Member Meeting Retrospective

By Pat Burns, General Manager

Well, we changed just about everything we could with Member Meeting last month – date, time, location, food & drinks, childcare, format – and I’ve heard positive feedback from many Members. This year, the Board intended to inject Member Meeting with a celebratory, social hour environment that would get Members engaged with each other and celebrating Co-op success! From what I hear, the bingo game (yes, there were about 10 different bingo cards circulating) and nametags worked well as icebreakers. We even had 7 Members who filled out the entire bingo card for a chance to be entered into a larger drawing (congrats to Member Beverly Keim on her $50 City Market gift card).  Check out some photos on our Facebook page (and consider “liking us,” if you haven’t yet!).

I shared some abbreviated statistics at the Member Meeting that were very celebratory worthy; here’s a snapshot of those:

• Membership increased 12% in FY2014, from 9,161 to 10,246
• In the last four fiscal years, our sales have increased over 24%, from just over $30,000,000 to just over $38,000,000
• We’re transitioning our Member Worker program out into the community; last fiscal year 56% of total Member Work was performed with our Community Outreach Partners. That’s like employing 5.5 full-time employees to work with some of our non-profit partners all year round!
• Our Food for All program has grown in sales by over 19% in the last four years. This has given some of our lower-income community members over $710,000 in extra purchasing power in that time!

During the meeting, Members had an opportunity to meet current Board Members and meet (or hear a statement from) Board candidates. Please remember to vote for Board candidates, October 1 through October 21. You should recently have received a voting flyer in the mail, but you can also find more information on the election page of our website. Didn’t make it to the Member Meeting? Our Member Matt Cropp videotaped portions of the Member Meeting for you, including the Board candidates’ statements and we’ve included that footage on the election page as well.

Before we start planning for next year’s Member Meeting (about 349 days to go!), we’d like to know what you liked, what you would change or why you might not have attended. Please take our online Member Meeting survey by Friday, October 17 and we’ll enter you for a chance to win one of two $25 Co-op gift cards.

Thanks again for everything that you do to make your Co-op successful and a thriving part of our community!