Co-op Board Shares a Look at Plans for the New Year

Greetings, Menomonie Market Food Co-op owners, patrons, and friends, and Happy New Year.

Last year was a busy lap around the sun, and 2023 promises to be a momentous year as well. The turn of the calendar is a traditional time to take stock of one’s assets, reflect on the past, and plan for the year ahead. No doubt we’ve all had aspirational new year’s resolutions such as eating better, exercising more, and living each day to its fullest. For Menomonie Market Food Co-op, resolutions take the form of goals, plans, and more plans.

Securing our new Eau Claire home at Barstow and Galloway Streets took many levels of planning, as did the build-up to the groundbreaking ceremony for our new store last fall, not the least of which was our successful capital campaign. The heavy lifting was done by our General Manager, with the Board of Directors ensuring our goals, plans, and associated risks were in the best interest of our owners.

With construction underway, planning now continues at an operational level. Opening the doors of our new location later this year will draw on experience gained when we opened our expanded Menomonie location in 2015, using projections of sales, cost of goods, labor, and innumerable other variables. The General Manager and her staff lead the charge once again, planning at the store level and the department level. Our Menomonie location is anchoring our co-op with stability, and our current Eau Claire store is still chugging along while also bursting at the seams.

For our Board of Directors, the new year is a good opportunity to assess our governance practices. We’ve had a few busy years with our merger, expansion planning, and capital campaign, and this relative period of calm is appreciated. While we grow our co-op, the board ensures that our ship is in order. Besides assessing our practices, the board strives to educate itself on meaningful topics that improve the board, that we represent our diverse owners, and that we can cultivate new members and perpetuate our board.

This is how your co-op expresses its new year’s resolution, by preparing for the next great way to serve our owners. If you need inspiration in coming up with your personal goals for 2023, hanging around healthy local food and your fellow co-op owners is a great way to find them. I hope you all make Menomonie Market Food Co-op a part of your new year. Be well!

This article was originally published in the January/February 2023 issue of our bi-monthly newsletter, The Morsel. If you’d like to read more stories like this one and stay up to date on the latest co-op news and events, pick up a print copy in-store on your next grocery run or find more news on our website here.

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