March 2008 Area Committee Meeting

The March area committee meeting for the Cambridge and East Anglia area of the Co-operative Group was held, as is now usual, at the Histon Road Co-op store in Cambridge. A number of minor matters arising were cleared up to start with, including updates on getting noticeboards and members' suggestion boxes into various stores (!), a decision to hold a future area committee meeting at our Coldham windfarm, and the availability of basket trolleys for the use of people who can find a fully-laden handbasket too heavy.

It was then time to receive the trading reports for our area for all the locally-accountable businesses (Food, Pharmacy, Funeralcare and Travel). These results represent period 13 of 13, and therefore complete the 2007 financial year. I don't think that I am breaking confidentiality when I say that, generally, performance is much improved compared to the situation a couple of years ago. Hopefully we will see that mirrored nationally when the full accounts of the society are published.

Under the continuing saga of the acceptability or otherwise of ladmags, the committee requested further information from the food retail management, including sales figures and current policy on their display.

Under Membership and Community Matters, various future projects were discussed, including the What's in a Name event and hopes for an Environmental Conference for later in the year. Ranjit, our Co-operative Affairs Officer, had also been busy on local radio (both Radio Cambridgeshire and Radio Norfolk) promoting Fairtrade Fortnight. The committee were pleased to learn that 209 radio, the local community radio station, also featured Fairtrade tastings during the fortnight.

The committee were pleased to support 6 different community projects in our local area with grants from the Community Fund to a total of £7,348. More details on these very soon.

Feedback from our reps on the Regional Board was as interesting as ever. I was interested to see that membership card usage data had been collected and processed, enabling us to compare how successful different stores are at encouraging customers to be members. I know that shop managers have their hands full just with the day-to-day running of the store, but it would be good to know how successful stores are at the other side of the equation - building the Society's membership.

We received details of the on-going Constitutional Review, and the sorts of plans that are currently afoot. These were discussed in detail at a separate meeting, and our opinions sent to the Regional board for their consideration. There are some big questions - should the Co-op Group remain a federal, representative democracy as it currently is, or should it have more of a direct democracy model? Should local committees focus just on consumer experience, or should they have a wider role. Or should formal lower tiers of democracy be dispensed with altogether? If you opinions on what sort of constitutional model you'd like to have in your Society, let me or another committee member know.

As we are preparing for another national AGM, the committee passed two questions to the Regional Board for consideration (it is the Regional Board that has the right to submit these sort of things to the AGM). The first question concerns how the Co-op Group can continue to retain its pioneering status in Fairtrade given the fact that other supermarkets are waking up to the idea. The second question was drafted by my own fair hands, and asks if the Group has any Mosquito deterrents that selectively target young people. I hate the discriminatory and arbitrary nature of these devices, and hope that the Co-op will implement a policy banning their use on Group premises.

Past Area Committee meetings:
2008: Jan Feb
2007: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2006: Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec