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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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Disaster Preparedness Disaster: a "bad star." That's the derivation of this ancient Greek word. If a comet is hurling toward the earth, or our sun goes super-nova, there is nothing to be done. But there are disasters a... |
09 Jan 2004 | #079 November - December - 1998 |
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Understanding Distributor Dynamics We see several positive trends of cooperation between stores and their distributors. These are lowering the cost of goods in several categories and increasing the competitiveness... |
09 Jan 2004 | #075 March - April - 1998 |
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Economics 101: Sunk Costs and Opportunity Costs We think every day about what it costs to do different things -- 89 cents to buy a pound of organic bananas, seven dollars to see "Lethal Weapon 4," etc. -- but we seldom think... |
09 Jan 2004 | #079 November - December - 1998 |
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All Your Board Can Be Whether you are a manager, staff, or a director, you will be happier and less frustrated when your co-op's board is operating smoothly. Board meetings that go on for hours,... |
09 Jan 2004 | #074 January - February - 1998 |
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Raising the Stakes? The ability to raise capital -- to collect a little bit from a lot of people and build something greater than anybody's bit could have built alone -- is one of the great strengths... |
09 Jan 2004 | #076 May - June - 1998 |
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Finance Committee Finesse By Scott Beers and Margaret Lund One of the absolutely vital committees of any co-op board is the finance committee. Typically, the finance committee is charged with overseeing and... |
09 Jan 2004 | #075 March - April - 1998 |
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Knowing Your Mass Market Competition The nearby mass market grocer will be the most prevalent competitor for most natural food stores. Natural foods chains with large stores (20,000+ sq. ft.), such as Whole Foods,... |
09 Jan 2004 | #074 January - February - 1998 |
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Mission Statement – or (Still) Missin' Statement? Results of the Retail Operations Survey once again show strong growth and profitability by most food co-ops during the past year. Eighty percent of the co-op stores surveyed are... |
09 Jan 2004 | #077 July - August - 1998 |
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Educating Staff About Nutrition Natural foods cooperatives have historically been leaders in providing education to staff, members and shoppers. The fifth cooperative principle states in part, "We strive to... |
09 Jan 2004 | #079 November - December - 1998 |
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Building Financial Partnerships To be successful in today's competitive, global economy, you can't just be good at what you do. You have to be excellent. Natural food cooperatives are keenly aware of this. You... |
09 Jan 2004 | #078 September - October - 1998 |
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Peruvian Percolator Thanks to Rick Stewart and Frontier Natural Products Co-op, I just spent a week in Peru, where Frontier and an allied local group, the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture in the... |
09 Jan 2004 | #078 September - October - 1998 |
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Using Policy Governance to Improve Board Leadership Food cooperatives around the country are talking about Policy Governance -- a system of board leadership developed by John Carver. While people are drawn to the simple logic behind Policy... |
09 Jan 2004 | #078 September - October - 1998 |
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Promoting Pre-order Sales: Three years ago, members of the Syracuse (N.Y.) Real Food Cooperative were forced to vote on whether their retail co-op should declare bankruptcy. Today, three years later, Syracuse Real Food... |
09 Jan 2004 | #076 May - June - 1998 |
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Radio Marketing Can Be Cheap and Powerful The last thing the average co-op manager has time for is figuring out the vagaries of radio. We know virtually nothing about reading Wilhite surveys, drive-time placement, writing... |
09 Jan 2004 | #077 July - August - 1998 |
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Democracy Works Democracy Works |
08 Jan 2004 | #104 January - February - 2003 |
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Helping Build a Thriving Future for Food Cooperatives Long before "just do it" became part of the American lexicon, the teenaged Homer Hickam, inspired by the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and fueled by a desire to beat the Russians at the space race,... |
08 Jan 2004 | #102 September - October - 2002 |
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Maintaining Co-op Democracy As a member of the Willy Street Co-op board in Madison, Wisc., I'm interested in creative ways to stimulate member participation in our cooperative. We held an annual meeting last August and... |
08 Jan 2004 | #098 January - February - 2002 |
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A Member Linkage Tool Builds Policy and Action NOTE: This article is a summary of a workshop presented at CCMA 2000 called "Building Member Linkage: A Tool for Policy and Action." What follows is first a description of the presentation... |
08 Jan 2004 | #092 January - February - 2001 |
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Ends: Defining Your Cooperative Advantage This article is intended for everyone who is inspired or in any way impacted by cooperative principles. It focuses on defining the difference a cooperative makes in the world and the dramatic... |
08 Jan 2004 | #097 November - December - 2001 |
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Lessons from the Planning Front Lines Does the idea of planning sessions with your co-op board of directors fill you with dread? Do you spend more time talking about planning than actually doing any planning? Are your... |
08 Jan 2004 | #086 January - February - 2000 |
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Time To Reshape Cooperative Identity? It's a new century -- is it time to reshape cooperative identity? The new millennium has dawned, and with it comes heightened clarity in our collective awareness of the importance... |
08 Jan 2004 | #087 March - April - 2000 |
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Management Evaluation Under Policy Governance The relationship between the board and the general manager is probably the most important relationship in a co-op. To be successful, a cooperative needs a strong manager AND a... |
08 Jan 2004 | #084 September - October - 1999 |
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Promoting Organizational Healing Ever heard the phrase, "Work smarter, not harder?" Ever wonder, as I have, exactly what that phrase means? T've thought about it for a while and have some thoughts I'd like to... |
08 Jan 2004 | #083 July - August - 1999 |
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Encountering Cooperative Extremists Do the following statements or situations sound familiar in our cooperatives? |
08 Jan 2004 | #083 July - August - 1999 |
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Transforming Workplace Culture "Culture" maybe hard to define, but the signs of a dysfunctional workplace culture are hard to ignore. Do any of these sound like your co-op? |
08 Jan 2004 | #074 January - February - 1998 |
