Meals are provided starting after house cleanup and ending somewhere toward the end of study week, skipping school holidays, as decided by stewards. Dinners are served Sunday at 6:00pm and Monday through Friday at 7:00 pm. People who cannot make it to the meal can request that a "save plate" be labeled and set aside for them.¹ In addition, house members and meal planners¹⁰ can munch on "PC food". Leftovers are PC. Save plates become PC after 1 pm the next day. It has always been the policy that every meal contains a complete meal for vegetarians, so that if a meat dish is provided, an alternative vegetarian meal should be provided as well. It will be the policy that stewards will make their best attempt to accommodate all dietary restrictions.² It is customary to serve meat two days a week.

The meal plan is a significant part of membership at the house, so all house members are required to be on the meal plan, except in the case of extenuating circumstances (e.g. disability, severe illness or allergy). House members who wish to be taken off the meal plan in that case must contact the stewards and the president, and they will be reimbursed for the cost of the meal plan, and will not be able to access any part of the meal plan. This includes PC food from cook groups and any staples.⁹

House members (and persons on the meal plan) must cook once a week (starting 2.5 hours before each meal) and clean after the meal. Also, that cooking group is responsible for doing late night.³ Late night is to be completed before 5am of the next day. At the beginning of each semester, the house may decide by vote between what hours exactly late night should be done.⁴ Some house officers are exempt from cooking groups (see house officers’ responsibilities). If all cooking slots are filled, there will be floaters who bake and cook recipes provided by the stewards outside of normal cook groups.

The cost of the meal plan for out-of-house persons is the same if they choose to cook and is additional money if they choose not to cook. Stewards at the beginning of the semester can choose the higher cost, and it should be approximately equal to minimum wage* 3.5 hours/week * the number of weeks of the semester’s meal plan + the normal cost of the meal plan. This additional cost is to ensure that the labor of house members is valued.⁵ It has been suggested that the meal plan be limited to a maximum of 50 people.

Weekly cook groups, floater positions, or cleaning crew positions are a major responsibility of the meal plan. Failure to complete this responsibility earns the member an infraction. In the case of external meal planners, the same consequences apply but only in relationship to their involvement with the meal plan. For example, accruing three infractions means that the external meal planner will not be permitted to join the meal plan the following semester. Additionally, if an external meal planner receives 3 infractions, they are not awarded Redbud house points. Infractions are given immediately following the missed shift. If a substantial amount of the shift is missed but not the entire time (ex. Missing two hours or not attending late night), a half infraction may be given. Stewards assign these infractions, and cook group members can alert stewards or another officer when a member misses a shift. Infractions must be awarded within a week of the missed shift.

Members of the meal plan may choose to make up their first meal plan infraction⁸ and get it removed from their record. To do so, they may either make an arrangement with the people on their cook group (a potential option is to do late night by themselves). Or they may sub for two shifts that are looking for a substitute; in this case, the shift of the person making up for their infraction cannot be taken by the person looking for a sub (this is not a 1:1 switch). The person whose shift is taken up by someone making up an infraction will not be switching with the person who is making up an infraction. It is still required, however, that the person whose shift is taken up by the person making up an infraction will join a cook group within two weeks of the substitution (or at the discretion of the stewards). It is the duty of the meal planner with the infraction to communicate with the stewards when and how they are making up for the infraction, otherwise the infraction cannot be removed. Infractions can be made up only during the semester they are given up until the last meal, and they become permanent after this point.

There are exceptions to this infraction rule based on illness and prelims. In the case of illness—either physical or mental—an infraction may not be given so long as a reasonable effort to find a substitute is made. In respect to mental illness, a reasonable effort might be to inform the stewards 10 minutes before the start of cook group that you are unable to make your shift. In respect to physical illness, a minimum reasonable effort is to send an email to the house with 24 hours notice or at the start of your illness. In the case of a prelim, a house member may receive an infraction, but so long as they sent the listserv an email with at least a week’s notice, they may erase the infraction by doing only one additional cook group. Any further extenuating circumstances are at the discretion of the stewards.⁶

All meat that is used for dinners should be locally sourced. Stewards will be responsible for finding and purchasing meat from farms within 100 miles of Von Cramm Hall. Stewards may decide on the criteria for what farms to choose—but it is recommended that they choose small farms that espouse sustainable land management (grass-fed, organic, etc.) and fair working conditions. Exceptions can be made when the type of meat desired is not locally available. This does not apply to staples available for lunch and other meals.

The treasurer should keep track of meat purchases and compare prices to those of non-local meat available at Wegmans. The additional cost of buying local and sustainable food can be subsidized by income from summer rent. No more than 1/6 of summer income can be spent on this per semester—if costs rise above this cap residents must decide whether to abandon the local meat option for the semester or to temporarily increase 6 costs.⁷

• [1] Passed 01/22/1995
• [2] Passed 10/2016
• [3] Described in detail in 'Late Night' section of Responsibilities section of house rules
• [4] Passed 03/2006
• [5] Passed 3/12/2017
• [6] Passed 3/12/2017
• [7] Passed 12/2013 (revised 05/2015)
• [8] Passed 04/28/2019
• [9] Passed 02/21/2021
• [10] Passed 04/05/2021