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An archive of Cooperative Grocer magazine articles going back to 1985.
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| Title | Post date |
Issue |
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Assessing Management Performance The good news is: you're not alone. Many co-op boards of directors and managers find the prospect of a formal management performance appraisal very uncomfortable to face. The reasons cited... |
09 Jan 2004 | #009 February - March - 1987 |
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Suggestion Box: As Good As a Ballot Box It's not a computer, it's not a new touch-tone phone system. It's not even fancy. But it can do a lot for communications within your co-op-and it's cheap to operate. It's a... |
09 Jan 2004 | #008 December - January - 1987 |
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The Co-op Difference and Capital What distinguishes the cooperative store from other retails will vary according to the features of the particular market the store is in and how the co-op has defined its niche in that market.... |
09 Jan 2004 | #008 December - January - 1987 |
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Survival Issues As this issue of Cooperative Grocer was being prepared for the printer, word arrived of the closing of Starflower Natural Foods & Botanicals in Eugene, Oregon. Their services will be missed... |
09 Jan 2004 | #008 December - January - 1987 |
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Evaluating Co-op Boards One of the important jobs of a co-op board is to evaluate -- evaluate the management, evaluate the co-op's financial performance, evaluate the membership and structure of the co-op, and... |
09 Jan 2004 | #008 December - January - 1987 |
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Managing Working Members Member work is still the subject of a lot of controversy in many new wave food co-ops. Staff members at many stores particularly feel that member work is something that makes their jobs much... |
09 Jan 2004 | #008 December - January - 1987 |
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Another Look at Member Labor "Boon or Bane?" was the title question in a section on member labor in the first issue of Cooperative Grocer (October-November 1985). And in discussing the issue, it's difficult not to try to be... |
09 Jan 2004 | #008 December - January - 1987 |
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Building an Advertising Strategy What is an advertising strategy? Basically, it is the formulation of a message that communicates to the market the benefits or problem solution characteristics of the product or service. Well,... |
09 Jan 2004 | #007 October - November - 1986 |
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Formulating a Market Strategy In the previous article, we talked primarily about tools to determine your market niche and ways to utilize these tools in gathering information to determine your store's market position. With... |
09 Jan 2004 | #006 August - September - 1986 |
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Characteristics of Effective Supervisors Whether you oversee a whole department of employees or one assistant manager or an ever-changing group of volunteers, you as a supervisor are ultimately responsible for the work of others. This... |
09 Jan 2004 | #006 August - September - 1986 |
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Taking a Hard Look at 'The Co-op Difference' When a competing natural foods store comes to town, it forces a co-op to sit up and take notice. In 1981, when Wellspring Grocery opened four blocks from the Food Co-op in Durham, North Carolina,... |
09 Jan 2004 | #006 August - September - 1986 |
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Determining Your Market Niche We are cooperatives out there -- that much we know. But what does that mean as far as your store's niche in a marketplace of food stores? "Co-op" can and has at any given time served many... |
09 Jan 2004 | #005 June - July - 1986 |
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Director Compensation: They Deserve It -- Or Should [Written with the assistance of Margaret Goldstein and Josh Cohen.] Director compensation: the idea is commanding more and more attention among smaller cooperatives. Leadership and... |
09 Jan 2004 | #005 June - July - 1986 |
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Duties and Responsibilities of Cooperative Board Members Members of the board of directors of a cooperative have the same duties and responsibilities as do board members of any other business. In addition, they have a few other responsibilities that... |
09 Jan 2004 | #004 April - May - 1986 |
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Stormy Weather in California The past year has been a difficult one for Associated Cooperatives Inc. (ACI), the wholesale in Richmond, California, and for some of its member retail co-ops. |
09 Jan 2004 | #004 April - May - 1986 |
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Mail Balloting or Member Meetings? Pick One: Quantity or Quality By Harrison Drinkwater "The day we lost the Co-op was the day we switched to mail ballots," said Michael O'Reilly,* a former president of the Vermont Electricity... |
09 Jan 2004 | #003 February - March - 1986 |
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Keeping Staff Committed to the Cooperative Staff turnover may not be measurable in costs, but it can seriously cripple a co-op. All employees of more than a few months represent a significant investment in training. A long term worker who... |
09 Jan 2004 | #003 February - March - 1986 |
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Director Recruitment: The Nominations Process It's true. The responsibilities of being a director usually become so consuming that not much time ends up being devoted to thinking about upcoming elections. For many co-ops, the "recruitment and... |
04 Jan 2011 | #002 December - January - 1985 |
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Editorial The retails where Cooperative Grocer is read exist in a very wide variety of markets, from small town to large metropolis, across the U.S. and Canada. While almost all of these stores are... |
09 Jan 2004 | #135, March-April 2008 |
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Can Co-op Boards Do the Job? It will be no surprise to most Cooperative Grocer readers that there are those who think that consumer co-op boards of directors typically represent a weak link in the overall organizational... |
09 Jan 2004 | #001 October - November - 1985 |
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Sales and Labor in 20 Retail Food Co-ops Introduction Having members of a retail food cooperative contribute labor toward the operation of their store is one of those practices that is wholly unnecessary or even undesirable in the eyes of... |
09 Jan 2004 | #001 October - November - 1985 |
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Keeping Our Mission, Changing Our System The First Alternative in Corvallis, Oregon, is a cooperative grocery largely run by working members. We started in 1970 with a group of 100 people and have grown from the first full year's sales... |
09 Jan 2004 | #001 October - November - 1985 |
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Hold the Cesium, Please! (It Won't be on the Label) The disasters wrought by petrochemical farming are in the news, so much so that one forgets what happened only two years ago. And this forgetting, too, is part of the problem. Remember the... |
09 Jan 2004 | #001 October - November - 1985 |
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New Pioneer: Successful by Working on the Basics In 1981, New Pioneer Co-op was a small, floundering storefront with stagnant sales growth, unpredictable margin, infighting, and poor capitalization. This scenario has given way to a relatively... |
09 Jan 2004 | #001 October - November - 1985 |
