Channel Islands Co-op Visit & Countdown to the AGM

Channel Islands Co-op Visit

This week I and two colleagues, Melody Aguero, Head of Brand Strategy and Insights and Caroline Westall, Chief Information Officer, were invited to visit the Channel Islands Co-operative Society by Colin Macleod, Chief Executive Officer. The Channel Islands Co-operative movement was first established in 1919 in Jersey and 1947 in Guernsey; making this year a special one for them. This marks their 100^th year of making a difference to their Islands communities, a collective population of nearly 70,000 people!

If you have been keeping up with my blog posts, you will remember that during September last year I welcomed Colin to Midcounties. He joined me on a series of visits, exploring our Food store operations at our Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Norton, Summertown and Iffley Road; whilst also sampling some of our delicious local artisan produce.

Colin hosted a visit to a number of sites, including; large format, neighbourhood and convenience stores. The Channel Islands mainly operate in Food stores but also in, Funeral, Travel, Pharmacy and Post Office. We were particularly interested to learn about the Channel Islands member engagement. Over 90% of their trade is with members. That compares to our 42%. They give a 4% dividend which is doubled if members shop on a Tuesday, which makes this a very busy day! The really interesting thing is that they still do this by issuing stamps which is what most Coops did back in the 1960’s and 70’s. An even more amazing aspect of the shopping experience is, that they still use the original machines from that era!

The Channel Islands operate with different laws and rules compared to the UK and this allows the Co-op to do things differently. There is no VAT on goods, and they are not allowed to import milk, so it all has to come from Jersey Cows! There is no NHS and one of the businesses operated by the Co-op is a GP practice. They are an innovative Society and extremely committed to their membership. I particularly liked their messaging on this. Another very smart initiative is their ‘quiet hour’ which they do on Mondays, it allows customers affected by noise or light to shop at a specific time, where the stores switch off all the noises and turn down the lights, a brilliant idea!

It’s important for us to spend time learning from our fellow Societies, as this is one of the real benefits of being part of a wider co-operative movement.       

 

AGM

The Annual General Meeting is fast approaching, so please promote it with Colleagues and Members at every opportunity possible. This year we have a wide range of really exciting speakers and events for both Members and Colleagues to take part in from new innovations at Midcounties to our Coop Heritage Room.

One of our guests at the AGM will be Cal Major, who many of you know is our Environmental Ambassador for Midcounties. Cal is a champion paddle boarder who has paddled the length of Britain to highlight the effect of plastic pollution on our marine life and coastlines. She is a great motivational speaker and will talk about her fight against single use plastics and how over the next few months she will be working with our local communities and next generation of co-operators to promote our One Change campaign. For further information about Cal please click here. 

At the AGM we will also be hosting a ‘Taste of Our Counties’ room featuring our Best of Our Counties range and other artisanal producers. Jennie Simpson, the member who won our Ethical Adventure of a Lifetime competition, will also be coming along to talk about Fairtrade and her trip visiting Co-operative coffee farms in Guatemala.

In the morning there will be a Young Member Forum with a great range of speakers talking about gap year travel, healthcare while abroad and reducing single-use plastics. Throughout the day there will also be a series of events from a Community Fundraising Masterclass to making your own Eco-brick. 

A big hit at last years AGM was our Co-operative Heritage Room exhibition and this year it will be back but even bigger and better. During the day we will be asking Members to tell us about their earliest Co-operative memories and recording them. Our Heritage Room will also feature many new exhibitions including the fascinating research Chas Townley, who is on our Membership Strategy Committee, has been doing into the WW1 Roll of Honour which I wrote about last year - see here.

In addition, we will be joined by some international guests from a Swedish Co-operative, 20 Co-operators will then be visiting our Bourton-on-the-Water Food store. If you see them please say “Hej” meaning, “Hello” in Swedish!

I look forward to seeing you all there. For those not able to join us on the day we will be live-streaming the event – more details to follow next week.

 

London Marathon raises £13,800 for The Outward Bound Trust

Congratulations to our six colleagues - Pete Lockey, Kelly-Marie Mason, Stuart Newman, Christina Reeves, Ross Linsday & Aaron Gee - who ran the London Marathon last weekend in aid of one of our charity partners, The Outward Bound Trust.  The Society has raised an incredible £13,800 which will all go towards helping young people overcome life challenges by learning through outdoor adventure. This year our continued fundraising and support has helped the Charity support over 25,000 young people – a great achievement. Once again, a huge well done to the runners and thank you to all the colleagues who sponsored them.

The times of the runners were

-              Pete Lockey (Head of CCS Communications – Co-op House) – 04:36:37

-              Kelly-Marie Mason (Senior Practitioner – Sutton Nursery – Childcare) – 05:50:19

-              Stuart Newman (Head of Pharmacy Retail – Pharmacy Group) – 04:06:55

-              Christina Reeves (Finance, Property Administrator – Co-op House) – 04:44:24

-              Ross Linsday (Food Store Manager – Lodge Farm Store) – 06:22:30

-              Aaron Gee (Food Store Manager – Rose Hill Store) – 05:51:26

 

Supported Internships

Since January, two Graduates within the Society, Emily Sandilands and Daisy Clifford, have been working closely with Warwickshire College and a charity called the David Forbes-Nixon Charitable Foundation DFN foundation, to introduce three supported Interns to the Society. These interns are students with a Statement of Educational Needs who we would like to welcome to our Society to work with us on an 11-month placement at Co-op House beginning in September 2019.

On Tuesday, we hosted a Work Inspiration Day at Co-op House for 13 students from colleges in Warwickshire. It was a great day where we educated the students on who Midcounties are and what we do. They learnt about our different trading groups, how we support local communities and charities and they also experienced what a working environment is like. I hope you will all join me in giving them a very warm welcome to the Society in September.

That’s everything for this week, please do get involved in discussion by adding your comments below.