AGM and Member First

Last Saturday I had the great privilege of addressing my first AGM as your Chief Executive. On the day 630 Members, colleagues and guests attended, an impressive turn out. This included over 100 people who joined us remotely via the live web stream, and 19 co-operators from Sweden who attended as VIP guests.

 

Those attending were treated to a packed agenda with exciting forums in the morning followed by the formal part of the day in the afternoon. The Forums covered ‘Member Insights’ including, Your Co-op Community, our new Member research function and new ‘Innovations’ from our different trading groups.  In parallel with the main forums, we also held a Young Members Forum which was attended by over 40 school children from Walsall Academy, Myton and Cannock Chase High schools. They were addressed by Cal Major, our Environmental Ambassador, who spoke about how they can contribute to our One Change campaign to reduce single use plastics.

 

This year’s guest speaker was Dr Hilary Jones, the TV presenter and author, who many of you will know as a regular face on Good Morning Britain. Hilary spoke passionately about a wide range of issues from the need to get our children immunised against Measles, to his work with our Childcare business, to ensure that all the children in our nurseries eat nutritional, healthy food.

 

I was particularly impressed by the stands around the exhibition centre from the newest member of our family, The Phone Co-op, to our biggest one, Food Retail, who had their own ‘Taste of Our Counties’ room. This featured really delicious food from the ‘Best of Our Counties’ range and a Fairtrade stall with Jennie Simpson, the Member who won our Ethical Adventure of a Lifetime competition.  The stands illustrating the work we do in our 20 Regional Communities were also very popular, and our heritage room was bigger and better than ever. One of the highlights for me visiting it was the results of the research carried out by our MSC member Chas Townley into the 57 names on our Roll of Honour from the Great War. 

 

In the afternoon we formally adopted the Annual Report and Accounts, and I gave an update on the Society’s performance over the last financial year.  Afterwards, Members asked a wide range of searching questions from our where next for our One Change campaign, to developments in our Energy business.  While some of these were challenging, I thought the insight they showed was a good reflection of how passionate our Members are about their Society. Video highlights of the day including Members questions will follow on Colleagues Connect.

 

Organising the AGM is a huge logistical challenge and I want to especially thank all the people involved in putting it on, particularly the organiser Carina Mardenborough and her team. At the end of the AGM those attending were asked to fill in an evaluation survey and scored the AGM an impressive 8.5 out of 10, a fitting testimony to all the hard work which went in to making the day happen. 

 

Member First Programme Launched

 

In a blog earlier this year I talked about the Member First Programme and, as our Support Service colleagues will have seen, it was officially launched this week.

Member First is about getting more from today by ensuring our office working practices are as efficient as possible. With a more engaged central function, we can focus on making membership more rewarding and relevant to our Members.

Although Member First is directed at Central Support functions, including trading group support, all colleagues can visit the Member First page to find out more about the Member First Programme.

Support Service colleagues will also be able to submit ideas on how we can become more efficient and simplify our ways of working in our offices. Your input and support is critical to the success of Member First, so if you have an improvement idea, please make sure you submit it through your dashboard.

It would be great to see as many of you engaged as possible, so if you are a Support Service colleague, don’t forget to book to attend one of the Member First Roadshows and hear more about the Programme, understand how to submit an idea and ask any questions you may have.

 I’m looking forward to seeing the programme progress and hearing about the ideas that you, as colleagues, have identified that will make a positive difference.  

 

Wolverhampton MPs

 

Last week Olivia Birch-Board Director, and I met with Wolverhampton MP’s, Rt Hon Pat MacFadden and Eleanor Smith. We discussed a variety of key issues that are currently forming part of the conversation for the Wolverhampton constituency.

 

 

We discussed the issues around declining high streets, a perfect storm driven by people’s increasing preference for online shopping, high property rents and rising business rates. We also talked about tackling crime, creating employment and specifically, the future of our former social club and sports facility at Springvale in Bilston. I was pleased to confirm that we have committed to improving the community facilities at the Springvale site, as well as looking to redevelop parts of it for housing.

 

The Outward Bound Trust

 

This week, Graduate trainee, Emily Sandilands’ and I attended The Outward Bound Trust, Supporters’ Dinner at Windsor Castle, hosted by HRH Princess Beatrice of York. It really was a very special evening as we celebrated the work of the Outward Bound experience and listened to the stories of participants, and how it has shaped their lives in such a positive way.

 

 

 

Our Green Pioneers Programme is a collaboration with, Walsall Academy, The Outward Bound Trust and schools, and the partnership has been designed to engage young people from our selected partner schools in sustainability awareness, whilst developing their employability skills and inspiring students to use the Co-operative DOES values. It is designed for students from a variety of backgrounds and abilities. During the programme the schools are supported by two members of staff from the school and two colleagues who act as ‘Green Ambassadors’. 

 

The Programme takes place over three months, where students attend a practical residential week at an Outward Bound centre, followed by a combination of classroom activities, together with a visit to a Midcounties Co-operative trading site. The activity culminates with students delivering a presentation about their experiences, before launching an in-school sustainability legacy project.

 

Did you know that over the last 4 years we have had 20 places at the London Marathon (16 different runners) so a total of 524 miles done, and just over £50k raised for The Outward Bound Trust?