Forest BB

Present: Pomme, Garden Andy, Laura, Graeme, Chombee, Pockets, Claire, Martina, Lucas, Bryony, Alex*, Torstein

Points from last meeting outstanding

Is barredcam working? Where is it? (Ryan)
Print tabletops (Alex)
Make more tabletop holders (Alex)
Events book with instructions on how to have an event (Gaz, Shannon, Faith)
Documentary film nights (Swithun talk to Tarik)
Change 'tea' to 'Handsome Jack' on menu (Chombee will take it on)

Grill

Grill element broke, new one ordered, taking ages to get here, should have been next day delivery. Delivery service 'delivered' twice in afternoon, allegedly. Hopefully arrive tomorrow, or make a big fuss.

Volunteer cupboard policy

Lots of crap in there.
Non-shift volunteers should ask, handy for parties
Key on different ring - with toilet key, keep in till.
Till impractical. Have a ring somewhere out of the way.
Only leave valuables - not tops.
Big sign saying that crap will be chucked regularly (Laura)

Next volunteer party

Fun and games with Andy.
Lock the front door and keep non-volunteers out. The parties are a thank you to volunteers.
Kiddies party theme.
Friday 9th.
Bryony phone volunteers, Swithun make poster.

Christmas dinner

Bryony will do christmas dinner - contact her if you want to get involved. On 25th December.

Film suggestions

Swithun will be contacted by people who want to show films. Write it in book when film is chosen.
Person showing film has to provide film, control crowd, manage equipment.
Graeme will start thread on Christmas Films
Magda/Duncan - where are you? (Alex)
Alex will write up instructions on how to NM a film night.

Kitchen overhaul

Shannon has a plan. Have more of a creative edge in kitchen. More to cook in morning, so more staff then. Change the menu - has been similar for a long time.
Make the kitchen a creative place, like rest of Forest.
Have place for next year, so worth doing.
Give volunteers more cooking skills.
We have more volunteers during day anyway, so makes good use of their time.
Alex and Shannon will work out what we need to buy - equipment.
Can still keep dishes cheap.
Can let customers mix and match.
Have tubs for sandwich fillings, roulette option.
Apply same approach to main dishes as sandwiches.
Alex will make sure there enough bins in kitchen and for customers.
Have separate meeting later to discuss kitchen overhaul. Alex will start thread.

Prices

Alex has been doing food costs to reduce prices. The current prices are over the 3xcost formula.
Lowering prices would bring in more customers, but most people don't think the prices are too high. Some dishes are on the edge (Nachos!)
Good to have a cheap but healthy alternative to beans.

Events posters

Jane was apparently supposed to touch me. I'm still waiting.

Advertisments/publicity

Nothing new on website.
Is the small first page good - it hides the events.
Swithun will find out who is doing stuff on the site and how more people can do more stuff.
Push the BB more. But are customers that interested.

Cleaning

The place is a dump. What happened to the cleaning rota?
Have a more comprehensive cleaning list.
A slot on the rota for cleaning.
People are not cleaning as well as before. Standards are slipping.
Alex will reorganise night cleaning list. Have it laminated so that it can be ticked.
Bryony will organise cleaning.

Making things clearer - corkage, dishes etc.

Customers often don't see signs. Alex has made tabletop leaflet.
Pomme will repaint sign for staff toilet to emphasise STAFF, not TOILET.
Signs in toilet downstairs - Andy to ask Nix to spray paint signs - unisex toilet, close door etc.
Have corkage explained in several languages.
Ban drinking in gold room. Impossible to enforce, but nice idea.
Bryony will draw up 'how to be nice to Forest' text.
We don't explain the unique nature of the Forest enough. Changes to gold room will help with this.
Pockets will make infomercial DVD.
Humour is good, but not private jokes.
Laura/Bryony/Pomme look into licence rules for under 16s. When there are young bands/customers it might be good to ban all alcohol.
Sometimes bands cause trouble - ask them to chill or get lost.
Need to be vigilant over Christmas. Police can advise. Kitchen people need to ask for IDs. Get KM/NM to do it if you don't want to do it yourself.

Translating

Forest is multinational. Bryony will get people to translate. Want Polish, Spanish, French, Greek.

sounds like a really really productive meeting.

questions and follow ups

- barred cam --- somewhere in the office. where? i don't know. it got put there when graeme brought it in durring the festival and now i can't see it. sorry graeme, i am an asshole.


- vollie party - sounds great! yo mamma!

- kitchen overhall --- so, shall i wait on the fridge then?

- prices: nachos are high because they are fiddley and take up a huge ammount of oven space.

- website's first page is updated as are the events page. in terms of the front page --- i think it is good. i've been talking to web guys and really, it is important to have a clean and easy to load and simple first page. people know how to enter the labrynth... just click. pogo manages that page. i think gareth, me, beev (me doing the least) manage the rest.

- makeing things clearer is a great idea. and really important. go team!

that's all. ignore me if you wanna.

ry

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www.ryanvanwinkle.com

I have started a Christmas film thread over in the Film forum...

Poster posted to poster forum. Will be down to print later on.

Nice one - lots of new faces!!



Does this mean the same approach in that the dishes will change daily, like the sandwiches do now? In this case, yes. But not that people will be able to choose sandwich fillings! I´m not sure there will be sandwiches at all, post-change... I also think there will have to be some limits to what we make each day (ie: new dishes probably shouldn´t be introduced until they have been priced - at least roughly). Where should we discuss this??

On the fridge: I think it would be good to get in touch with them. I´m slightly afraid our time will run out or something. Maybe it would be worth asking if they do any warming units?

We also need to seriously discuss the cost of such a unit, because the new equipment will mean this is a pretty steep investment. We really need to think about this, because as Ryan said in another thread, we have carved out a decent niche with the menu we have now. But I am bored and uninspired and I think we could do better...

Regarding events book: this has not been done. Forgot about it - sorry.

Also, I was supposed to update the menu with the handsome Jack and a few other tea changes, but it never happened. This is because I have been unable to access an up to date version of the menu which I could change. If anyone has advice, please pass it on.

Yes - the sandwich comparison came up and I was worried that customers would be able to make their own dishes, like they used to choose their own sandwich fillings. When we switched to fixed sandwiches, it was a step forwards. But it was explained that the similarity was more along the lines of having a few dishes that change often, like the sandwiches do.

There were some licensing issues which I didn't minute, but which need to be thought through.

Making proper dishes requires a bit more skill than sandwiches and will put more responsibility on kms to make sure its done reasonably well. Not that I'm against it, it's quite a good idea.

Also, if we are moving to being a cooking kitchen, we may need to consider a new license as our current one is only for serving drinks and reheated food as far as I know. It's good not to get too much into the technicalities of what we are currently allowed to do, but we should be aware that the proposed new regime may require the installation of ventilation equipment and the like.

Yes, if we do it properly... In which case, it needs to be an inter-working group discussion.

I think the latest version of the menu is the one I did when I updated the prices, I posted it in this thread:

http://www.theforest.org.uk/bb/viewtopi ... nu+chombee

(try searching the bb for 'menu').

Alternatively it's on the Blue computer, just go to 'Find Files' or whatever and search for file with 'menu' in their filename. It will find lots of files, and you figure out which is the latest one by looking at them all. That's what I did. There is no better way to find it than by searching the bb or searching the blue computer.

You have to use photoshop to edit the menu.

Do we need a better way of storing things like menus, posters and documents that we all share and collaborate on?

We could create something like a forest https://www.dropboks.com/ account. Free, 1GB online file storage, we could donate them some money. It's an easy way to put files online and share them, and keep them sanely organised. And even if all our computers get stolen, our important documents would still be safely stored online. Dropboks isn't quite perfect, there's no way to make files public for anyone without a password to download, so we can't just link directly to a particular file, and it's really meant for individuals not groups. You have to register an email address with your account. Also you would not want to put any sensitive documents on there unless you trust the dropboks people. But does anyone know anything similar to dropboks that would do the job?

Alternatively we could setup a git repository or something.

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I've had it with you. If I had an image of a laser gun I would absolutely position it right here in my hand...
Ha! I have a real laser absolutely positioned in my hand!

We already have the gold room...

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the more you think, the more you stink