Coop members hear positive reports at Annual Meeting

Bouchard, Gensburg, Monsonis, Seaman elected to Board

by Deborah Trupin

The Honest Weight Food Coop's 2003 Annual Meeting took place on Monday, April 14 at the Sage College of Albany. HWFC staff provided refreshments for members to enjoy before the official start of the meeting. About 35 Coop members attended the meeting, which member and facilitator Mark Yolles called to order at 6 pm.

Annual Report notes changes

The first order of business was the presentation of the Annual Report by Board President Lynne Lekakis. (The report was distributed to members at the meeting, and copies are available at the Coop.) Lynne noted that 2002 was a good year financially, with Coop sales continuing to rise. She explained how this year's Annual Report had been written by managers reporting on their individual departments and by Board members reporting on the committees to which they are the liaisons, and thus reflects their individual voices and styles. Other highlights from the Annual Report include:

- A review of the changing management structure at HWFC, which has culminated in the creation of the Collective Management Team and the creation of the operations and administrative coordinator (OAC) position recently filled by Cindee Lolik
- An increase in the number of working members in 2002
- Return of consensus decision making for the Board
- A summary of the end-of-year financial statements prepared by Lexa Juhre, PoS manager (Financial statements prepared by the accounting firm Gordon and Mikels are available for review at the Coop.) In short, as the Collective Management Team wrote in their report, "2002 was full of changes, and yet Honest Weight continues to emerge strong and healthy!"

Four Board members elected

Next, the meeting focused on the election of new members for the Board of Directors. Five candidates (three of whom were nominated from the floor) stood for the four open seats: Alfred "Duke" Bouchard, Mitch Cohn, Lenore Gensburg, Jim Monsonis, and David Seaman (running for re-election after serving a 1-year term). After the candidates introduced themselves and their visions for the Coop, members posed questions to the candidates about their:

- Commitment to staying on the Board
- Opinions about "at will" vs. "just cause" employment
- Thoughts on having Board members who are also staff members (Cohn and Bouchard are both HWFC staff members.)
- Ideas on growth and expansion
- Ideas for outreach and increasing diversity at the Coop
- Experience with consensus decision making

Ballots were then distributed and members were instructed to vote for up to four candidates. After a count of the 34 ballots submitted, Alfred Bouchard, Lenore Gensburg, Jim Monsonis, and Dave Seaman were elected. Three of them will serve 3-year terms and one will serve a 1-year term, to keep the 9-member Board balanced, with three Board seats scheduled for election each year.

Strategic planning

Board member Dave Seaman then presented the strategic planning process that the Board and management team are beginning, recognizing that a strategic plan is necessary to guide them in decision making. To begin the process, the Strategic Planning committee (Board members Dave Seaman, Ginny McEwen and Lynne Lekakis, and OAC Cindee Lolik) interviewed consultants and selected one, Duke Fisher of Bainbridge, as the best match for the Coop. The Strategic Planning committee expects to complete its work this fall. Dave noted that there will be many opportunities for member input into the process, and that the committee hopes to build consensus as the strategic plan is developed.. The next step is to plan more fully the strategic planning process. The committee is looking for additional members (contact Dave Seaman at 884-0907).

Draft bylaws presented

Lastly, Bylaws committee member Saul Rigberg presented the draft revision of the HWFC bylaws. Saul noted that, in 1999, the Bylaws committee had been charged with completely revising the bylaws because, after many amendments the bylaws had become an unwieldy and, in some cases, contradictory document. The Bylaws committee met, held meetings with the membership, drafted the revised bylaws, and has had them reviewed by two lawyers working for the Coop. The Board recently asked the Bylaws committee to review and revive its work with the goal of presenting the bylaws to the membership for a vote this spring.

After his presentation, Saul asked for questions and discussion about the bylaws. Discussion centered on increasing member participation at meetings, on the pros and cons requiring a quorum at membership meetings (a proposed Bylaw change), and other options for voting. Facilitator Mark Yolles, who has also worked on the Bylaws committee, noted that anyone with comments on the bylaws can contact him (yollesm@juno.com ).

The draft bylaws were distributed at the Annual Meeting, and additional copies are available at the Coop. Once they are reviewed again by the current Coop lawyer, they will be distributed by mail to all Coop members. A membership meeting to vote on the bylaws will be scheduled for May. As the meeting was adjourned, some participants noted with pleasure that it had been the least contentious Annual Meeting in memory - but expressed a desire to see more Coop members attend.

Back to index

CoopScoop Home
CoopScoop Archives
Behind the Scoop
Guidelines for Article
     Submission