From the Fall 2003: Volume 3, No. 4 issue.

In their 2003 plan, the Cooperative Grocers Association of the North East (CGANE) decided to have a meeting for their general managers and the presidents from their board of directors this November. In order to best use that time, they asked Marilyn Scholl of CDS to assist them in planning the session.

To prepare for this session, Scholl developed a set of discussion tools for CGANE that were distributed in May to each CGANE co-op and used by their boards to stimulate discussion about broader issues pertaining to CGANE ends policies and effective board-management alignment. These tools include plenty of reading suggestions and questions for the board to discuss on national and regional food co-op issues. Each tool included reading homework (with many articles from past Cooperative Grocer issues) and discussion questions centered on the following topics:

• Building a strong CGA system—a look at the existing structure for regional co-op grocers associations and the National Co-op Grocers Association (NCGA).
• Co-op brand—what consumers say, including a report and discussion on consumer research conducted by the NCGA.
• Cooperative principles and values—the importance of cooperative identity.
• Cooperative collaboration, interdependence and local control—discussion of ways of strengthening food co-ops through collaboration.

Why not have discussions at your co-op? Informed board involvement in the collaborative development of a strong system of food cooperatives is essential to ensure thriving, democratic and responsive cooperatives.

For more information regarding these tools, see www.cgin.org.

Consultants featured in this article

• Marilyn Scholl