The half-yearly meeting for members of the Co-operative Group in the Cambridge and East Anglia region went really well. This is one of the two more formal meetings during the year when the wider membership - the "ordinary members" if you will (although there is no such thing as an ordinary Co-op member!) receive presentations from their representatives about how their Co-operative Society has performed. And because we are a Co-op, we place just as much emphasis on our community work, our charitable giving, and our campaigns as we do on the financial side of things.
I am aware that I haven't posted anything yet on the
interim results of the Group that were released in September. I'll just briefly summarise them here
Things are looking OK!For those who like a bit more detail, our
green food shops are doing great - and the Somerfield acquisition is looking good in these early days. So food retail is selling more and making more profit than this time last year. We are still doing well with our
pharmacies, with a slight increase on last year's profits.
Travel and Motor dealerships (we have inherited some car showrooms from our merger with United Co-ops) are obviously operating in markets that are very prone to the credit crunch, but are holding on in there. Travel made a reduced profit on an increased market share, while motors managed to break even.
Funeralcare is doing well, boosted by acquisitions and improved marketing. Our other businesses such as
farms,
legal services etc. are generally doing as well, if not better, than 2008
That's the national picture - but this being a local meeting we were also told of the performance of just our region. In the Central and Eastern patch, food sales, funeral care and pharmacy all increased sales and profit, while our travel businesses saw slight declines. In food I believe we slightly outperform the national average.
So on a financial footing things are going well. But what about membership activity? I must admit that when Ranjit, our Co-operative Affairs Officer for our area, gave a list of the membership events, campaigns and community functions that we have put on or contributed to over the last twelve months, I was amazed by its length. As a committee member you often lose count of the number of events that our officers organise on our behalf, so a serious well done to Ranjit and the rest of the regional membership team.
The list included:
And still to come is Sugar Secrets (an expose of the sugar industry) and "The Wave" a march against climate change.
Of course, these members meetings are not just passive reception of presentations from the Co-op. They are also your chance to ask questions of officers and elected members. These can be regarding just about anything, such as trading performance, customer service, constitutional matters, or about our community involvement.
I thought that this year's questions were particularly good, and I include a brief, paraphrased Q+A report of a selection of them:
Trading performace / customer service
Q. Is the Co-op looking into self-service tills?
A. There is a trial going on at the moment at a number of sites in other areas. The jury is still out on self-service - we want to give as good a service as possible. We won't be rusing into this.
Q. Our Co-op in Dunmow has got a nearby Tesco's, as other stores do in the area. Can store managers with nearby aggressive competition form a mutual support group to swap ideas?
A. These issues are already discussed at regular managers meetings. Strategies to compete effectively are discussed and implemented.
Q. How is the Mill Road store doing in the face of competition?
A. We are performing even better than expected, and are finding that a small initial drop in sales is gradually building back. The pro-Co-op nature of the local community has been fantastic.
Q. Do we track the percentage of transactions made by members?
A. This is tracked in food stores and discussed by management. It is important to increase this value as members typically spend more per visit.
Q. Can we use Brittania branches to pay in cheques?
A. Not at the moment. The computer systems are incompatible. Hopefully this will change in the near future.
Membership Matters
Q. Thank you for the screening of the excellent "Vanishing of the Bees" film. Can we do something similar on the Tar Sands issue (extraction of oil from tar sands contributes even more carbon to the atomsphere than normal oil)?
A. Opposition to Tar Sands extraction is a major project of our Social Goals team. We are looking at the possibility of showing a film.
Q. Are there membership campaigns planned on local food sourcing?
A. Not at the moment - next year's action plan will be being considered by your area committee members very soon.
Q. How many young people are members?
A. The Co-op membership has been slightly older than the wider population for a long time. However, our new campaigns and the brand launch this year has meant that our new members are considerably younger. We want to have a good age mix representative of wider society.
I think that a very informative and enjoyable evening was had by all. It was good to see members attending for the first time, as well as of course our regular active members. Attendence was up on last year - whether this was due to the more central location or the advertising campaign and brand relaunch is hard to say.
Image is of the Cambridge Wickerman sourced from the website of the Co-operative Cambridge Folk Festival.
The fantastic Knucklas Community Land Project that I blogged about a bit earlier in the year now has a website to provide a bit more information and to act as a point of contact. I'm a proud member of the Project, set up as a a type of co-operative to benefit the community, which in turn means that I am a joint tenant of a medieval Welsh castle!
