On Responding to Member Concerns at Annual Meeting
Submitted by don on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 14:46.
On Responding to Member Concerns at Annual Meeting
Fellow Cooperators:
Those of you who were at the very successful Annual Meeting on April 27 at Hanover High School will recall that the time for member questions was (understandably) dominated by discussion of the new Lyme Road community market and, in particular, the end of gasoline sales at that location.
As I prepared for the Annual Meeting, I knew this topic would come up. So, obviously, did our general manager, Terry Appleby, who addressed the topic preemptively in his report, apologizing for what he characterized as his failure to be sufficiently proactive about making the Co-op’s membership aware of the decision.
I made a slightly different choice. Specifically, I opted not to address the subject in the president’s report. But when the time came for member questions, I decided not to wait until someone asked about it. Rather, because I wanted to set a positive tone for the discussion, and because I wanted to give the (correct) impression that the Board had already been thinking about the subject, I chose to raise the topic myself. And I opted to do that by reading an excerpt from a letter written by an absent member who, unable to attend the meeting, had hand-delivered his communication to us at the high school. The letter seemed to frame the issue thoughtfully.
We had, attendees will recall, a fairly lengthy discussion of why gasoline sales have ended at Lyme Road. Other subjects came up as well. The last member to ask a question was a gentleman who stood up and said, in essence, that the Board had ignored the needs of people who use the Lyme Road store because nobody on the Board comes from north of there (and thus has any need to buy gas at the Lyme Road store). My reaction, as the person presiding over the discussion, was simply to thank the member. I offered no real or substantive response.
Although I myself left the Annual Meeting feeling like the event, including the period for member questions, was a success, an attendee whose judgment I deeply respect expressed some earnest concern recently about the way I handled these matters. In particular, this person wished I had (1) not seemed to be preferring someone who couldn’t be there to those who took the time to attend, by kicking off the conversation with the absent member’s letter rather than an attendee’s question, and (2) responded more meaningfully to the last member question.
I apologize for not being as thoughtful as I should have been as the moderator of the annual meeting. Please be assured that I am deeply appreciative that so many members took the time to come to our gathering — indeed, it was very gratifying, because we made some significant changes to annual meeting this year with that very result in mind. I didn’t intend to convey any lack of appreciation for those in attendance for kicking off the “Lyme Road gasoline” discussion as I did, but in retrospect it seems I wasn’t thinking enough about how this would look to the audience.
I also apologize, although somewhat more equivocally, for the way I responded (or failed to respond) to the last member who spoke, particularly because his concern about the Lyme Road project was so heartfelt. I have to confess to a measure of distraction, or perhaps impatience, by this point in the meeting. I knew it was nearing time to introduce the guest speaker and that we had already been convened together for something like two hours. I thought the issues surrounding the end of gas sales at Lyme Road had, at that point, been more or less fully aired. And I was, frankly, caught a bit speechless by this particular member’s comments.
I have noticed something troubling about public reaction to any controversy in which our Co-op is involved. It happened last year, when the local daily newspaper whipped up a public frenzy about an incident in which someone had left one of the stores with items the shopper had not paid for. It has now recurred with respect to the end of gas sales at Lyme Road.
I am referring to the willingness of too many people to assume that venality, mendacity and expediency are the underlying reasons for anything the Co-op does that strikes them as ill-advised. The Co-op is certainly fallible, but there is no other organization with which I am familiar that is as earnest, principled and honest. I think folks’ willingness to assume otherwise is really a function of our cynical era and I am saddened by it.
In other words, I cannot accept the proposition that the decision to end gas sales at Lyme Road is connected in any way to where our board members happen to live (or not live). The board prides itself on representing the interests of the membership as a whole, as opposed to any particular segments of it (e.g., Co-op employees, people who live in a particular area, folks who tend to use one particular store, people who like or need particular product categories). That is so much the case that, I am convinced, if a Board member DID live north of the Lyme Road store, and had been using it as her gas station, she would have worried about her impartiality and even considered disqualifying herself from any discussions about whether to continue selling gas there.
As I have already explained in public, the Board never had occasion to vote on management’s decision to eliminate gas pumps from the new Lyme Road facility. Management believed it had the discretion to make that decision, given the guidance promulgated by the Board via its written policies (which are publicly available on this web site). In my judgment, management was correct in that regard — and the Board has appropriately deemed itself poorly qualified to second-guess decisions about product mix and capital budget priorities.
At no other organization in the Upper Valley, be it a government entity, a nonprofit or an investor-owned business, would there be such forthright public discussion of, and accountability for, a strategic decision such as the one under discussion. I am proud to be part of governing an organization committed to that kind of transparency. And so I am grateful for the discussion of the subject at our annual meeting.
On Responding to Member Concerns at Annual Meeting
Fellow Cooperators:
Those of you who were at the very successful Annual Meeting on April 27 at Hanover High School will recall that the time for member questions was (understandably) dominated by discussion of the new Lyme Road community market and, in particular, the end of gasoline sales at that location.
As I prepared for the Annual Meeting, I knew this topic would come up. So, obviously, did our general manager, Terry Appleby, who addressed the topic preemptively in his report, apologizing for what he characterized as his failure to be sufficiently proactive about making the Co-op’s membership aware of the decision.
I made a slightly different choice. Specifically, I opted not to address the subject in the president’s report. But when the time came for member questions, I decided not to wait until someone asked about it. Rather, because I wanted to set a positive tone for the discussion, and because I wanted to give the (correct) impression that the Board had already been thinking about the subject, I chose to raise the topic myself. And I opted to do that by reading an excerpt from a letter written by an absent member who, unable to attend the meeting, had hand-delivered his communication to us at the high school. The letter seemed to frame the issue thoughtfully.
We had, attendees will recall, a fairly lengthy discussion of why gasoline sales have ended at Lyme Road. Other subjects came up as well. The last member to ask a question was a gentleman who stood up and said, in essence, that the Board had ignored the needs of people who use the Lyme Road store because nobody on the Board comes from north of there (and thus has any need to buy gas at the Lyme Road store). My reaction, as the person presiding over the discussion, was simply to thank the member. I offered no real or substantive response.
Although I myself left the Annual Meeting feeling like the event, including the period for member questions, was a success, an attendee whose judgment I deeply respect expressed some earnest concern recently about the way I handled these matters. In particular, this person wished I had (1) not seemed to be preferring someone who couldn’t be there to those who took the time to attend, by kicking off the conversation with the absent member’s letter rather than an attendee’s question, and (2) responded more meaningfully to the last member question.
I apologize for not being as thoughtful as I should have been as the moderator of the annual meeting. Please be assured that I am deeply appreciative that so many members took the time to come to our gathering — indeed, it was very gratifying, because we made some significant changes to annual meeting this year with that very result in mind. I didn’t intend to convey any lack of appreciation for those in attendance for kicking off the “Lyme Road gasoline” discussion as I did, but in retrospect it seems I wasn’t thinking enough about how this would look to the audience.
I also apologize, although somewhat more equivocally, for the way I responded (or failed to respond) to the last member who spoke, particularly because his concern about the Lyme Road project was so heartfelt. I have to confess to a measure of distraction, or perhaps impatience, by this point in the meeting. I knew it was nearing time to introduce the guest speaker and that we had already been convened together for something like two hours. I thought the issues surrounding the end of gas sales at Lyme Road had, at that point, been more or less fully aired. And I was, frankly, caught a bit speechless by this particular member’s comments.
I have noticed something troubling about public reaction to any controversy in which our Co-op is involved. It happened last year, when the local daily newspaper whipped up a public frenzy about an incident in which someone had left one of the stores with items the shopper had not paid for. It has now recurred with respect to the end of gas sales at Lyme Road.
I am referring to the willingness of too many people to assume that venality, mendacity and expediency are the underlying reasons for anything the Co-op does that strikes them as ill-advised. The Co-op is certainly fallible, but there is no other organization with which I am familiar that is as earnest, principled and honest. I think folks’ willingness to assume otherwise is really a function of our cynical era and I am saddened by it.
In other words, I cannot accept the proposition that the decision to end gas sales at Lyme Road is connected in any way to where our board members happen to live (or not live). The board prides itself on representing the interests of the membership as a whole, as opposed to any particular segments of it (e.g., Co-op employees, people who live in a particular area, folks who tend to use one particular store, people who like or need particular product categories). That is so much the case that, I am convinced, if a Board member DID live north of the Lyme Road store, and had been using it as her gas station, she would have worried about her impartiality and even considered disqualifying herself from any discussions about whether to continue selling gas there.
As I have already explained in public, the Board never had occasion to vote on management’s decision to eliminate gas pumps from the new Lyme Road facility. Management believed it had the discretion to make that decision, given the guidance promulgated by the Board via its written policies (which are publicly available on this web site). In my judgment, management was correct in that regard — and the Board has appropriately deemed itself poorly qualified to second-guess decisions about product mix and capital budget priorities.
At no other organization in the Upper Valley, be it a government entity, a nonprofit or an investor-owned business, would there be such forthright public discussion of, and accountability for, a strategic decision such as the one under discussion. I am proud to be part of governing an organization committed to that kind of transparency. And so I am grateful for the discussion of the subject at our annual meeting.