Kitchen Committee

Annual Report for Kitchen Committees, 2019-2020

 

Committee Chair: Linda McLeod

                                    1st __   2nd ___ 3rd __X_   Check year of term

 

Committee Members: Patty Drews, Joan Watterson, Kathy Farnsworth-Labelle, Jeanette Walton, Regina Moody, Buzzie Kelly, Connie Quirk, Christine Seel, Lis Jenkinson, Anna Thomas, Yvonne Chick

 

Major accomplishments this year:

  • Worked with Building and Grounds Committee to install a second dishwasher to allow us to use our china dishes thereby using less paper and plastic products
  • Asked for donations of wine glasses from our members and now have approximately 75 assorted wine glass saving us the cost of purchasing wine glasses from our budget.
  • Added plate and platter racks to the dish cabinet and storeroom shelves to ease storage of these items. This made for much easier access of these items.
  • Purchased storage crates for overflow of 50 drinking glasses to relieve cabinet storage
  • Held a kitchen cleaning day with seven of our Kitchen Committee doing a thorough cleaning and reorganization of the kitchen
  • Prepared a complete Kitchen Procedure Manual as requested by the kitchen committee and a duplicate of the procedures to post on a bulletin board
  • Updated the Kitchen Contents Directory and posted on the kitchen wall for anyone using the kitchen

 

Events served this year:

  • September – 1. Diane Schrader Memorial Service 2. Congregational Conversation
  • October – Blake Moore Memorial Service
  • November – 1. Guest at Your Table Potluck 2.
  • December – Winter Sing
  • January – Congregational Conversation
  • March – Pledge Drive Lunch
  • A typical year would have had many more events had it not been interrupted by Covid19
  • Throughout the year the Kitchen Committee has assisted the CYRE with all their events when using the kitchen (Pancake breakfast, Chocolate auction, Chili cookoff)
  • Each Sunday the Kitchen Committee is responsible for the popular Sunday Social Hour that allows our members and friends to gather for coffee and snacks and a good time of getting to know one another better. This time also enhances the opportunity to meet our visitors.

 

 

 

  • Please briefly describe any factors that facilitated or impeded your work this year.

Bill Dolley makes the work of the Kitchen Committee just that much better. He is always willing to fix, enhance, install or whatever we might need to make things easier for us. It is a pleasure to work with him. The events that we coordinate run smoothly because of Bill’s help.

 

The Kitchen Committee assists any committee that asks to have an event that is serving food or using the kitchen. It would be helpful for those committees to remember that it is their event and their responsibility to provide volunteers to setup, serve, and cleanup for the event. The Kitchen Committee is available to help plan and to give direction to the functions of the kitchen since we are so familiar with the how, why, and where of everything. We should not be expected to do all the work. Typically, we should only need to provide 2 to 3 at the most (depending on the size of the event) Kitchen Committee volunteers for any event. The rest should come from the committee sponsoring the event.

 

  • Any special initiatives continuing into the next program year

I will be resigning as Kitchen Committee Chair as of June 30 but am leaving a very capable, knowledgeable, and creative team to take care of the UUCC Kitchen. I have written a thorough Procedure Kitchen Manual covering everything that we do in the kitchen and where everything is. I have also posted this on a large kitchen bulletin board. This was the agreed plan by the Kitchen Committee. They will have this as a guide and, like a recipe, they may follow it at first but will add or subtract as they go. They will do well.

 

As a team we have accomplished a great deal in the three years we have been together. We have organized a procedure for doing Sunday Social Hour, established a way to do events, reorganized and cleaned our cabinets, created a very functional storeroom, installed a new dishwasher and added a second one, acquired a beautiful new kitchen sink and new counter tops, reorganized our tablecloths and formed a system to keep them cleaned and orderly, converted from plastic and paper to glass and china, made many efforts to be more green, and the list goes on. This is a tremendous team of volunteers who can do anything when asked. I have every confidence in them that they will continue to be as great on their own as they have proven to be with my direction.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Linda McLeod

Kitchen Committee Chair