-Kevin Donohue
I have been on the Coop Board for going on three years and have served you badly. As a Board member I’m supposed to be working on the goals and objectives of the members. But I have no real clue what members want other than the members who happen to be my friends. The Willimantic Food Coop has between 5000 and 6000 members. That is a lot of people who as far as I can see have three things in common. By and large they are smart, they are committed and they are pretty much unknown to me (and most of the Board.) So for this reason we have started this blog in the hope of exposing the intelligence and commitment of members both to the Board but much more important to each other.
The Willimantic Food Coop is a little miracle. It is by far the most successful and long-lived institution of its kind in the region. Through the worst recession in years we have grown and have been profitable year of year for going on 30 years now. The Coop is a wonderful store with products which you can’t find anywhere around here. The staff knows a ton about food and nutrition and the management is dedicated and very competent. But the Coop is more than the store.
The Coop is first and foremost the membership. Most of us think of the Coop as a store owned by a membership. But I think we are a really a membership that owns a store. This membership is a community and constituency which reaches well beyond the walls of the store. I know of a little of this reach. For example, just in the past few months we have a Coop group which is starting a cooperative kitchen, we as a community have raised money and food for the Soup Kitchen, as a targeted economic force we as a group support a growing array of local farmers and food producers. And maybe most important we are a community supporting each other in many personal ways.
So this blog and the other collaboration tools which we want to put here are in support of our membership’s interaction. What are you thinking, what are you worried about, what is next for the Coop, what else should we be doing? We would love to hear from you.
-Kevin Donohue
