Update From Your Community Engagement Committee
This September, during our Annual Meeting, the Board kicked off the search for participants to join our new Community Engagement Committee to inform our planning for the Co-op’s future and what the next 10 years might look like.
Over the past year, a subcommittee of six Board members has been meeting with Greg, our General Manager, to learn more about the issues and opportunities facing our Co-op, explore how other co-ops have approached similar questions, and begin thinking about what our future may look like. The Community Engagement Committee is an important next step in this work.
The new committee will include four members of our broader community, including at least one Co-op staff member, to join Board members and the General Manager in helping us design and facilitate opportunities to gather perspectives, ideas, concerns, and hopes from across our community so they can help inform the development of the Co-op’s Long-Range Plan, which will be written by the General Manager.
The committee will help organize community listening sessions, focus groups, surveys, and other opportunities for conversation. Our hope is to hear from YOU and the many other people with relationships to the Co-op, including longtime member-owners, newer members of our community, staff, shoppers, non-shoppers, local food-system partners, and others whose experiences can help us better understand the needs and possibilities ahead.
Applications for the committee were open from September 9 through October 3 to anyone in our community who wanted to participate in this work, whether or not they are currently a Co-op member-owner.
We were excited to receive a pool of 14 applicants for the four open seats. The applicants reflect a wonderful range of experiences and perspectives, including tenured Co-op staff, longtime and newly relocated Addison County residents, people with experience working within our local food system, and people who have worked to address food insecurity in our community.
The breadth of this applicant pool is an encouraging reminder of just how large, varied, and engaged our community is. With more than 7,000 member-owner households, there is no single Co-op experience or perspective. That is exactly why this work matters.
We are especially excited to begin organizing what we are calling Co-operative Conversations: opportunities to listen, learn, and gather the many different perspectives that will help inform the General Manager as he develops the Co-op’s Long-Range Plan. We anticipate that these conversations will take place in the spring, so stay tuned for more details as they develop!
Our next step is to review the applications and select the four individuals who will serve on the Community Engagement Committee. With so many thoughtful and experienced applicants, we expect this to be a difficult decision in the very best way.
We plan to confirm the committee later this month and look forward to sharing another update in an upcoming newsletter as this work gets underway.
In Cooperation,
The MNFC Board of Directors
Still have questions? Reach out to the Board: Board@middlebury.coop or 802.388.7276 ext 377
