General Managers' Report 8/28/08

We'll it's going to be a short report because it is summer and it is BUSY and while we have been having regular meetings, we don't have a lot of time for research and development at the moment. . .

Customer Appreciation Day was a success, for the most part. We did finish up about and hour earlier than anticipated (7pm) due to the thunderstorm that rolled through. Most of the crowd left after the first downpour and then we felt compelled to pull the plug on the band for safety reasons. We saw a lot of new faces, so we were successful in drawing new members of the community in, and people really loved all the free samples. Staffing seemed adequate for the most part.

For those of us who have been working in the store, I think we are anxiously awaiting the end of the summer. Fatigue runs deep and crankiness and impatience are bubbling underneath our glowing customer service exteriors. Its difficult to find balance in a seasonal economy; seems that during the summers, our aisles just aren't big enough to squeeze through, and during the winter, they run empty. I find that I am asking myself "who are we really here to serve, and how do we make plans to accommodate the needs of those we serve" at the end of every August.

We are happy to officially announce the promotion of former Deli Salad Cook Donna McNamara to the position of Assistant Manager. Donna has already been so helpful in helping the deli get through its many transitions over this past year that we were very grateful she agreed to take on more responsibilities.

No more to report on Matthews' Brothers. Fran is our contact person with the City, as she has been working with Councilor Jan Andersen on the shared use kitchen project. So far we have not been invited to any meetings to discuss the future of the property and we remain under the impression that the city is looking to buy the facility.

Goldy was approached by a vendor asking why we didn't offer regular discounts to vendors; this vendor felt as though by selling her goods in our store, she was helping the Co-op to meet its mission and its goals, in addition to helping us sustain our bottom line, and made it known that she would be more willing to patronize the store if she was being rewarded with a discount, not unlike staff or board discounts. When we called on fellow co-op managers to see how they would handle similar situations, we did not receive any overwhelming support for the idea.

Business plan for the coming year is slowly progressing. We had ambitious goals to write not only a 1-year plan, but also a 3 and 5 year plan. I'm finding it hard to try and come up with long-term goals without any "visioning" direction. As your employee, I would like to recommend that we spend more time at Board meetings talking about where we want to be in the future, as well as put in a plug for creating some "ends policies." Learn more by visiting the Co-operative Grocer-- www.cooperativegrocer.coop  -- and clicking on "topics" and "board of directors/governance.