Co-op News
From "Maple Street Co-op News", Jun/Jul 2006

Remake, Remodel: A Tale of Two Co-ops
by Dawn Goddard, on behalf of the Maple Street Co-op Board of Directors

What a great pleasure it is to see the first stage of planned renovations of The UpFront Club nearly completed. This refurbishment not only provides a more efficient and beautiful social venue for members and visitors in the heart of Maleny, but also visibly represents for our community the historic merging of two great co-operative ventures.

Together we can fulfil one of your Board-stated outcomes of "providing a successful model of a long-term financially viable co-operative business that increases the ecological, social and economic sustainability of the community" (Maple Street Co-op Policy Governance statement, section 4.2.4).

How did this joining come about? Was it serendipity, accident or sheer hard work?

A year ago, after a government land valuation review, both The UpFront Club and Maple Street Co-op were faced with a 100% increase in rent, technically payable immediately according to the then lease conditions, but now being introduced over a five-year period due to a renegotiation of our lease and the goodwill of our landlord. Unfortunately (or not, as the case may be), this rent increase was the final blow to the viability of the already financially challenged Club. Despite valiant efforts by its Board and staff, within six months The UpFront Club was facing insolvency and dissolution.

The timing, however, proved almost miraculous: the annual audit for the year ending 30 June 2005 confirmed that – for the first time ever – Maple Street Co-op had turned over in excess of $1,000,000! Due to impressive financial strategies and budgeting from Co-op manager Alan Harrington as well as passionate commitment over many years from our staff, the Co-op was in a strong position and was able to absorb the rent increase and continue with plans for the expansion of the shop.

The Co-op Board was also very busy continuing the strategic development of the Co-op site and business, preparing renovations plans, devising the framework for the Maple Street Co-operative Trust, and crafting governance policies that will provide a strong, transparent, democratic and legal framework for successive Boards and management teams well into the future.

All of this coincided with our 25th anniversary celebration on 15 October and the promotion of the Maple Street Co-op website. As exciting and busy a year as it had been for the Board up till then, the directors had no idea that our world was about to change – and that our workload was about to double!

The transfer in motion

We used our new system of governance to determine whether to accept the "Transfer of Engagement" of the Maleny Co-operative Club Society Ltd (The UpFront Club) to Maple Street Co-operative Society Ltd (Maple Street Co-op). The transfer certainly met our co-operative and social outcomes criteria. Indeed, the Board regarded it as a priority that the "Maleny co-operative movement" retain (leasehold) ownership of this strategic land in the heart of Maleny for posterity.

In addition, the directors all acknowledged that The UpFront Club makes a large contribution to the social and cultural values of a significant portion of our community and we agreed it was vital that this be retained and built upon. The decision was confirmed by the business plan submitted to the Board, which outlined a financially viable outcome if a number of essential changes were made to the operations of the Club. This plan also ensured that Maple Street Co-op's extensions could be kept on track.

The motion for Transfer of Engagement was put as a resolution to a Special General Meeting of The UpFront Club on 25 October and to members of Maple Street Co-op at the AGM on 23 November; the motions were passed with practically unanimous agreement. The Maple Street Co-op Board has been responsible for the Club since 1 December 2005.

This has also meant that the Board has had to relegate some of Maple Street Co-op's short-term goals to the medium term (e.g., development of the back block, employment of an operations manager at the Co-op and other more creative projects).

The Board still meets once per month in the Co-op consultation room – only now, we conduct two meetings. First, we convene as The UpFront Club Board; and when Club business is concluded, we go about our usual Co-op Board business. The evenings stretch out as we learn to implement our shiny new governance policies and also how best to govern our operations and represent membership and staff of a co-operative that includes hospitality and entertainment services.

Policy governance and communication

As reported in the April/May Co-op News, the Board members, along with our trusty scribe Mary Meadows, attended a directors' retreat on 18–19 March at the lovely Kalifa residence in Curramore. This afforded us the opportunity to focus on the implementation and understanding of Policy Governance (no small thing, by the way), to set our agenda for the year with various directors' responsibilities clearly defined, and to discuss the merging of the two co-ops. We were able to rationalise our wider visions for the community and strategies for the Co-op into 32 separate items with designations of immediate-, short-, medium- and long-term goals. Phew! We also received written and verbal input from staff and our newsletter editor, which was informative, useful and much appreciated by the Board.

Recently, the Board has spent considerable time dealing with various issues raised by Club members and staff as a consequence of the vital changes that have had to be made to ensure financial viability. In addition, we have been dealing with flow-on effects from the introduction of a "single manager" concept. It is appreciated that members will need time to adapt to these arrangements, and therefore the Board has decided to provide as much explanatory material as possible. All issues raised have been dealt with responsibly and ethically and with co-operation in mind. The Board is not at liberty to discuss details of resulting actions, as this would breach our own commitment to confidentiality of complaints processes. We have updated and enhanced our Staff Complaints Resolution Policy and set up systems that ensure a good flow of communication between anyone who wishes to raise an issue and the Board.

The directors will be focusing on Board–member linkage and Board–staff relations at our June meetings. In July, we will be conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opposition and threats) analysis of the Club and Co-op, and will also be reviewing the performance of our governance policies thus far. We have an MCU-approved loan of $300,000 for combined renovations/extensions to the Club and to the Co-op. We are also planning a revamp of the current Maple Street Co-op and/or Club logos, subject to member feedback, to coincide with the shop extensions.

We are still working on the onerous task of legally finalising the Transfer of Engagement. To enhance Board–member communication, this article will also be printed separately and distributed at the Club, along with information on the new management structure for the Co-op and the Club.

My thanks go to fellow directors Kamala Alister, Mike Eales (recently resigned), Leigh Findlay (chair), Douglas Gillies, Marc Kalifa, Pauline Rigby and Tony Woodhouse for their conscientious commitment to our vision of an energised, successful and co-operative community. Thank you also to our savvy newsletter editor, Ruth Parnell, for bringing the usually behind-the-scenes "work of the Board" to our membership.

Let's welcome the re-opening of the Club with good heart as the first flowering of the joining of our two much-loved co-ops. See you there!

[From "Maple Street Co-op News", June/July 2006; published by
The Maple Street Co-operative Society Ltd, 37 Maple Street, Maleny, Qld 4552, Australia, tel (07) 5494 2088, email maplest.co-op@serv.net.au, website http://www.maplestreetco-op.com.au]