Buttery Committee Meeting 28/11/2014
In Attendance:
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Buttery Chair – Sophie Chittim
Assistant Treasurer (Buttery) – Oliver Milton
Stock Manager – James Welsted
Toastie Bar Manager – Chris Malliband
Media Officer – Kathy Milne
Apologies:
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JCR President – Hannah Pilkington
Minute Taker:
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Kathy Milne
1.) Assistant Treasurer (Buttery)
a) Finance Update
The Buttery’s takings have recovered well from Freshers’ Week and is currently stands at about £1400,
although this is not including the most recent wages and the P&H order. Also, the new toastie machine
needs to be put through special projects for it to be paid for. The VAT in the new systems also still
needs to be checked.
This term so far has taken £5382 in the shop, compared to last year which had taken £5800 at this
time. Although we are down about £300 from last year, last year was an especially good year which
might explain why takings has not been as high this year. However, the toastie bar has taken similar
amounts as last year (currently taken £500.91 so far this term, compared to £500.93 last year) and
this is including the week when the toastie bar was closed.
Action Point: Assistant Treasurer (Buttery) to print off new safe log sheets.
b) New starter forms
The workers who new starter form we have not yet received are Rebbeca Au, Alice Barker and Jess
Thew. Rebecca Au has been waiting on a National Insurance number so that she can work, but in the
meantime she can work, but just not get paid until it has come through. However, the others need to
hand them in by Monday 1st December.
Action Point: Chair to remind workers to hand in their new starter forms if they have not done so
already.
2.) Christmassy things for the Buttery
a) Toasties
Last year, the buttery sold double decker toastie, which were a great success so it would be good
to run them again this year. However, this will not be started until the first of December. However,
the Toastie Bar Manager has had trouble sourcing chunky turkey as Tesco do not sell. They only
sell slices, whereas Asda do sell chunky turkey but they are more difficult to order a delivery from.
However, slices should be easier to make in a toastie and customers will probably not notice the
difference. Last year the two layers consisted of: mozzarella, cranberry and bacon (top layer); and
cheddar, turkey and stuffing (bottom layer). This was sold at £2 and replaced the Toastie of the
Week. There was also a veggie alternative had red onion instead of meat. This will be repeated
this year with the same ingredients and prices.
Also, a Christmas sweet toastie was suggested, where it would be a mince pie toastie. This would
include mincemeat and brandy butter.
Action Point: Media Officer to create poster and post on Facebook for the Double Decker toasties.
Action Point: Toastie Bar Manager to look into making and selling mince pie and brandy butter
sweet toasties.
b) Hamper for Quiz
Last year, for the Christmas quiz, the buttery created a hamper for second prize, and this will also
be the case this year. The stock that will go in is the stuff that will go out-of-date soon/ over the
Christmas holidays, and also any left over Christmas stock that we cannot really sell in the New
Year. It was suggested that the hamper can be created in a Christmas gift bag, as that will make it
more Christmassy, rather than a plain box.
Action Point: Media Officer to buy Christmas bag for hamper.
c) Decorations
This has already been completed by the Media Officer.
d) Bar/ Buttery joint advertising
The bar and Buttery are planning to do more joint advertising to promote both our Christmas
stock and events. For us, this will be to share the bar’s Facebook posts, and to donate prizes for
the quizzes each week, as well a hamper for the last quiz as previously discussed.
e) Informal ball plans
For the informal ball, food ents will be on the cobbles between 8 or 9pm and 12 midnight. This
includes popcorn, candy floss and a chocolate fountain in the Undercroft. This means that it might
not be worth opening the Toastie Bar that evening, as they never normally sell on events nights.
At Summer Ball, they sold like they do in a standard shift, however, this was different as more
people were around and it is expected that when the free food stops, people will most likely go
out and not want to buy any food or toasties from the Buttery. Last year, on Informal Ball, the
shop took only £67.29 and the toastie bar was not open. It was decided then that the toastie bar
will probably not open this year for Informal Ball; however, the shop will be open from 8:30pm to
12:30am. This will be split into two shifts on the rota, with the Assistant Treasurer (Buttery)
working the first part and the Buttery Chair working the second one. If however, the shop has
been quiet, it will close at the end of the first shift, at 10:30pm. Or alternatively, if there has been
a high demand for toasties, the toastie bar will open for the second half of the night.
3.) Buttery Chair
a) Food Hygiene and Allergen Qualifications
The newly hired toastie workers need to complete the online training and qualifications in \Food
Hygiene and Allergens. The Buttery Chair will send out an e-mail to all of the new toastie workers
at the end of the term for them to complete it by the end of the Christmas holidays.
Action Point: Buttery Chair to send out e-mail for Food Hygiene and Allergen Qualifications for the
new toastie bar workers.
b) Laura/ Alex Situation
From the last meeting (15/10/2014), workers Laura Foakes and Alex Brown were going to be asked
to chose whether they want to be only shop or toastie bar workers. This was going to be done
once the new workers had been hired. Now that they have bee, the Buttery Chair will now notify
them by e-mail by the end of this term.
Action Point: Buttery Chair to send e-mail to Laura Foakes and Alex Brown about their shop/
toastie bar worker situation.
c) End of Term Cleaning
The Buttery will close on Wednesday 11th December. This means that end-of-term cleaning will
take place on the Thursday. The Assistant Treasurer is unable to make this day, but the rest of the
committee (excluding the JCR President and Treasurer) will need to find a time suitable for all of
them to clean the Buttery.
4.) Stock Manager
a) Suggestions
Cereal and fruit bars have been suggested, but the weight watcher bars that we currently have
are not selling that well. An idea is to let them sell out and then buy a new brand: perhaps a more
popular brand will help the bars sell more. However, a lot of fruit and cereal bars contain a lot of
sugar, so they are not that healthy, which means people may not buy them. The weight watchers
bars do have a long shelf life, so it is possible to advertise them, as people may not realise they
are there, and see how this affects their selling rate.
More pot noodle flavours have been requested, but the only flavour at Batley’s that we can sell
at the same price as the flavours already in the Buttery id Beef and Tomato. This does not sound
like it will be a popular choice, so the best option would be to stick with two flavours for now and
see if there are any more requests, in which case we would review the matter.
Cashew nuts have also been suggested but they probably will not sell that well, so are not worth
it. Snackable cheese was also suggested, but this is not viable due to being unable to store them.
Wine gums have also been suggested, but we sell fruit pastels which are similar and they do not
sell that quickly. Cadbury’s chocolate marvellous creations have been suggested but are too
expensive to sell.
Healthy savoury snacks have also been suggested, especially cous cous. This can be sold in
flavoured packets and may be worth looking into, as they might sell well.
A salsa dip has been suggested to sell with doritos, but this is too expensive and probably won’t
sell that well. Drinks that have been suggested again include: Sports Lucozade, pepsi, diet coke,
decaff tea and full fat milk. We have been unable to sell these in the past and are still faced by the
same problems, so we cannot get them in.
Airways chewing gum was suggested, but we have many flavours of chewing gum and they do not
sell particularly quickly. Once the Buttery has sold out of citrus chewing gum, then the flavours
will be reduce to, and kept at, two flavours.
Dip daps have been a popular suggestion, and they can be bought from P&H and sold for 40p, so
this may be a viable option to buy.
Strepsils have been suggested, but we do a wide variety of similar ingredients, so this may not add
anything. However, strepsils are different and more popular, although theya re more expensive,
so it might be worth looking into selling these. Also, they have a long shelf life, so they will probably
sell out eventually before they go out-of-date.
Items that we definitely cannot consider are scratch cards, playing cards and batteries. However,
following this, stationary has been suggested again. It might be worth considering selling a few
items closer to the exam period, and only include pens, pencils, rubbers and envelopes as
otherwise they will not sell.
For toastie ingredients, the speciality cheese ingredient Halloumi was incredibly popular and it is
worth considering bringing it in as a regular ingredient. However, before we can do this, pricing
and portion size need to be established. To make it not sell at a lost, ideally one block should serve
seven portions, whereas before it was serving only about five portions and was resulting in a slight
loss. The only other alternative is to raise the price to 40p, however, this is not really practical as
people will not buy it. So instead, we will bring it back as a speciality cheese again, and make sure
the correct portion sizes are served, and if it is still possible, then we will consider it for a main
ingredient of the toastie bar.
Pesto has also been suggested again, but the only nut free version has been found at Asda.
Action Point: Toastie Bar Manager to include new suggestions book on next Tesco order.
b) Quiz prizes
The products that are going out-of-date that can be included as prizes for the quizzes are: double
deckers, Cadbury’s fruit and nut bars, Malteaser packets, Cheese Doritos, Cheddar and onion
McCoys and Kettle Chips, Pork scratchings, Honeycomb squares and the rest of the Ice Cream. The
ice cream will be put up as a prize for the next bar quiz.
c) Bar/ Buttery Relations
The bar will help shift stock going out-of-date as previously discussed. The Bar have also asked if
we can look into buying a bigger quantity of the cake flavours we get and how much a 2-litre
bottles of milk cost.
5) Media Officer
a) DVD suggestions
It was suggested by the Assistant Treasurer (Buttery) that we would start fining if DVDs were out
on loan for too long. However, an exact time limit would need to be decided. This would also need
to be passed onto the JCR Exec, in order to decide how we would do this and how much we would
charge. Also, the Media Officer suggested if there was a way of scanning in the DVD and their
campus card like they do in the library. The current till in the buttery is capable of scanning DVDs,
but it would have to be worked out how this would be recorded.
Action Point: Media Officer to look into getting a library-type scanner for DVDs.
b) DVD closedown
DVDs will stopped being lent out on Saturday night, and this will give four days for people to return
them to the buttery.
The MCR would also like a collection of DVDs for the Christmas holiday, for which a deposit will
be put in the safe, which what was done previously when the MCR borrowed our DVDs.
c) DVD money
Currently, the DVD donations has about £150 (£120.47 as of 10/11/2014). This can be used to buy
more board games, as people have suggested better board games to be bought. Also, the Buttery
Chair suggested that this money could be used to buy new shelves for the DVDs.
Action Point: Media Officer to look into buying new board games.
d) Stash Update
The stash has been ordered and the estimated delivery time is 5/12/2014. However, an invoice
has not been sent yet so the clothing company will need to be contacted to see if the order has
been processed. Workers will probably be able to pay for it by cheque or cash which can be handed
to a committee member and dropped in the safe.
Action Point: Media Officer to contact Yazzoo Clothing about the stash order.