I've attended several board meetings over the years, and have been impressed both by the need for good decision-making and the community's fierce love for the institution. Since food and nourishment are foundational to a healthy community, I thought I could bring my many years of work and volunteer experience to help with the board's duties at this institution.

I've had more than 30 years of experience in running several businesses in two very different countries, and have worked with a variety of counterparties, mostly in a B2B space, with a heavy focus on building human relationships with people I work with. I've seen a variety of ways individuals and businesses conduct themselves, and found ways to keep working and maintain friendly relationships with most of them.

My unusual perspective on the Palestine/Israel situation, having people I love on every side of this conflict, has taught me humility and the power of solidarity and fierce loyalty to individuals, wherever they come from. Holding love for people on all these sides has been an exercise in humility, and in listening - and a wonderful growing experience for my heart. I am committed to cooperative sharing of power and resources, at every level.

And I adore legal and financial details: I enjoy understanding legal systems and reading financial reports. This will be handy in the Food Co-op board's role of setting policy and monitoring it.

The board has two main roles: First, representing the member-owners' interests by managing its one employee (the general manager) by setting policies and monitoring their implementation.
Second, listening to the stakeholders who want to speak to their representatives (if they're member-owners) or the people perceived as the direction-setters for the Co-op. This second role has become particularly important over the past year. 

My roles in leadership have been primarily in my (tiny) translation business, where I got to choose directions and parameters for our work, set policy boundaries for work we would and would not do, define marketing directions, and help keep the business solvent. 

The focus of board members must be on maintaining and representing the interests of member-owners. As a board member, ascertaining the interests of member-owners and safeguarding them would be my duty.

The first step would be to listen to the member-owners and be sure I've understood their perspectives.
The second would be to compare the stated positions to the goals and limitations written in the policies, and to work with the board to understand if any action needs to be taken to change policies and goals.
Finally, the board would work with the GM to be sure that the best interests of the member-owners are protected.

I see the collaborative nature of the board's voice, speaking in unison, to be a strong safeguard against hasty or partially considered decisions. Additionally, the board has access to a great deal of professional expertise, via its discussions with the GM and consultants. This structure tends to lead to decisions that will be in the best interests of the collective of member-owners. 

Mistakes are opportunities for growth and learning. When a process has gone wrong, it is good to identify where it went wrong, work as a group to define a process where this particular mistake won't be made again, and put in place review processes, that will guarantee that.
Including space for mistakes on board agendas would be a great way to normalize the fact that mistakes occur wherever there are humans - and would help hold the space for people to be thanked for noticing mistakes, and propose solutions.
From personal experience: In my translation work I rely heavily on mutual checks with editors and other translators. I know that mistranslations, typos, and omissions can happen, and are unlikely to be seen by the person who produced them - but that mutually respectful collaboration means that the final work produced by the team is better. Mutually supportive teamwork in resolving errors yields happier results for everybody, including the end client.
This sort of result seems to scale to all levels of individual and group endeavor. 

My strongest skill for working with diverse opinions is my ability to listen deeply in order to balance a variety of different needs and desires, and respect all of them - even when they are in conflict with one another. Listening carefully and truly appreciating people is my "secret" to this.
My greatest challenge would arise if I thought people were being intentionally dishonest. That is my largest trigger, and would make it hard to believe or trust people who gave me that impression. In all my dealings with the Co-op, everyone I have seen and heard seems honest and earnest and trustworthy.

Most of the examples that come to mind involve intricate negotiations about specific translations. It's been good to work with diverse groups who have differing opinions, and spend the time to discern the option that will best serve the group - and then to go back and learn to make that choice feel natural. 

A good group decision-making process involves enough preparation for each individual to know their opinion - and enough time for discussion, so each perspective can be heard.
Decision by consensus is my preferred method, but I am not sure that this is possible in the setting of the Co-op board and its time constraints and structure. The next best thing would be to be certain that everyone has had a chance to state their opinion and ask questions before a decision is made, by majority vote.
Group decision-making has come up frequently in political activism over the past year. A memorable one involved defining the boundaries of a specific protest activity. There was a broad spectrum of opinions, and the decision would bind all participants. We proceeded with consensus, which was slow and thorough, and lost no prospective participants.

The GM is the board's sole employee - and the board gives her specific ends and limitations, with which she uses her expertise to manage the full operations of the Food Co-op.
Policy Governance allows the board to set goals and policies for the GM and monitor adherence to them via a set of monitoring reports. It is an interactive, iterative process: it involves a formalized conversation, and a recurring set of reviews, on a regular schedule.
The specific content of the ends (goals) and limitations (expectations) are decided by the board. The form of the process is dictated by the Policy Governance standards. The implementation is entirely up to the GM.