In Alice in Wonderland, Alice comes to a crossroads and wonders which way to go. So she asks the person standing there. His response is, "Where do you want to go?" Alice says, "I don’t know." His response is, "Then any road will take you there." The same is true with the Coop. If we as a group do not know where we collectively would like to go or be, then any road will get us there. Wouldn’t it be better and easier to determine who we are, determine our core values, determine where we are, and plan ahead to where we would like to be in a year, two years, or three? The Board of Directors answers "yes" to this inquiry.

Without a plan, we individually and collectively are always in a reactive mode. We have to respond to the events happening in the present without really knowing if our response will lead us toward our highest and greatest goal. When we do not have a collective goal to move toward, each person involved in a decision may have a personal goal or agenda; and each may be different. This leads to indecision, conflict and poor decisions. This is a reactive approach. We can and must do better for the good of the Coop.

Preparing a strategic plan is a way to bring together the collective values, thoughts and goals of all the constituencies that comprise the Honest Weight Food Cooperative. Having a plan that all of us are invested in and agree to, in general, will allow decisions to become proactive rather than reactive. Each department and the Collective Management Team will all have a plan to look at to guide their decisions. We will be able to ask, "Will this decision bring us closer to our stated goals or farther away?" Then we can more easily choose those actions that will bring us closer to our stated and mutually accepted goals.

The Board of Directors has started a strategic planning process that will bring us together to explore our values and determine common goals. The Board has retained the services of Duke Fisher as our guide in the process. Over the next six months, we plan to work with Mr. Fisher and each of the various groups (constituents) that make up our Coop. We plan to ask a lot of questions to solicit as much information from you as possible. The more feedback we get, the better our plan will be and no one will feel excluded. Please help us by responding to questionnaires as we move forward. If you would like to participate more directly, there will be opportunities for persons to join in the planning meetings. In August, we are planning to bring together all the information we have collected and meet for two days to work on specifics of the plan. The end result, we expect, will be to determine goals and gain some guidance on the "how to" of reaching them.