. Why would some people succeed at doing the same task and some people fail? So, like, I feel like because we're new at everything we're doing so far, or at least in my experience, Doing research and like what has worked for others and what hasn't is very important. And always like giving examples as a team, like analyzing as a team, because so we don't have to go back and back and asking ourselves, which is kind of what happened with the vision, right? Like it's good, it sounds good, but why are we going back and forth? Maybe because we didn't have a system of how to come up with these ideas that are the mission, that are so important. And then if we have like a system of like saying, first you give the proposal, then we study it, and then the next meeting we can talk about it. But having like a template that we have to fill out when we have a proposal, I think it will be helpful.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. I'm not— I guess right off the top of my head, I'm not convinced every idea can fit into that where somebody goes off and does research and comes up with a proposal and then we vote on it. I guess I'm thinking specifically about the business model Business Model Canvas. I think that we do all have to come together and kind of brainstorm each of these, or maybe just brainstorm all together. I guess we could have people go and come back and have a list for one block or two, but I don't know if it really quite—

One thing that comes to mind—

It would just be very different from my experience with it.

The Business Model Canvas, like the way I would have thought of like handling it would to be like, you just, just so like everyone's on the same page, like, you know, why we're doing it, like how we're going to execute on it, what it'll finally look like at the end, generally speaking. And then lastly, or maybe not lastly, because Eric was saying like, here, maybe use some examples of good and bad. And then lastly, like, this is sort of like how I would judge that this is good. Or like, I talked to, you know, a couple guys who like, like your friend you mentioned, I like talk to my friend who's a pro at this model canvas and this is how he said is like a good way to judge if you've done it well. Or like I read a couple blog pieces and I watched a couple YouTube videos and this is what they said, it's like great execution, right? So then that way we're all on the same page and we're like, we know how to generally judge it, like generally judge like we've done a good job. We know exactly why we were doing this, like We know how we're going to execute against it, and then finally— it doesn't have to be something super elaborate, but anyway, the point is just trying to create a system, and it doesn't have to— this doesn't have to be the final discussion on it. I kind of want to put it out there and hear what people thought about it. If I'm like, am I way off base, or like, or do you guys agree, or what?

No, I would like to add a quick example. For instance, now we're going to discuss about what we don't want to do, right? We don't I'm gonna put in the short. It would be interesting to say like, for instance, I don't want plastic at all. So why not, right? And I will have to share with you why not and how not. And finally, what's gonna be the solution. That's like an example. Like maybe when you oppose something and you propose something, just back it up with this 3, answered.

Yeah, back it up with the reason, I think.

I also think that, well, here's my, here's my 10 cents. So Vivek, you said like it would be nice if we had a decision-making process so we knew when we were making smart decisions collectively and on our own. And I think that there is also like indecision, right? Like we've kind of just chosen not to to decide on the mission statement, but we also decided to have an action. So that's good. I was happy with how we resolved that. So I think we sort of have that, but I also do think that like the indecision that we've had on a few, few occasions is it is also a decision. It's a decision not to take action or to decide, which kind of, kind of is a bummer, but sometimes it makes sense. And I think that if we looked into like What was I— the, like, yeah, I forget where I was going with that, but sorry everyone.

I don't know, Adam or Jennifer or Calvin, anyone else want to chime in on this concept? Or Ulla, sorry.

For me, I think having sort of a structure, a plan, It would make everything faster and smoother. I don't know if easier, but I think, yeah, that would make our life easier and we would move with the faster speed.

Russell?

Yeah, so I was going to say like the last piece of mine because you reminded me, Ulla, is, yeah, faster. So like What's the big deal if we voted and someone was like, yeah, absolutely not. We just can't, I just can't go forward with Adam's thing. And then that's it. Right. But we can still, we can still reiterate.

Right.

So I think it's okay to try to go to a vote, even if we don't pass. I think if we start using those muscles, I think we can start to get faster and we can start to be better at trusting our intuition and our guts collectively and alone. So it's like if we, if we had voted, like, it might not have passed, but that wouldn't have changed as much. Like, we'd still have to have action items. So I think going on a limb and just voting, I think it might be okay.

Voting, voting is a— it feels like a different, like, problem that I'm trying to talk about. Like, I'm trying to talk about just making, like, smart decisions. And like, or did you feel like you knew the process or like how to correctly judge a good mission statement? Like, yeah, yeah, you did.

Yeah, like, so I, I mean, I would just, you know, pick what I think is good enough for now at this, the state that we're in. Like, my intuition is if we pick something, it's better than having nothing, and we can always fix it like Calvin was saying. So like, if we can especially if we make decisions, if we make decisions through voting or whatever means, and we get good at it, it, it, um, it makes it less painful for when we make mistakes as well, because we can just vote, vote to fix them. Um, or we could vote, or we could decide to fix them. Um, so I think it's just figuring out how to work that muscle.

I love, I love both of these. So I love the idea of trying to approach future challenges like mission statements with that structure. I think this is very wise to bring up, Vivek. And then I think, Russell, I think so true. Democracy is difficult, or a voting system is difficult, especially with consensus. I think that's going to be new to most of us. So the more we use it, the more we experiment, the more we're willing to fail and then correct and move forward, I think is really, really cool. So I think both of you are pushing really wise thoughts right now. They're just applying to different things. One is a decision already made, and One is for future decisions and how to approach them.

Yeah.

This is why dictatorships are so efficient.

Just tell us what to do. Right, it's on you.

Looks like you like this.

The Adam that's got the American flag thing, but he's very much like a president right now. When I look at him, he's like, All right, well anyway, this was just an initial conversation kickoff. This wasn't to try to like set something in stone. Perhaps I can come, like if people think it's worthy, I can try to think of it like more thoughtfully, present something for future decisions, or take like how we perhaps like take on new projects or action items or whatever, then like maybe I try to create a system. And if that system is agreed upon by the team, then we can start using it. But if we don't like it, but I don't want to even start it if folks don't think it's worthy. Is, is you guys think it's worthwhile effort or—

I think adding structure is good. I think we're light on structure right now. And, um, I, I couldn't see going. I think it would be good to add a little structure, even if We could always remove it, but I think adding more structure wouldn't be bad.

Yeah, like for instance, when I was doing the research on like how steering committee gets compensated, I felt like really lost. Like I, like it was kind of hard to put it together. It was hard to reach a decision. It's still like in the air still. So yeah, it will be good to have some system.

If we can do the last, like everybody's last comments here and then move on. Just so, just we got a couple more things to do.

I really liked your and Jennifer's work on that stuff, Erika. So I think you did great. Maybe there's action items.

That—

are you thinking maybe there's action items that are left over from that project that you'd like to go back to?

Um, or that you— no, not really, but we haven't actually decided, but we're gonna decide in the future how we're gonna get compensated. We're trying— we're testing the forms to go to work.

Speaking of forms, I think that's the next thing. Does anyone have a One more comment for Vivek and his proposal for proposals.

I mean, okay.

So, is there— so I don't know, I kind of like feel like I'm in limbo. I don't know if I should or shouldn't do anything, but you seem like you're game for it.

I was saying yes. Did anyone—

I don't object.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think Calvin said it pretty well. You both— Russell's idea of trusting your intuition is a good idea, and your idea of wanting to make good decisions is also admirable.

Well, I think specifically around Vivek, you were asking specifically about adding Creating like a form or something for— Just like a system.

Yeah, maybe a form or a system. Just like to help us get closer to ideally trying to make the most informed decisions, even if we're not experts in a particular field. That's sort of my goal.

Does anyone oppose that?

OK. Oh, you said oppose.

Oppose.

Yeah.

No, I like it.

OK. And, um, cool.

Is that cool?

Okay, cool. Okay, so I'll add it as an action item.

I'll put it over to my— for behind that. Okay, thanks, man. Uh, okay, so, um, me and Erica got this last thing as well. Um, once again, this all— this I'll also put in, uh, like a proper presentation and I'll send out with the follow-up email. Um, I didn't get a chance to. So we talked about this a couple weeks ago. Erica, can you mind bringing up that one of the forms?

Okay.

Yeah, so we remember we decided to break up the forms and we're going to test this out. The one form is just like a weekly thing. We're going to just to, you know, keep track and sort of get an idea of like how things are going individually, like for ourselves and like just keep track of like general timing and so forth so that we have some sort of data point that later on we'll probably use for just general compensation and making sure that we— everyone gets fairly compensated in the future. But then there was also, um, we created a separate form for just get— like giving each other feedback to one another. And I think this is like, it's like something almost every organization does, Um, but beyond that, um, um, like, data shows that it, like, um, like, if, you know, if, uh, people don't get feedback beyond just, like, uh, you know, learning, growing, they oftentimes don't feel like they have— they're being recognized or seen for their work, uh, and they often disengage. So I think giving feedback is just like an excellent opportunity to to recognize one another as a team. And like all of us have been working pretty hard on this project for the last couple of weeks and months. And so I think this is a great opportunity to recognize each other and to also, um, making sure to, uh, um, to try to help each other improve. And, and so I did like a bunch of— I have some experience from, from my managerial days and also from business school and stuff like that where we talk a lot about this. And so I had done a little bit more research in preparation for this conversation. So that's sort of the value of, I think, these feedback forms. And then just the other point I wanted to share was like, how do you give feedback? Because I think while we think we know how to do it, oftentimes we are not the best at it. There's a lot of data that shows that. Usually there's two parts, giving and receiving. The giving part is trying to think both about the positive and the constructive, not just the constructive, but also thinking about the positive. What are the areas that the efforts are doing really well in, or really appreciated, and it's been refreshing? Also, what are some of the areas that they can use improvement? Particularly for the constructive side, and try to use examples of areas where they, you know, they could be improved and like being very specific about that. If you're blurry or abstract, it's really hard for the person to understand exactly what you're talking about. And then along with being very clear about the areas where they can improve and giving you examples, but also is tips and suggestions. For them to actually do that thing better. And maybe if you don't know, you can just say, hey, why don't you Google it? I don't know how to do this better personally, but I'm sure someone at Google does, or something like that. And then lastly, trying to be concise about that feedback. So all those things combined allows for someone to get some feedback that's useful and handy and will help them grow. And then If you think this about like this in a more meta way, like zoomed out way, we're all been part of this thing, putting this together. You know, every one of us is showing up to meetings and thinking about different problems and issues. And so if each of us can continue to be mindful of our blind spots through our friends or our colleagues and friends' feedback, then we can all each individually get better and also long-term get closer and closer to this like problem that we all desperately like to address. And so that's sort of the process of giving feedback. And then on the other end of it, getting feedback is, you know, trying to be as open to it. You know, when you're like reading your own feedback from one of your colleagues, just thinking, okay, like I'm open to this. Like it's cool. Like I want to improve. I want to become, better and also be exciting to see it and see how you're doing in the eyes of your colleagues. So yeah, that's basically it. Once again, I don't think this should be— we should think of this as an opportunity to grow and most importantly get towards our mission. And then if there's some feedback that you're confused about or want more clarification, we should be we should feel comfortable, like, asking the person who provided that feedback for insights or additional, like, discussion. And, you know, I, I think of you, all of you, like, not just as colleagues and, but like friends to a degree. Obviously I've known people like Adam for decades now, and others I'm starting to, like, get to know. But, um, I think this is an opportunity for us to get closer and to help each other be the best version of ourselves as we work on this project, so, and it's a pretty concise form, but I just wanted to give some background on that, and then lastly, Erica, I think wanted to, it's going to show like who's going to give feedback to who, just that was the goal, like two pieces, two people for, would give back, give feedback to each person.

Yeah, I think because of the time and because I want to ask Calvin if he wants to be included in this month because you would like— this will be like for March, and so I could like include you in the rotation.

Uh, next one though, Erica, because you know, you just—

okay, okay, that's okay. Okay, okay, all good. If so, this Let me share with you how then how it will be. And I mean, it is already on the, on the Miro board, right?

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah, you can just, you can use. Yep, pretty basic for now.

Sorry, should we send these out or we can make—

yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll send, share the link. It's also on Miro. So it's right here.

So that the name—

this is the— that's the form. These are the forms already. They are on Miro too. So like, you check, you say, I have to do, I don't know, like Ula's and Jennifer's. I just click on there and then go And then when you click on it, you can go here to the actual form.

Can you go back to the spreadsheet?

Yep. Sorry, it's like I have to share something new each time. Yeah, okay.

At the same time, it's also very transparent, so if someone would like to see what, like, what, let's say, what you said about two of us, right? I mean, what kind of feedback you gave, we can also read it.

Okay, so how does this work? How this works is everybody's gonna do one a month. So my team—

once a month you're gonna, you're just gonna give feedback on two people.

So for Adam, he's gonna get input from Annie and Brad, and Brad's also gonna get feedback on Jennifer. So he's doing two, and I'm doing both Ulla and, uh, Erica.

Um, Adam. Oh, what?

Well, I'm doing that, like, no, Vivek's doing Adam and Ula.

Yeah, Vivek, you're doing Adam and Ula. Sorry, my mistake. Yeah, yeah, I'll, I'll do yours, Vivek's, and Adam's. So everybody will do two and everybody will get Feedback from 2 people every month. Every month. So this is for March, the last, last meeting of the month. Okay, so this is our action item for everybody this week.

Okay.

And then we rotate again somehow.

Yep. We'll share the thing with you.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, but I'll, I'll share the link, or maybe we can shoot— if you can add it to the follow-up email.

Okay, okay.

And then this is the— I'm sending out the just a weekly normal form that we all fill. I just put some of that out in the chat. Any questions, guys? Like, do you guys feel comfortable? Um, like, was that my summary pretty hopefully helpful and regards to, you know, how to give feedback or, and take feedback.

I liked it.

Get better.

I think that's good. It's a good description.

Yeah, it was, it was a good way to present it. It didn't feel intimidating.

All right.

Any questions on that before we move on? Nope.

All right.

Do we want to talk about this event offer from Emily?

The time is clicking. I don't know, I can quickly say it and maybe the details I can post on Slack, or— okay, because it would be not nice to ignore that. Uh, so very quickly, um, uh, she attended, like I said, a couple meetings and she cannot continue because it's like clashes with her other schedule. But she is like— she works for a Boatpeace, it's a nonprofit, and she has like She's very well connected, so she thought of us for the next event that is Ocean and Fashion happening in New York City, and she offered us that we can join. And it's going to be during the period of 2 weeks from Monday to Friday starting April 21st, so goes Monday to Friday. Friday, every day from 12 PM to 6 PM.

Okay. And in New York City?

In New York City. And in the meantime, like, we could, um, join a pop-up, uh, uh, pop-up, like, exchange clothing shop where we bring our, like, used nice clothes and do, like, you know, fashion exchange. In the meantime, there would be a lot of people connected, like related with sustainability. And she said they could— they— I mean, we could have some interviews, like some media could interview some of us and Vivek, if that's possible. And if someone could be present physically, be in that shop, you know, depending on people's schedule. So I don't know if we are interested. Should I go, you know, more, uh, like forward with this? Uh, actually Vivek and me, we won't be in New York, uh, starting next Monday, so we won't be physically here. So that's a bummer. Um, so that's why I'm not sure if that makes sense, because then it's only Jennifer, Erica, and That's it, right? In New York City.

I think we have to— this is like a longer discussion. I think if we want to do it, we might have to put this in a Slack message.

Yeah, I think that's good.

Yeah, sure. I don't want to— I didn't want to ignore it, and I wanted you to know that that's what she offered. Uh, it could be like an opportunity for us to, yeah, to spread the word and more and more people to get to know us. Yeah, it's just— okay, I will post the details, everything, and then people can answer. So maybe we can add it to action items after I post it. Everybody could read that and think about it and give your opinion.

Yeah, I think that's good. Okay, um, I had written down, uh, Vivek, did you have another meeting update or was that—

I mean, I'd like to, I think I'm just trying to be mindful of time. Like, um, I don't know, does, does, does folks have like a— does everyone have like a few minutes? It doesn't have to be like— yeah, I think I like to be mindful about time. I, I hate asking people to stay longer, um, you know. So it just didn't work out and it's what it is. Maybe we can add it to the next, next meeting. Okay, unless folks want to stay, but I don't— I think it's fine.

We can move to Slack too. I mean, I don't know what if it's just, if you just wanna have a conversation about it or.

Yeah, we could try Slack too.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Cool.

So yeah, I think that's everything. Let's do, how did the meeting go? Who wants to start?

Maybe we just do thumbs.

Oh yeah. You wanna just do real quick thumbs up or down?

Oh my God, Brad, I thought your section was really helpful. I like your approach to, uh, the canvas because I see a lot of, um, it's essentially an outline of our potential research into practicalities of what we need to know. So I like where that's going.

Okay, do you, if I, if I can ask you, do you think that I should, um, have a present a little more as of like kind kind of what Vivek was saying of like what should go in these boxes as we do more of these? Or do you think that was enough? Like intro, do you think I did enough like preparation to get everyone in the mindset?

I thought it was pretty solid, but if you want to add 10% of that and that's always a little bit more, maybe. Okay.

Sure. Cool.

Thanks, Adam. I thought your, uh, um, presentation and the distinction between vision and mission was really cool.

It was great to have examples.

Thank you for that. Great meeting overall.

I'd say good job, especially to Adam and Brad, and I liked Calvin and Russell's input too. Really on point. Useful, helpful.

Cool.

Yeah, I really, I really enjoyed hearing how people are, are dealing with the problem we're trying to solve because we're all solving it already. And it's great to hear how we're all doing it different ways. So I'm excited to see what we come up with, with Ulla's Miro board.

Yeah, that was a good idea.

I'll pass it to Vivek.

Yeah, I thought this was— yeah, I think for every, every meeting I'm encouraged, and I always say that, like, I really mean that. And Russell, I know you're a Noam Chomsky fan as well, and I was listening to him talk about, you know, democracy in America and other issues, and people always ask him, like, how do we solve this problem? How do we solve this problem? He's like, like you solve any problem that's ever been solved in history, which is you just keep at it. Like, you just keep at it. And I think every— the fact that every one of us keeps showing up and showing up enthusiasm— some meetings are going to be good, some meetings aren't going to be as great, but I think the fact that we keep showing up, we're gonna, we're gonna create something really huge. So I'm always encouraged and appreciate the enthusiasm here. Yeah, uh, I'll pass it to Always have to sit next to you.

I think it was great meeting. I feel like very enthusiastic and positive. Thanks so much, Brad and Adam. Very nicely presented and it was easy to understand. And yeah, thanks everyone else. I feel like, yeah, we are full of like energy and ideas. And yeah, it was great.

Our next person, Erica, I think, is the last one. Okay, yeah, there we go.

Oh, I like how we are all practicing our feedback muscles because we're all giving each other feedback. Big bang. And yeah, I love hearing everybody's, uh, like, work towards sustainability. Thank you.

Actually, did we have Adam? Adam, did you talk?

Um, yes, I went first.

Oh, of course you did.

Sorry, Brad, maybe Brad.

I appreciate—

yeah, I think Brad, yourself.

I think it went well. Um, I think we, we're kind of tackling heavy topics. So I think, um, you know, I think it's just gonna be— I think it's just gonna take time to get through all this stuff, I guess. I guess that's how I feel about it now. Um, so I don't— you know, some of these things, like, I, I think we don't really want to watch. We can really, like, dwell on these things a lot, and I'd still be pretty happy with it, or, like, pace, I guess. Cool, cool.

Well, bye everyone. Good night.

Yeah, good night.

Thanks for staying late.

Thanks guys. Bye, take care.