January Board Blog

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written by Maggie Jones, Board Member

Thank you for reading our Board Blog, a synopsis of our most recent board meeting and other board-related information.

Your board is responsible for overseeing our General Manager (GM), ensuring financial viability, providing governance that is in line with the BC Coops Act and making strategic decisions that benefit our Co-op. We have five board committees that meet monthly and then share reports and recommendations to the board as a whole. These committees are: HR/Hiring, Governance, Finance, Member Engagement, and Nominations. We also hear reports monthly from our GM and one department manager.

January 2023

Your board met January 20th.

We heard and discussed reports from board committees:

  • A top priority continues to be recruiting for a new General Manager (GM), and our Hiring Committee has been diligently vetting and interviewing prospective candidates.
  • Our Finance Committee shared our promising holiday financial results. We’re happy to report that we’re continuing to pay down debt and are holding our own. Thank you for shopping!
  • Our Member Engagement Committee is working on ways to communicate more regularly with our membership. First project: this blog!
  • Our Governance Committee continues to work toward our strategic planning session in February. An aim of this session will be to differentiate between operational and strategic goals and to work with our IGM team to identify areas of focus for the next 6-9 months.

This month, we welcomed a long-time member of our co-op as a guest to the board meeting and she talked to the board about her passion for co-ops and the importance of fair staff compensation. She also asked if we could promote the next upcoming town hall meetings more widely which we will do.

We heard a report from our IGMs. These monthly reports include operational updates that allow our board to stay abreast with what is happening in the store. This month their report included:

  • Information around affordability. Our IGMs continue to oversee our pricing to try to ensure that our products are available at reasonable prices. New products are one piece of the puzzle, such as our new, lower-priced, pasture-raised eggs. Your board knows that affordability is a major concern for many of our members!
  • The HR department reported that they are continuing their work on innovative ideas to try to meet our living wage goals, including considering how total compensation and benefits may contribute.

This month, the board welcomed back our in-person reports from managers of different departments.  We received a great update from our Wellness department.

  • We heard that our Wellness Managers and Buyers are working hard to make sure our product selection and pricing meets our members’ needs.
  • We also heard that theft is an issue in Wellness, something that hurts us all!
  • We found it interesting that Harmonic Arts mushroom chocolate beverage was the number 1 Wellness product bought by our members last year, and that our amazing True Local Communion Botanicals’ Cellular Renewal Serum came in at number 3!

Until next month!