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A Director's
Chair: Run???? Run!!!! Run for the Co-op board!
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by Jim Monsonis
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Ho hum, it's the annual
"you should run for the Board" article. You've seen this before,
haven't you? Time to turn the page? Go on to something interesting?
Maybe read the ads? You don't need to think about this, somebody else
will do it, someone always does.
Except...
If you're reading the Coop Scoop, I guess it means that you shop at the
store. I hope it means that you are a member, because you are the
people I want to address here. Yes, you, the quick in-and-out guy, the
one with no time, you work your hours and be done with it, you do your
share and so forth. Remember that if there is no Board there is no
membership involvement in running the Co-op.
We become just another variant on the corporate supermarket, maybe with
cooler things to buy. If it's a bad Board--and we've had those in the
past, as any veteran Co-op member can tell you--your presence gets
marginalized, your resources get spent in the wrong ways. ("Wrong
ways" means not the way you'd like your resources spent, but the way
the Other Guy, the one who ran, wants to spend them.)
And it's a time when we really need the very best Board we can muster.
All recruiting (or fundraising, also) letters argue that "we" are at a
crossroads, facing the Abyss or the Better Choice, whatever that may
mean to the organization. But Honest Weight really is at a crossroads,
with some very hard choices to make in the very near future (during
your term on the Board, in fact):
• In less than a year and a half, we're outta here. Our lease is up. We
either pay exorbitantly to stay put, or we go... Where? How do we pay
for wherever?
• We're grown from a glorified buying club of friends to 6,000
shareholders and a thousand working members. How can we sustain any
sense of community, of participatory democracy, working by consensus?
Can we avoid being run by a small elite in-group paying lip service to
our principles? Do we spin off new cooperatives, serving as center for
a network of community minded smaller operations? Can we decentralize
ourselves?
• As the food supply in America continues to collapse, more and more
people need the care and dedication to the consumer's health that has
always been a hallmark of Honest Weight. But how can we make that
affordable to a wider range than we now serve? How do we live out the
mission that we all committed to at Orientation?
• Our staff, of necessity, has grown steadily, and it's tempting to
trust them to Do The Right Thing. There are "cooperatives" in the USA
where the formal Board of the cooperative is so bureaucratic and hidden
that the average member can't even find out who is on the Board. That's
not us. But how should members and staff work together to maintain our
healthy store?
So we need four new members on the Board. The Board meets one evening a
month for four hours or so, a busy, often humorous, lively session.
In addition you will probably serve as liaison from the Board to one of
the committees made up of members, who actually do much of the day to
day work of administering the Co-op structure. Throw in some emails, an
occasional other meeting: all together 15–20 hours a month. Normally a
term is three years, one re-election possible (i.e., term limits after
six years).
I'm now off after six years, and while some of it--like all
organizational work--is frustrating and wearing, I guarantee you'll
understand the strengths and weaknesses of Honest Weight, and have a
chance to put your voice into the mix.
It's so much more interesting than any television show; this is a
reality show with real people and real consequences. I can't say I
enjoyed every moment of it, but I do feel it was one of the more useful
things I've done with my time. I hope I've pushed the Co-op in the
direction it ought to go in. (Who could ask for anything more?)
Are you an old pro, veteran of every community organization you ever
heard of? We need your experience on a day-to-day basis, not just a
speech at a membership meeting. Are you new to Honest Weight, maybe to
the area? We need your new ideas and for you to raise the questions
that are so obvious that the veterans never ask them. There are some
"sign-up" sheets at the front desk. Fill one out--we're going to go
back to posting all these so that people can see who is interested,
talk with them--and maybe be inspired to do the same.
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