by Stephanie Ricketts, Board Member
Hello Co-op Owners! There’s a lot going on in our organization, and we have a long overdue Board introduction to share as well. I’ll get right to it, but first! Thank you for being a part of this organization, and for helping our cooperative continue to be a part of the community. This is an interesting and challenging time for our organization, and I, along with the rest of the Board, am grateful for the continued engagement of our Owners, and shoppers.
Bylaw Revisions: Thanks for Your Input!
The Willy Street Co-op Board has proposed some bylaw revisions for the organization, and requested your feedback and held listening sessions in January and February. You can find the full rundown of the first draft of changes here: www.willystreet.coop/images/Reader/2020/bylaws-final.pdf.
The Board is now working with the Policy Committee to review the feedback we received from you to see what can be incorporated into the draft that will be put forward to the whole membership for a vote this summer. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! The feedback we received was really valuable to the Co-op.
If you have questions or comments about the bylaws or the review process, you can leave a customer comment, send us a message at www.willystreet.coop/contact-us, or stop by the next Board meeting, or send us an email at board@willystreet.coop. Thank you for your insights!
Hearing from Owners
At the January 2020 Board meeting, the Board heard from a sizable group of 42 Owners who attended to share their support for and concerns about the union contract negotiation process currently underway. Our President, Jeannine Bindl, sent the following response to members of that group, which seems pertinent to share with all of you as well!
“It was wonderful to see so many Owners at our Board meeting last month, thank you for making time to attend. The Board appreciates the opportunity to hear directly from our Owners.
The Board heard Owners voice specific concerns, namely: wanting to support Co-op staff; increase the pace of collective bargaining; concern over the perceived detachment of the Board, staff wages; the desire to have an exemplary place to work; and a model union contract. Thank you for voicing these concerns. They are at the forefront of our minds as we govern the organization.
This has been an interesting time to be on the Board; we are learning a lot. The Board is working hard to ensure that Owners are kept current on information that is appropriate to share. As a Board, we have been tasked to ensure the future stability and security of the Co-op. We set financial goals, which management must work within. We are also responsible to ensure sensitive information remains confidential, for the future security of our Co-op.
The Board is grateful to have engaged Owners. Thank you. As the collective bargaining process continues, we will continue to stay current on the logistics and progression of negotiations. Your Board of Directors is very engaged and attentive; we are asking questions, discussing ways we can govern our Co-op better. These efforts are not new and will continue after the achievement of a union contract.
Your Board is committed to representing the Co-op’s Owners. If you are interested in hearing about opportunities to get involved, please email our Board Development Committee at BDC@willystreet.coop and we will add you to our list! The Board is always available via email at either Board@willystreet.coop (just Willy Street Co-op Board Members) or all-board@willystreet.coop (Board plus some management team.) One way the Board connects with Owners is via our monthly Reader article, make sure you check it out! Finally, Owners are always welcome at Board meetings. Our next Board meeting is on March 17, 6:30pm at the Co-op’s Central Office.
Meet the Board: Ann Hoyt
This is the final installment of our new Board member interviews for those Board members seated in 2019. I had the pleasure of interviewing Ann a few months back, and am pleased to share a little bit about her with all of you.
Stephanie Ricketts (SR): How did you first learn about cooperatives, and what was the first co-op you joined?
Ann Hoyt (AH): The first co-op I joined was the Berkeley Consumers Cooperative—they had several stores in the Bay area around San Fran. I first learned about co-ops because my mother was a member at the Berkeley Co-op. I first got involved in co-ops as a crusade when I was going to school at the University of California–Davis. I was taking a community organizing class, and I had to find some community to organize, and I ended up working with a group in the foothills of Northern California that was a pre-order buying co-op. I worked with them and eventually became the manager of that co-op. It was a very large pre-order co-op, and was all computerized, in the early ’70s. So that’s how I started! It was a class assignment.
SR: What do you rely on Willy Street Co-op for?
AH: My husband does the shopping, but through him we rely on the Co-op for a lot of our food. He buys as much as he can at the Co-op, mostly because he’s tremendously committed to the idea of cooperatives. He also has been going there for breakfast for a long time. For me right now, I rely on the Board of the Co-op to keep me alert, and to have a co-op I can contribute to and work from.
SR: What are your top three favorite Willy Street Co-op foods?
AH: Equal Exchange chocolate. I really like the prepared foods that they serve at the Board meetings. Fresh produce, just in general.
SR: Do you have any favorite food traditions?
AH: Yes! There are some things that I used to make for our son as a kid, and he still asks for them. One is a fancy jello salad that I make at Christmas; I must be the only person in the country who is still making jello salads, but he loves it. We used to have fondue always on Christmas eve, and we always have turkey on Christmas and Thanksgiving. We eat a lot of fruit, especially strawberries when the strawberries are in season.
SR: Besides being a Willy Street Co-op Board member, what else do you like to do with your time?
AH: I’m on another board, and I love to garden. I have taken up knitting again—I used to knit quite a bit when I was young, then stopped when I became more and more involved in working. Now I have a two-year old granddaughter and I’m inspired to knit again, because they’re small things and get done in a hurry.
SR: What are you most excited about in being a new Board member, and what do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges the Co-op will face over the next few years?
AH: Well right now, I’m most interested in what the Board’s role is when there is a unionized workplace. I find that fascinating and it’s something I don’t know. The other thing I’m excited about, other than meeting new people which I’m enjoying thoroughly, is that Willy Street Co-op is practicing policy governance. It’s very interesting to me how that is done at this Co-op. It’s really rewarding. I was the person that first introduced policy governance to the food co-ops, for better or worse. And now, actually, I’m very interested in understanding how governance has changed since then (in the early ’90s) and the new thinking about generative governance and ways to structure a decision-making process. That came to me partly through being on the Willy Street Board, and I find that to be very exciting.
The challenges are the very things that I think are most exciting! Both an opportunity and a challenge is how all of the participants at the Co-op adjust to having a unionized workplace. The challenge is to be able to have that be a really creative and satisfying way to improve the quality, nature, and satisfaction of working at the Co-op.
The other thing is that I think it’s an evolving structure for the Board of Directors. We are thinking much more about what our contributions can be. I’m kind of a board junkie, so that is really interesting to me. I’m looking forward to it. I think there are lots of ways for the Co-op to evolve in this fiercely competitive environment. We have such strong support from the community, and I’m interested to see how that will develop over time.
SR: Is there anything else you’d like our Owners to know?
AH: I have been really very fortunate to have had a longtime career in cooperatives, and you’re catching me before I’m going off to Rwanda for a meeting of the International Cooperative Alliance. One of the most rewarding things for me being in cooperatives has been being able to travel all over the world to see what marvelous things can be done by people who come together to do good things in the world. Creating markets for themselves, providing healthcare and education. All of those things resonate with why I got involved in cooperatives in the first place.
Run for a Seat on the Board
Are you interested in running for one of the three Board of Directors seats up for election this summer? Check out our Board candidate application at willystreet.coop/pages/run-for-the-willy-street-co-op-board or at the Owner Resources area in the store. Candidate applications are due by noon on June 1. One of the requirements is to attend a Board meeting, and there are three coming up before voting starts in July:
- March 17, 2020
- April 21, 2020
- June 16, 2020
Board meetings start at 6:30pm and are held at our Central Office (1457 E. Washington Ave. in Madison).
