Belfast Co-op General Managers' Report   -  August 2009

• Customer Appreciation Day has been deemed to be a success. We received some really nice compliments from attendees, regarding how efficient and organized the whole event seemed to be, and saw some new faces, of which at least 2 decided to become members. For those of us who were here to work that day, it felt more organized and easier to administer than ever before, so we are now pulling the celebration off like a well oiled machine. I think the hot, hot weather was a bit of a deterrent, as a sales comparison of that day shows that sales were flat compared to Saturday of the previous week, but we did raise over $800 for local charities, served a heck of a lot of food, and put on a great musical performance. Blue Rutabaga was really outstanding. Thank you to Paul, Russ, Jeanne, Bindy, and Wayne for volunteering time for the event.

• Hot on the heels of Customer Appreciation Day, we also participated in the 1st Annual Block Party going on right in front of our doors. Also deemed to be quite a success, organizer Mike Hurley estimates that the event brought well over 1,000 people into the heart of downtown. One co-op shopper was overheard to say, “I've lived in Waldo Country for over 30 years and this is the first time I've been in the Co-op. Nice store.” If the goal was to encourage more locals to be aware of their local businesses, then it was easily fulfilled. We kept our doors open until10, and while the sales numbers again show that the day was flat compared to the previous Monday, the customer count for the day was up over the previous week. In addition to providing bathrooms for the event, we also managed to unload a lot of the books remaining from the book sale, and managed to encourage shoppers to spend at least $5 in order to be entered into a raffle for a door prize, consisting of vendor giveaways. We look forward to increasing our participation in the party next year.

• Our staff has put in another incredible effort this year, working hard to serve the influx of Summer Visitors. We'll be taking the afternoon off on Sunday, August 30th for our Annual Summer Staff Party, to take place at Swan Lake State Park. After assessing our cash flow situation, we set a budget for the event. We'll close the doors that day at 2pm, so please plan your shopping needs accordingly. Please find the time to stop by and tell a staff member how much you appreciate the hard work they do for our members and customers.

• The current configuration of General Managers approved a proposal to create a co-managership for the Maintenance Department, and has promoted Stan Belch to a Co-Manager position alongside Phil Prince. The department has created a plan to do more routine maintenance of our equipment to minimize service calls, to improve the safety of our workplace, and get the basement cleaned out and organized so that we can use that space more effectively. We're pleased that we have the in-house skills to be able to provide regular attention to the many quirks of our facilities.

• GMT members old and new are making plans to start orienting the new team to their new responsibilities. The first, and perhaps most challenging part of this whole transition, is trying to get new team members more flexibility in their schedules without leaving responsibilities that they have fulfilled in their previous positions unattended. We will be hiring new individuals to fill the scheduling holes left in Produce and Bulk, and getting the new crew to a place where they can put in 20 hours of GMT time a week is going to take some time to achieve. We're all confident that we can get there, and are planning to have the first of our training sessions on Thursday, August 27th.

• Complicating the schedule further, we're in the midst of our annual seasonal staff exodus. We rely on our college crew to be able to come back year after year and fill our temporary scheduling holes, which is great because this strategy minimizes labor costs associated with training, but then they always leave us too soon, while we scramble to cover their shifts for the remaining weeks of our tourist season. We keep ourselves focused and inspired by repeating the mantra, “it's going to be a really relaxing winter.”