Thank you to all who attended, in person or online, our annual meeting held on Monday, November 13, 2023, in person at the Gail Borden Main Library and online via Zoom. It was such a pleasure spending time with our shareholders and supporters! We’re very proud of the continued support from our community as we work toward opening a grocery co-op in Elgin.
The meeting’s presentation slides can be found here. If you have any questions or would like more info on how to join our co-op, please send us an email.
Some key takeaways:
- We’ve grown to 1056 households with 1536 total shares sold.
- We remain in co-op development stage 2B with our current task being evaluation of potential sites and securing a selected site.
- Our priorities for the site search include: downtown (or downtown-adjacent) location to promote economic development; walkable, bikeable, accessibility, access to public transit; sufficient parking and loading dock/zone; price, market, availability. Those present at the annual meeting were in support of reaffirming our commitment to downtown Elgin.
- Our top three goals and priorities for 2024 are: 1) locking in a site, 2) expanding shareholder and community relationships, and 3) growing number of shareholders.
- We elected and welcomed new board member Virginia Tilton! We thank her in advance for sharing her knowledge, skills and energy with our organization.
All attendees were entered to win organic, fair-trade products from Equal Exchange, a worker-owned co-operative and alternative trade organization with the goal of maximizing benefits to farmers around the world while engaging consumers in the U.S. to challenge the corporate control of food and reshape our food system in ways that benefit all of us. Congratulations to our lucky winners: Deni, Donna, Lydia, Virginia, Sherry and Elaine!
