Seward Co-op will sustain a healthy community that has:
- Equitable economic relationships;
- Positive environmental impacts; and
- Inclusive, socially responsible practices
From the Board
By Miriam Holsinger
On a warm (for October) night, 318 member-owners came together to celebrate another wonderful year for the co-op. This year, the highlight wasn’t just the food and the opportunity to see and chat with other member-owners, but also our guest speaker, David Thompson, an extraordinary intercontinental cooperator for more than 40 years. The co-op invited David to speak to inspire us for the upcoming International Year of the Co-op (as declared by the United Nations). We are excited to be a part of this movement and so passed a resolution supporting this effort:
Be it resolved, that Seward Co-op, convened at its 2011 Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, Minn., commits to:
1. Join with National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA) and its members in supporting and celebrating the year 2012 as the “International Year of Cooperatives”;
2. Recognize the vital role cooperatives play in the economic and social well-being of the United States; and
3. Celebrate the year by engaging in efforts to raise the profile of cooperatives and demonstrate how cooperatives build local wealth, generate employment and provide competition in the marketplace.
This resolution encourages us to think beyond our role as individual member-owners about what we can do together as a whole. As members of a consumer co-op, the number-one thing we do to support our co-op is shop there, voting with our dollars. We also vote for the board of directors, which oversees the vision of the co-op. If we are ready to commit a bit more, we may attend the annual meeting or a board meeting or two. This year, nine members stepped up to commit three years of their time to serve on the board of directors. Unfortunately, we could only choose three of them to serve (Greg Gustafson, Jill Randerson, and Madeline Kastler were all re-elected). However, we should all be proud that we had such wonderful candidates to choose from and that a record number of members (694) stepped up to cast a ballot this year.
David Thompson, in a concerted effort with the resolution we passed, invited us to think beyond our store and our individual members-owner roles and imagine a different kind of Minnesota, one wherein 25 percent of our economy could be driven by cooperatives. This isn’t a pie-in-the-sky dream either; it is happening right now in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna, a region with close to the same population as our state. There, many construction companies are worker-owned co-ops, and the major banking system is a cooperative, as are many other types of businesses.
As David reminded us, the beauty of the cooperative system is that when the co-op succeeds, we all succeed. There isn’t one person at the top, or even several shareholders, whose only investment is their cash. Instead, when a co-op succeeds, the community succeeds because 100 percent of the profits are reinvested in the community it serves, through added jobs, improved infrastructure, support to local nonprofits, and patronage refunds to our members.
This year, for the second time since our expansion we were able to declare a profit and send dividends to our members. Twenty percent went into your pockets, and 80 percent is reinvested in the store to help pay off our loans, make needed infrastructure improvements, and ensure the co-op will be here for future generations. Next year, we’ll enter our 40th year in operation (big birthday plans will be announced soon), and I look forward to seeing how we can continue to grow and flourish as a co-op and as a community for the next 40 years.
