The Progress Notes are being submitted by the Office Manager and the participating Board members so that the fellowship is apprised of the Staff and Board's ongoing effort to effectively and efficiently discharge their duty to serve the fellowship by carrying the message to the adult child that suffers.

 

 

Progress Notes

Weekly Office Meeting

May 16, 2013

Donate the Van. Office Manager will donate it to a tax exempt organization and get a tax receipt for ACA to have a write-off. We suggested something like Kars for Kids.

FedEx - We decided to put this on hold until the dust settles with UPS.

Tri-folds pre-counted These are not being pre-counted because we have existing stock, some of which is still tri-folded - and all of which has to be counted in groups of 10. Once this stock is depleted, new orders will be collated by the vendor in batches of ten. The tri-fold assortment is 'assembled' by hand. Office Manager will check to see if any vendor has the capability of collating a multi-colored assortment.

Extra UPS Account - We've had 3 invoices from UPS Mail Innovations (March for $1,311.89 and $88.87, and 179.82 for April) that we couldn't match to specific orders. Per our Accountant, while we investigate, we had to pay them so we wouldn't jeopardize our regular account. UPS represntative will be in the office today to show them how to figure these out, and also make sure we're fully back up to speed on T-Hub etc. after recent technical issues.

New order of books -

  1. Office Manager said there are less accessible areas of the warehouse, as well as the extra room in the office (see #11 below) where some or all of the blemished books, Spanish workbooks and archival material can be moved to make room for a larger order of hard cover BRBs. This should create room for at least another 2 pallets of books. Rearranging other things would create more space.
  2. Office Manager will prepare an estimate of how many 'person' hours it will take to rearrange everything. We're calling this the 'Rewarehousing' project.
  3. We currently have about 1,400 books stored at Bang.  Office Manager will get an estimate for 8,000 books, instead of the 6,000 she has already been working on.  The additional 2,000 or so books (2 pallets) will fit in the warehouse space that will be created by 'Rewarehousing'. Then we would be getting a delivery of 9,400 books.  We will stop storing books at Bang to save money on storage and delivery fees.
  4. At Chair's request, Office Manager will direct Staff to draft a letter to the UK and Australian Intergroups to see if they wish to participate in the Seeding Program by pre-ordering books that will be reserved from the 9,400.  They will be told they must have all the details of how many books and how much money they can pay upfront, so that those books can be shipped to them simultaneously when our books leave for Signal Hill. 
  5. Storage at Bang - See #5 above.  We will stop storing books at Bang to save money on storage and delivery fees.

20 hours per week fewer hours - In early April, Treasurer and Past Treasurer had asked Office Manager to suspend the scanning and shredding of archival materials, which was supposed to save 20 hours per week. According to Office Manager, people self-selected and 3 have reduced their hours. The technology problems have caused some problems with hours, but things are now back to normal and the hours have been reduced.

Staff's departure - Staff met with her recruiter this week and should be getting a date certain of when her training will start. If her induction date is not before the next teleconference, then the 40+ hours that she and other Staff are currently working will be reduced to 20 hours.  Office Manager asked for some time to understand the impact and process this shift. Per Office Manager, everyone will again be allowed to self-select reduction in hours to spread out this time savings. When Staff does leave, Chair suggested the Board would acknowledge it in some way (Calls from Board members, a gift)  because she's been with us for over 4 years.

Percentage of damage to books that necessitated bubble wrapping - Bubble wrapping has been done for years because they were getting daily returns of damaged books. Workbooks have to be bubble wrapped because otherwise the spirals get damaged.

  1. Office Manager will start a pilot project where we save on bubble wrapping labor time and ship boxes where only the top, middle and bottom layers of books are wrapped to see if we have any damages.
  2. BRBs and Workbooks need to be bubble wrapped in addition to being sent in a bubblepack envelope because otherwise they slide around and get damaged.
  3. A later pilot project to save more bubble wrapping labor costs may be to order slightly larger boxes and place boxes of unwrapped books inside to see if they can be shipped safely (a box within a box).
  4. The possibility of shipping books with no bubble wrapping was discussed and then offering a credit for damaged books instead of shipping replacements could be considered. Office Manager will check with Scott to see if this is possible from a Shopping Cart perspective.
  5. Donated file cabinets - There are 2 and they were cleaned and are currently in the office. Office Manager will check to see if they have the keys, or else get new locks put on them so employee files can be moved from Accountant's office and stored securely.

Asking the ACA meeting to move. Office Manager and  Staff will draft a letter to the members of the Tuesday night meeting giving them about 4 to 6 weeks to relocate to a new facility. This will give Office Manager enough time to complete the 'Rewarehousing' project and move any appropriate things into that room, which could be the blemished books and the archival materials and file cabinets before the order from Bang arrives in 6-8 weeks.

Additional items discussed:

  1. New meeting packets are still being fully assembled by hand.  
  2. Some warehouse employees wear belts to reduce stress when lifting heavy boxes. Office Manager will check into cost of providing them for others.
  3. Our negotiated UPS rates favor certain parts of the country where we have the most deliveries. UPS Solutions periodically does analysis to tell us where our obvious savings will be.