Why Am I Receiving This Co-op News?
added 02/22/10
by Rosemary Fifield
Director, Education and Member Services
Once a year, all Co-op member households with three shares or more receive a copy of the Co-op News in the mail. For the remainder of the year, we mail only to those members who have requested it.
Why do we send this out? New Hampshire law governing cooperatives requires us to send election and annual meeting information to all members. This is your official notice of the upcoming election for Board of Directors and the Co-op’s annual member meeting where you can participate in the governance of the business that you own.
Three seats on the Board are up for election during the month of April. The voting period begins on April 1 and runs through April 30. For more information on how to vote, please go to page 7.
The Co-op’s Annual Meeting will be held on Saturday, April 10, in conjunction with our second annual Co-op Expo. This year’s Expo theme is “The Value of Co-op Food Choices,” and you can find more information on page 2. Over 400 Upper Valley residents attended the Co-op Expo last year, and we’re hoping to double that number this year.
Can you name your member benefits, including the ones that involve discounts with other businesses? On page 11 you’ll learn about the newest benefit and find information about the others.
This is your Co-op’s seventy-fifth year in business. The Co-op was organized in December 1936 by 17 families dealing with the challenges of the Great Depression. Their vision of finding a better way to obtain quality products at a fair price during difficult times remains as relevant today as it was then. This issue of the Co-op News explores the Co-op’s continued commitment to providing its members and shoppers with the value and quality they have come to expect.
In “Looking at the Real Cost of Food,” General Manager Terry Appleby discusses the hidden costs of cheap food and why the Co-op offers its members and shoppers the opportunity to purchase alternatives to feedlot beef, mass-produced poultry, and products that take advantage of workers and farmers in developing countries. The article on the Co-op’s new eco-friendly shrimp (page 20) describes a program devoted to bringing “green” shrimp to shoppers with concerns about the environmental effects of conventional shrimp harvesting.
Board President Kay Litten writes about her family’s reaction to the films Food Inc., King Corn, Fresh, and The End of the Line and her appreciation for the alternatives that the Co-op provides (“To Meat or Not to Meat,” page 6). On page 10, Co-op dietitian Mary Choate reviews the book Fresh, A Perishable History (not related to the movie Fresh), written by Dartmouth professor Susan Friedberg.
Education Programs Assistant Jaime Richardson compares today’s upsurge in home gardening, sometimes referred to as freedom gardens, with the victory gardens of the 1940s (“Victory Garden Redux,” page 14), a movement reinforced by our upcoming classes on seed starting, vegetable gardening, and worm composting.
Ken Davis continues his Words of Vision series on the Co-op Board’s Ends Policy on page 13. The Co-op Global Ends statement, outlined in the last issue of the Co-op News, states “The Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society exists to provide cooperative commerce for the greater good of our members and community.” The Ends policy goes into detail about how your co-op strives to make that statement come to fruition.
We hope you enjoy this issue of the Co-op News. You can always find past issues on our website, www.coopfoodstore.coop
What Do You Think?
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