4 p.m. Saturday, April 23, via Zoom
It’s almost time for our Annual Owners’ Meeting! Please take a few moments and register to attend.
Our agenda will include the results of our Board of Directors election and reports on the state of the co-op from our board and general manager. As always, there will be prizes! (You do have to be present at the meeting to win.)
Our special guest this year is Samantha Kirstein, Fairbanks Community Food Bank Community Development Director.
We’ll be meeting via Zoom, so we’ve created a set of Virtual Meeting Guidelines with important rules and instructions. Please read them before attending our meeting.
Note: Registration is required. Please RSVP here. When you register, you will receive the Zoom login information by email as soon as we’ve confirmed that you are an Owner.
Our meeting will start at 4 p.m., but you can enter the waiting room at 3:30 p.m. Please come in at least 15 minutes early to ensure you don’t have any technical problems.
You will be asked to vote by poll to approve the meeting agenda and last year’s minutes during the business meeting.
We look forward to seeing you!
P.S. If you are one of the first 50 Owners to register, we’ll enter you in a drawing for a $100 gift certificate! To win, you must be present when your name is called.
A Message to Our Owners About the Health of Our Co-op
from the Board of Directors and General Manager:
As a community-owned cooperative, our health and wellbeing are inextricably entwined with the health and wellbeing of our community. When people in our community thrive, our cooperative grows and thrives. If our community suffers – whether because of financial and economic uncertainty or natural disaster – our cooperative naturally feels the impact, too, as people spend less money.
Because of our state’s current political and economic upheaval, we are concerned about the wellbeing of our co-op community.
Although we don’t yet know the final outcome, we do expect significant changes in funding for everything from agricultural programs to food and shelter for our most vulnerable citizens. In the meantime, we know that many of our Owners and shoppers are already experiencing economic hardship and anxiety about the future.
As for the co-op, after 2018’s tremendous 14% sales growth, we are now experiencing declining sales (down 3% from last year). Although we are still a healthy, viable business, we are concerned about what the future may hold.
We are committed to supporting our local economy, fostering food security, and making healthy, nutritious food affordable and accessible to everyone. As a cooperative, we have built a business model that includes many initiatives to support these things, including:
• Preferred purchasing from local farmers and producers. Our purchasing priorities are 1. Fairbanks and surrounding area, 2. Alaska grown and produced, and 3. organic and natural products from the distributors that serve our national cooperative.
• Lend a Hand and Shop & Share. These programs give our shoppers an easy way to share their resources with community nonprofits and people in need.
• Donating surplus food. We avoid food waste by donating out-of-date useable food to Breadline’s Stone Soup Cafe and the Fairbanks Community Food Bank. We also offer compostable food waste to local farmers and gardeners.
• Co+op Basics. More than 100 of our organic and natural items in every department are affordably priced every day. These items have purple price tags and are priced to compete with store-branded products from other stores – and they’re often of higher quality.
What else can we do?
One concrete step we can take right now is to make it easier to become a Co-op Market Owner.
Making Ownership more accessible will allow more people to enjoy money-saving benefits, including monthly Owner Deals and, five times annually, 10% off one shopping trip. And increasing Ownership is good for the co-op: The more of us there are, the stronger we are and the more positive impact we can have on our local economy.
Effective immediately, we are reducing the required initial Ownership investment from $25 to $10. Full investment remains at $200. We will ask Owners who are not paid in full to make regular quarterly payments of at least $5 toward their full investment to be considered in good standing. Owners must remain in good standing to continue to receive discounts and vote in our board election.
We will be exploring other options in the future, and we welcome your suggestions. Please feel free to attend one of our regular monthly board meetings at 6 p.m. every 2nd Monday at the Literacy Council. Or email us at board@coopmarket.org and gm@coopmarket.org.
What can you do as an Owner?
• Continue to shop at the co-op. We know there are other choices out there, and as expected, Costco has taken a bite of our sales. We know that it may be easier and, for some specific items, less expensive to shop at a big box store. But our relationship is just that: a relationship. We cannot survive without you.
• Talk to your friends, neighbors and coworkers about your co-op. Many people still don’t know that we exist, or that you don’t have to be an Owner to shop here. People are much more likely to patronize a business when it is recommended by someone they know and trust. You can help us grow simply by talking about us.
• Get involved. Whatever your political persuasion, we encourage your civic engagement. We the people are the government, whether of the state or nation or even the co-op. Our government only works for people when people take action: Learn about the issues. Communicate with your representatives. Vote. Consider running for office or for a seat on our board.
Unlike large corporations, we don’t have outside investors who can inject temporary funding to tide us over in hard times. Also unlike those corporations, we are here to stay. We are committed to doing all we can not only to ride out these turbulent times, but to be a source of stability and a place where community can come together to solve problems. After all, it took powerful, sustained effort from many people to make the dream of a cooperative grocery store become a reality. The energy is there, and we hope you’ll help us harness it.
Thank you for your continuing support as we navigate these difficult times. We treasure your loyalty and confidence, and we know that difficulty often brings opportunity. As your representatives on the co-op’s board of directors and as your general manager, we commit to deliberate and careful actions to ensure that we maintain our role as your source of healthful foods. The wellbeing of our community members and the health of our business will always guide our decisions.
In cooperation,
Board of Directors:
Art Gelvin
Brian Kassof
Anduin McElroy
Chase Nelson
Madeline Patterson O’Dell
Rich Seifert
Hilary Shook
Jodi Tansky
General Manager
Mary Christensen
Paper or Plastic? Neither.
Co-op Market shoppers are a conscientious lot. Over the years, more and more of you have made it a habit to avoid waste by bringing your own reusable shopping bags. In fact, according to our recent Shopper Survey, 51% of you say you always bring your own bags, and 28% frequently do.
We’re proud to say we’ve never offered plastic grocery bags at the co-op, but we do go through a lot of paper bags: nearly 52,300 last year alone. Those bags, which may be used just one time, often for only a few minutes, cost the co-op more than $13,000 last year.
In some ways, paper may seem more environmentally friendly than plastic, which is made from petroleum. But paper bags come with their own (ahem) baggage.
Did you know it takes about four times as much water to make a paper bag as a plastic bag? And the fertilizers and other chemicals used in tree farming and paper manufacturing contribute to acid rain and water pollution.
Sustainability is part of our mission as a co-op. We are committed to being good stewards of planetary and fiscal resources. For this reason, we’ve decided to start charging 25¢ for paper bags starting Friday, April 5. This charge applies only to the heavy paper bags with handles, and it is the actual cost of the bags, not including freight.
Our shoppers who use SNAP will be exempt from the bag charge, as we know EBT will not pay for it.
As always, we want to offer options and alternatives.
- We’ve just set up a shelf in the entryway with cardboard boxes, free for the taking. Use a box. Save a bag! The grocery business generates a huge amount of cardboard waste. By reusing the boxes we receive in freight, you’re helping extend the life of precious resources.
- We always have reusable shopping totes for sale – including the green Bagitos with our raven and pea logo. Not only are those incredibly durable, but they also hold as many groceries as at least two paper bags. Best of all, they’re made from recycled plastic bottles, and Bagitos donates profit to support environmental education for school kids.
- Alaffia Fair Trade market baskets, handmade by women in Ghana and Togo of sustainably harvested grasses, make beautiful and sturdy grocery totes.
- Don’t forget: You can also eliminate single-use plastic bags by bringing your own clean containers for shopping in Bulk. Just ask a cashier to take the tare weight before you fill them. And you don’t have to use a plastic bag for Produce: Bring your own bag – or don’t bag it at all. It isn’t necessary.
- We’re exploring possible options for a free reusable bag exchange. We hope to set something up as soon as we we get the logistics worked out.
To help you with the transition away from paper bags, we’re planning to hold a BOGO sale on our reusable bags. Look for more details soon.
Can small acts save the planet?
“One bee is an annoyance, but a swarm is a game changer. Small acts in big amounts are a force to be reckoned with.”
It’s Time to Vote: Board Elections and Amended Bylaws
COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE #2: DEMOCRATIC MEMBER CONTROL. Cooperatives are democratic organizations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions.
Every year, our Owners help shape the future of our co-op by voting for a Board of Directors. In 2015, we have five open seats on our nine-member board. The ballot also includes Owner confirmation of one director who was appointed by the board to fill a vacancy.
This year, Owners also have the opportunity to approve amendments to our bylaws, which have not been updated since they were adopted in 2011. Bylaws are the written rules that govern our co-op. They are a legal document that sets forth the structure of the board and co-op, determines the rights of our Owners and the procedures for exercising those rights. Bylaws guide our board in conducting business, ensure fairness and provide legal protections.
You can view both the amended bylaws and the original version adopted in 2011 by clicking here.
Voting is your right and your responsibility as an Owner of Co-op Market.
Last year we offered our Owners the option to vote on-line for the first time. Electronic voting was a great success, so we’re doing it again this year. If we have a valid email address on file for you, you should receive a link to the on-line ballot via email. Click here for helpful suggestions on how to vote electronically.
If we don’t have your email address, we will send a paper ballot via the USPS. Paper ballots are also available in the store, or click here to print your own copy.
(BTW: You can help us leave trees in the ground, reduce paper waste and save money on postage by making sure your email address is current. We’ve provided a space on the paper ballot for an update.)
The deadline for voting is 5 p.m. October 15. Election results will be announced that night at our Annual Meeting at Birch Hill Recreation Area.
We must have ballots from a minimum of 10% of our Owners for the election to be valid, so your vote is very important! (Each Owner number gets one vote: Please confer with others who share your Ownership before voting.)
THANK YOU FOR INVESTING IN OUR COMMUNITY-OWNED GROCERY STORE – AND FOR HELPING GUIDE IT!
Gloria Steinem and the 1st Cooperative Principle
Empathy is the most radical of human emotions. – Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem, right, speaks with shoppers during a tour of Co-op Market on June 12th.
In June, noted feminist and civil rights activist Gloria Steinem visited our co-op. She was in town to speak at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.
Grocery team leader Shaun Sims gave her a tour of the store and spoke with her about our history. They also talked about the cooperative principles and the values that guide us.
Some people have wondered why we didn’t publicize Ms. Steinem’s visit. After all – as she herself said – she probably wouldn’t have visited Fairbanks without last year’s controversy over whether we should sell Ms. Magazine. She founded that magazine.
Last year’s disagreements polarized our community, and we did not want to reignite them. We wanted to welcome Ms. Steinem, but we didn’t want to give the impression that we endorse all of her politics. In keeping the visit low-key, we were following the First Cooperative Principle*: “Cooperatives are voluntary organizations, open to all people able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination.”
As a co-op, we want to bring people together. We do this by focusing on our mission: Providing good, healthy food to our community. Everyone wants healthy food. It is the one thing that bridges all divides – social, cultural and political.
Our Owners, customers and employees hold many different political and cultural views. We serve people who are liberal, conservative and everything between.
We want everyone in our community to feel welcome. As a co-op, this means we must remain politically neutral on all issues except food security and safety – no matter what our own individual views are.
We admire Ms. Steinem for her decades-long commitment to ending discrimination. Her work echoes the goal of the First Cooperative Principle. While we are inspired, we are also aware that many of our Owners, shoppers and employees do not share her political and social views.
Everyone is welcome in our co-op, so we were distressed that so much of the publicity surrounding Ms. Steinem’s visit to Fairbanks focused on last year’s conflict – and much of it ridiculed one person.
We believe everyone has a right to an opinion, and no one should be belittled for his beliefs. We were saddened when we lost Owners last year, even as we gained new ones. We didn’t feel that anyone had “won” the argument. Instead, the conversation was cut short. And we learned how important it is to focus on our mission.
At the co-op, we like to say that we are “big enough to meet your needs, and small enough to meet your neighbor.” In this small community, we meet each other every time we venture outside our own doors. We believe it is so important to remember that, in the end, we have much more in common than not.
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A final note: Ms. Steinem learned a lot about our co-op’s history. We told her how the successful, busy store of today started out as just a dream shared by a handful of people. In the face of many obstacles, despite a lack of any real grocery experience, those people persevered and were joined by many others. All put their faith in the shared vision of a healthy cooperative grocery store.
After many years of sustained dedication, seemingly against the odds, we did it: We opened our doors and welcomed the community in, and we’ve learned and grown ever since.
Ms. Steinem was impressed by our history, by the vision and the tremendous amount of organization required to make it come true.
She told us she works with a group that facilitates workshops for organizers. Before her visit to Co-op Market, she had never considered including cooperatives in these workshops. Her experience here changed that. She said she believes co-op organizers have a wealth of experience to share and she hopes to include them in future. We agree and hope to hear more.
*Like cooperatives around the world, Co-op Market operates according to the core principles and values adopted by the International Co-operative Alliance in 1995. Co-ops trace the roots of these principles to the first modern cooperative founded in Rochdale, England, in 1844. For more information on the 7 Cooperative Principles, click here.
May Ownership Drive: Help Us Grow!
Would you like to see a hot food item offered in the Deli? Want to see new products in the store? You can help us grow!
We’re holding an Ownership Drive throughout the month of May. Our goal? 110 new Owners and $25,000 in Owner equity.
The more people who join Co-op Market, the stronger we become! And your investment will enable us to make several much-anticipated improvements:
• A food warmer so the Deli can offer a hot item.
• New shelving in the Bulk Foods department.
• New shelves and carts for the Grocery Team so we can get stock out on the floor faster.
• New store fixtures so we can offer more products.
• A new endcap for bread.
If you’ve ever thought about becoming an Owner, now’s the time! Invest in May and receive your choice of a Co-op Market mug or a reusable shopping bag with our logo on it.
Already an Owner? You can help us, too, by paying off your investment balance. If you do this during our drive, you can also choose a mug or a bag.
Paid-up Owners should not feel left out! Bring in a new Owner and you’ll get $10 in Co-op Cash.
The week of May 16th thru May 23rd will be fun for everyone, with lots of samples and prizes, deals and even a Truckload Sale! We’ll be giving away another folding bicycle from Honest Tea and a garden wagon from Woodstock, as well as baskets of goodies from the store.
Stay tuned for more details!
Of course, mugs and prizes and sales aren’t the only reason to invest in your co-op. You also get the satisfaction of knowing that you own a grocery store. And not just any grocery store, but a true community business that is working to create a more sustainable local food system. Click here to learn more about the benefits of Co-op Market Ownership.
How to Vote for Your Board of Directors Electronically
This year we’re again offering electronic voting through DirectVote by Survey & Ballot Systems. Every Owner with a current email address on file should receive an email invitation to vote on-line.
Voting electronically makes voting and tabulating the results a lot easier, but it does require some ability to be “tech savvy.”
So, to help you we, we offer these words of advice.
1. WAIT – If we have your current email address, you will receive an email directly from DirectVote by Survey Ballot Systems on September 14th.
2. PREPARE – Your internet server might think the email is spam. To avoid this, add noreply@directvote.net to your approved email list (whitelist).
3. CHECK YOUR SPAM – If you don’t receive an invitation email by noon, please check your spam folder. Look for this email header: “Important: Login Information for Co-op Market Board Election.”
4. COPY AND PASTE – DirectVote will send you a username, password and URL address to use when voting. The URL may or may not appear as a clickable hyperlink depending on your email service. If it isn’t clickable, simply copy and paste the address into your browser address bar.
5. WATCH FOR POP-UP BLOCKERS – You can read about each candidate before voting, but you will have to click a button on the ballot to do this. The candidate biographies will pop up. Some browsers don’t allow pop-ups, so you will need to disable the pop-up blocker for this ballot.
6. READ ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS – Be sure to read everything on each screen of the ballot so that you do not miss important instructions. This will help prevent frustration and problems.
7. SUBMIT your ballot. Your vote will not be complete until you hit the “submit” button on the ballot confirmation page.
If electronic voting is troublesome or if you don’t get the invitation email, please send an email to Kristin Summerlin, Marketing and Owner Services Manager, at ksummerlin@coopmarket.org. She will also be able to help you if your email address has changed.
We will mail paper ballots to Owners with no email address on file. We will also offer paper ballots at the check-out registers. You will need to have your Owner number to vote. If you don’t know your number, ask a cashier to look it up for you. Remember that there is only one vote per Owner number, even if several people in your household use that number.
Thank you for helping us save trees by voting on-line! And thank you for participating in the democratic management of your co-op.
Help Shape the Future: Join Our Board of Directors
You own a grocery store! Have you ever thought about it that way? You took a leap of faith and invested your money in Co-op Market Grocery & Deli. You built a vibrant new retail food co-op, the first one in Alaska.
As a Member-Owner, you can do more to ensure our success than just shop with us. You can help shape the future of Co-op Market and make sure we remain true to our values and mission as we continue to grow. You can serve on our Board of Directors.
Co-ops are not just businesses: They are democratic organizations governed by an elected Board of Directors made up of Member-Owners. Our nine-member board is the legal steward of the Co-op and fulfills the obligations of running a business. The board provides leadership, vision and guidance. It oversees wise use of Co-op resources and sets long-range goals.
Cooperatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, cooperative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others. (Find out more about cooperative values and principles here.)
This year the board will be finalizing its board policies and Ends Statement and will begin to work with our General Manager to clarify our plan for growth and expansion.
Do you believe in the cooperative values and principles? Are you passionate about bringing good healthy food to the community? Do you want to help create a flourishing local economy with a real focus on sustainability? Do you have a background in business or volunteer organizations and relevant life experiences to share? You’re an ideal candidate!
Here are some things you need to know.
The Board of Directors
- oversees the Co-op’s financial condition.
- connects to our owners.
- shapes our Co-op’s vision and works closely with our General Manager to set long-term strategies.
The Co-op Market board operates under the Carver Policy Governance Model.
To be eligible, candidates
- must be Member-Owners of Co-op Market Grocery & Deli in good standing.
- cannot be a Co-op Market employee.
- must know how to focus, communicate clearly, and understand strategic thinking.
- should have prior experience making decisions in a group setting.
- must be able to undertake fiduciary responsibility on behalf of the Co-op and its owners.
Directors serve for a two-year term. For 2014/2015, four of the nine board seats are up for election.
The board meets monthly. Directors commit to an average of 4 to 8 hours of service per month, depending on committee and project workload. They also commit to attend yearly national cooperative training and conferences.
Applications are available here, or you can get a paper copy at the customer service desk. Completed applications, along with a current digital photograph, are due by September 5, 2014. (Your photograph should be a headshot only and in .jpg format.) All Member-Owners will receive candidate bios, photos and a ballot. On-line and paper ballot voting will begin on September 25. Winning candidates will be announced at our annual meeting on October 23.
For more information, please contact Board Chairman Robert Leach at board@coopmarket.org.
Does Food Rule?
A review of the new “quick read” by Michael Pollan, “Food Rules”
By Rich Seifert, Co-op Market Board Member
I read Michael Pollan’s first book, the Botany of Desire many years ago, and now his stature as America’s food folk hero is perhaps at its peak. He has followed an interesting road, and one we should all travel along these days.
His latest, “Food Rules”, is a very quick but effective read written in the pattern of “Life’s Little Lesson Books”. This format makes the book, dense as it is with inspirations, a very quick read. It is perfectly designed for any aspiring “food missionaries” out there who want to promote healthy eating and move to a healthier diet.
And for those of us who want to see Alaska, and for me, Fairbanks, become healthier through healthy eating, the virtues of this little tome are as timely as they are helpful.
The plan for the book was to ask people, through a New York Times blog called “Well” (as in wellness) for their best advice in an aphorism on eating well and healthy. Spinning onward from his previous book, In Defense of Food, he condenses the entire message of the book into these seven words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Pretty comprehensive actually. But in this little book he refines the message further into paragraphs of food insight, which I can best relate by showing examples of my own “favorites’” list. Take these examples as a few seductive tastes to incite you to read the book:
– Avoid food products that contain ingredients no ordinary person would keep in their pantry. For instance ethoxylated diglycerides, cellulose, xanthan gum. Doesn’t seem too hard, does it?
– Avoid food products that make health claims (!) Well this seems counter-intuitive at first, but upon reflection, makes great sense. If a product has to tell you how healthy it is, then it is making up for some deficiency it obviously has. Carrots don’t have to convince you that they are good for you.
– Avoid foods you see advertised on television. Whoa, this is a biggie! I have heard a friend describe commercials for pizza or Red Lobster restaurant as “food pornography”. A fairly apt description of the visual effect of the commercials. It shouldn’t be necessary to say that the vegetable lobby doesn’t need to do TV ads.
– Eat only foods that will eventually rot. Again, anything that will last indefinitely has so many preservatives and probably toxic ingredients that keep it from “spoiling” that it cannot be very good for living creatures such as we humans. An exception is honey, which has an indefinite shelf life, but it is unique in that respect. All food needs to be digestible, and if it can’t be digestible outside your body by other creatures who need it just as much, it is unlikely to be healthfully digested inside your body.
Since I am writing this for both the general public and particularly for the future patrons of our Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market (Co-op Market), I want to encourage the best food products for a healthy life, and make them available in Alaska, and preferably grown here too.
Michael Pollan’s “Food Facts” is motivated by much the same things. He started out with a keen interest in finding out how to eat well to maintain his family’s health. He discloses two major facts in the preface that he has gleaned from this search, and he concisely summarizes what he has learned and written about since.
First, populations that eat mostly the “ Western” diet, consisting of lots of processed foods and meat, added fats and sugars, lots of refined grains, lots of everything except vegetables, invariably suffer from high rates of the so-called Western diseases: obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Virtually all of the obesity and the diabetes, 80% of the cardiovascular disease, and more than a third of all cancers can be linked to this diet.
And second, in contrast, populations eating a remarkably wide range of traditional diets generally don’t suffer from these chronic diseases. It appears that we human omnivores are well adapted to a broad range of mixed traditional diets, except for one: the WESTERN DIET, recently fallen upon us.
There is a third factor though which is good news, and which I hope that our new co-op will help to promote: People who get off the Western diet see dramatic improvements in their health. Pollan cites research that suggests that the effects of the Western diet can be rolled back by getting off it, and relatively quickly.
It is our intent with the Co-op Market to help in every way to achieve this option and promote community health and wellness. We even have a committee devoted to those very subjects. (The next meeting of the Health and Wellness committee is Tuesday, June 1 at 5:30 pm at the Volunteer Center.)
Stay with us, be patient, and start developing these suggested eating habits now. As soon as we can, the Co-op Market will do all it can to keep you eating healthy and maintaining local food availability. Join the Co-op Market, become a full voting member, and eat well. Live long and prosper… and come and visit us online at www.FairbanksCoop.org/
Master gardener class
Master gardener classes are being offered by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service. Master Gardeners are trained volunteers who aid University of Alaska Cooperative Extension Service staff by helping people in the community better understand horticulture and their environment.
The class consists of 40 hours of instruction on different areas of horticulture and pest management. The payback of volunteer time is set at 40 hours, which equals the hours of training received.
Michele Hébert, Tanana District agriculture and horticulture agent, will lead two sessions of classes at the University Park Building. The first session will meet Feb. 10-March 7, Tuesdays from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and 6-9 p.m. and Saturdays from noon-3 p.m. The second session will meet April 27-May 8, weekdays from 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
Topics include basic horticulture, plant classification, soils, vegetables, fruit and berry crops, composting, lawn establishment and maintenance, plant diseases and pests, home landscaping, and more.
Classes are limited to twenty students. Registration is requested by Jan. 31. The class fee is $75 if participants agree to donate forty hours of gardening-related volunteer service in the community. The fee is $250 without the volunteer commitment. Volunteer hours must be completed within two years of completing the class.
For more information or to register, call the Tanana District Extension office at 907-474-1530 or stop by the Cooperative Extension office in the University Park Building at 1000 University Avenue.
