General Managers' Report         11/20/08

• Trying to find a resolution to making safety accommodations for peanut allergy sufferers continues to rock the store with controversy. The Department Managers are most decidedly not on board with the idea (to be implemented on a trial basis) of highlighting items that are known to contain peanuts and/or peanut products in order to help allergy sufferers avoid contact with these products. Voiced objections include, but are not limited to (paraphrasing): “every item in the store is cross-contaminated with peanut dust due to the nut grinders and open nut butter bins. If we go through with this we will have to highlight every single shelf tag.” “As a co-operative we shouldn't be catering to special interests, but working for the benefit of the whole membership.” “Why is the GMT going to go through with this when the Department Managers are not in agreement with the idea. This is a co-operative and we do not have consensus on this issue.” “We are members, too, and we don't agree that this is the proper avenue to pursue.” “Many co-ops have gone out of business by trying to make accommodations for individual interests.” “This procedure will do nothing to make the store safer for allergy sufferers. It will only create a false sense of security.” “Our concerns are falling on deaf ears because you've already made a decision about this.” “This is an incredible amount of work to put into something that is temporary.” No philosophical discussion about the differences between consumer and worker co-operatives ensued. Dept. Managers and other interested staff have been encouraged to voice their concerns in writing, and those letters will then be distributed to the peanut committee for review and a re-evaluation of the idea. Hopefully we can all still use this as a learning experience to develop new processes for dealing with specific member requests.

• Report on how many people are subscribed to our e-mail list: 378. Upon review of the statistics of our website usage, it would be impossible to interpret this data in any meaningful way—ie. how many website hits did we receive in the past year—as the stats suggest that most hits are coming from “web bots” which are not humans, but software programs mapping the website. Conclusion: we probably aren't reaching as wide of a website audience as we would like, and our community isn't really looking to the site as a resource for information. Word of mouth marketing is still probably our most effective means of getting info and messages out there

• Some interesting end of year membership statistics: 449 new members joined during FY 2008; this is up from 330 from the year before. We had the equivalent of 10 members who requested an equity refund in 2008, down from the equivalent of 89 the year before.

• Our HR manager will be taking a personal leave for the next 6 weeks. During that time frame, one of our floor managers and multi-talented staff members, Tom C., has graciously agreed to try and fill her shoes, along with all members of the GMT. Kimalee leaves us with big shoes to fill, but we will do our best.

• Passing the torch: our current Front End Manager, and GMT Member, Erica, has been looking to delegate her front end responsibilities to another staff member who can give the position the adequate time and attention that it deserves. We had great 3 in-store applicants, and have awarded the position to Mylisa Vowles, a Floor Manager who has given the co-op nearly 3 ½ years of service. We trust she will serve the Front End staff with an empowering and cooperative leadership style.