I hope this note finds everyone in good health and spirits. It is with mixed emotions that I write to you today. As many of you have heard, I have decided to step down from my position as the General Manager of the Brattleboro Food Co-op. Serving in this role has, quite simply, been an honor and a privilege. I have had the pleasure of working with an exceptional team, dedicated board members, and passionate shareholders who are committed to the values and mission of our cooperative.
Staff
July Update
May this update find you all in good health and spirits! This month presents an opportunity to look back on our 2023 fiscal year, my first full year as GM, and also share a preview of things to come in 2024. The team has certainly accomplished quite a bit in the last year. There isn’t space to share everything here, but there are certainly a few highlights worth mentioning!
June Update
I hope this month finds everyone in good health and high spirits as summer approaches. We are finishing up our fiscal year, and planning for next year and beyond is well underway. At the heart of the BFC is a deep commitment to serving our community, and developing a clear vision and responsible financial plan is critical to our ability to do so.
November Update
I want to start this month by thanking those who are running for the Board of Directors. Core to our identity as a cooperative is the principle of democratic member control, so it is important that we have engagement from our shareholders that enable us to have meaningful elections. We are happy to share that we have seven candidates for five open positions this year each of whom provides our shareholders with different skills and perspectives to choose from. More information about candidates is available and voting is just a couple of weeks away. Our Annual Meeting is November 9, and I am excited to say that we already have over 130 shareholders registered to attend. Our total attendance last year was 160, and we are on track to exceed that number by a large margin. If you have not yet registered you can do so . We look forward to seeing you!
September Update
We have a few weeks of summer left but fall is fast approaching. Kids and teachers are back to school and many trees are starting to give us their first hint of color. By the time you read this we will have celebrated Labor Day. It can be easy to forget that Labor Day is much more than an extra day off in the fall. Labor Day pays tribute to the contributions of workers everywhere and was created by the labor movement in the late 19th century. The Brattleboro Food Co-op is proud to be closed on Labor Day as we celebrate and recognize the contribution of our staff and our partnership with the UFCW Local 1459 who represent them.
August Update
I would like to start this month by extending a heartfelt thank you to Jon Megas-Russell who is moving on to new adventures after an amazing career with the Co-op. Jon built a strong and capable Marketing and Community Relations team and was instrumental in helping the Co-op build strong ties to our community. Jon – thank you for your time, energy, and service as a member of the Brattleboro Food Co-op team. You will be missed, and we wish you the best in your future endeavors!
Resilience
The update in May centered around the idea of emergence. As I write this in the shadow of the horrific events in Buffalo, Uvalde, and the ongoing atrocities in the Ukraine I would like to share some thoughts about resilience. Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulty. In many ways it is easy to feel helpless in moments like these. What can we do that is meaningful for the parent in Uvalde whose child is never coming home? For a grieving mother in Buffalo who must explain to her children why they will never visit their grandmother again?
Staff member tests positive for COVID – Aug 2021
| News
We want to inform you that a Co-op cashier tested positive for COVID-19. They were last at work on Saturday, August 21, and noticed a symptom consistent with the signs: loss of sense of smell. We typically sanitize each register area at the end of every shift, so all safety protocols were enforced. The staff member is quarantining at home and all close contacts have been informed and are also being tested prior to return to work. We are greatly relieved that all were vaccinated.
GM Report: Relief and Refocus
I am currently recovering from a knee replacement, an unfortunate reminder that age and arthritis march along, regardless. This has occasioned me to be ever so grateful to our entire staff and to my colleagues on the management team, for allowing me to be offsite for several weeks in recuperation while things around the store continue to hum along at a pretty good clip.
New Outlooks, New Gratitudes
Much has been said and written about the turn into this new year. At the Co-op, things are no different—our cumulative exhaustion is proof enough that things need to go better in this new year, as we will no doubt need to adjust several more times to new normalities. Still, I find that gratitude has actually been easier to come by in my own assessments, and I believe this to be true of lots of our community members and Co-op customers as well.
A Day in the Life of a Brattleboro Food Co-op Employee, Pandemic Style
I work at the Shareholder Services desk at the Co-op. In mid-March I returned one week early from a trip to the Pacific Northwest and California, quarantined for two weeks, and then came back to find a completely transformed workplace. It was shocking: the business had been completely reinvented in less than a month. No customers at 10 am on Tuesday when I arrived, just a sort of warehouse feel with a bunch of very busy colleagues, as though all the grocery aisles were just for storing food for purchase, none of the browsing or chatting, just dry storage, cold storage, freezers full of future shipments.
The Impact of Fear
Fear has been on my mind lately. You’d think, after living several (some might say many) decades in this society, that I would not be surprised at the centrality of fear to our human reactions and decisions. In my continuing education about white supremacy and my privileged existence, the constant drumbeat of fear in the appallingly consistent steps that we have taken against populations of color is overwhelming. What in the world are we so afraid of?
News
- Staff Spotlight: Anthony S.
- BOD Addition August 2023 Meetings: Minutes
- Board of Directors Meeting Minutes: August 2023
- Press Release: Lee Bradford Announces Departure from Co-op
- September Update and Farewell to Lee Bradford
- Mi Tierra – Fresh Local Tortillas
- Note from the Board of Directors: Annual Meeting Reminder and More…
