Our work together at the Coop this year is half-way through. As I write this, it’s June, it’s spring—and today, it’s not raining! Our hard work of the winter is behind us, and things seem to be moving forward smoothly. That is not to say that we are not struggling with some things, but we are facing them together and working out solutions that feel acceptable to everyone.

By the time this reaches you, we will have hired a personnel coordinator to help the collective management team (CMT) with our rich pool of human resources. The CMT and the Board, with Personnel committee expertise, worked together for this hire, and we trust it will be a successful one. Living in the most litigious state in the union, we need to ensure that we comply with employment law. Having a diverse staff, we need to ensure that its needs are being met whenever possible.

Now that we’ve made a few inroads into shoring up our infrastructure, it’s time to start looking to the next challenges. We have a few on our plate, while keeping an eye on our current projects.

Strategic planning is our next collective goal. The planning group is made up of Board, staff, CMT, and working members. We had a bit of a chaotic start—but we managed, and are working hard at collecting information. Charged with getting input from our community by August to inform any decisions or dreams that we may want to look into at our retreat, the subgroups are: input, focus group, survey, location, finance, retreat planning, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats); and we’ve hired a coop consultant to do a marketing analysis of the region.

What can I give, you say? What is she talking about? You can give your time—and actually, we’ll try to give you credit for it. We are looking for as much input as possible, and we need people to do that. Come if you feel strongly about something, come if you are dispassionate. Come if you care about the process, come if you don’t. We need to hear all the opinions.

Please participate in any way you can. The initial focus group participants were selected to form groups of customers, shareholders, monthly members, and working members. We felt that the working members and staff are easier to get to, and wanted to be sure to hear the constituents we don’t see as much. Beyond the initial ones (by the time you read this) a survey and "theme" focus groups should be scheduled and advertised, and a website chat space may be up and running.

We’ve got a date on the calendar in September for our retreat. We hope we’ll come away from that with a clear idea of what we’d all like to do. We know what our resources are, and we know what our projected income may be. We’ll have expert advice and information.

So, try to take time out of your CSA obligations, your community garden, your vacation schedule, your work or your routine. We need you. We’ll look forward to hearing from you.