General Managers' Report 6/26/08

We've been hard at work trying to respond to a number of different member concerns and comments this past month, ranging from requests to do more to accommodate sufferers of peanut allergies to making more of an effort to reduce the amount of plastics that are utilized by our multiple departments. We've also found ourselves in the challenging position on more than one occasion to have to choose between multiple, conflicting member requests, and to make a decision about what is in the best interests of the membership as a whole. I guess no one has ever said that democracy is easy, but we are proud of our staff, who have stepped up to try and find creative solutions to some of these difficult problems in order to try and meet membership needs.

As we catapult into "summer turbo mode" business in the store, weekend business is picking up and we are feeling the pinch on our limited resources; our deli is really not equipped to be able to handle orders for 7 omelets at a time, and our 4 cash registers can be working as swiftly as possible and there are still long lines and the occasional disgruntled customer. We've noticed that the number of summer events being held in Belfast this year have increased and it seems that we are more of a tourist destination than we have ever been. No doubt we will be quite weary at the end of the season.

Summer stresses always seem to bring with them a higher degree of interpersonal conflicts amongst staff members. As a Management Team, we have been dealing with a higher than usual number of mediations between co-workers, and we've been challenged in our creative problem solving to continue in our quest to provide every employee with a positive and encouraging work environment.

We are in the midst of our planning for our big summer shindig: Customer Appreciation Day. Please mark your calenders for August 16 We'll be looking for the assistance of our Board, along with most of the staff, to help show our gratitude for the continued patronage of our community. The following weekend, August 24, we will hold our annual Staff Appreciation Party, and will close the store early in order to BBQ at Lake St. George.

In order to continue to encourage our shoppers to support their local food economies, we are working to implement a subsidy program for some locally grown items, particularly in the Bulk department. We are taking a lower margin on items that have counterparts "from away" in the hopes that a more visible price difference on local foods will result in higher sales. Look for the orange stickers in the Bulk department denoting these items.

Our Department Managers have graduated from their training program this month, completing final modules on Goal Setting, Tracking Dept. Financials, and Co-op 201, where we brainstormed new ideas for how we communicate "co-op." We are really pleased with the effort that the larger co-op management team has put into this training and we look forward to seeing the fruits that it will bear in the coming years.

As we continue to try and plan for how we can implement a livable wage, we've been working to conduct a market analysis of area wages. We were hoping to be able to hire a consulting agency to conduct a survey of pay levels in and around Belfast, but after the estimate came back higher than we had anticipated, we may try to develop a survey ourselves. We're hoping that by maybe reaching out to the Downtown Business Group for information, we can encourage other businesses to consider livable wages as well.

Our lawyer has reviewed proposed changes to our personnel manual and has given us the go ahead to proceed with a re-issue. Some changes that we have made include a more generous absence policy, a clarification of our merit-based compensation system, and a travel and expense reimbursement policy that brings us into compliance with labor laws.