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Stephanie McCormack (left) Carol Zempel (right) at the Up & Coming Conference.
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HGC Board Training
Your board members have been busy! In March, Stephanie and Carol attended the 2018 Up & Coming Conference held in Milwaukee. Coordinated by the Indiana Cooperative Development Center, this conference has been held each year since 2010. This year saw 280 attendees representing vendors and 61 grocery co-ops across the U.S. With a theme of The Co-op Lab: Proven Theories and Bold Experimentation, Carol and Stephanie participated in two days of workshops focused on helping communities start and launch their own food co-ops.
Additionally, Carol, Jacki, and JoAnna attended the Co-op Cafe on March 24th, sponsored by National Co-op Grocers. This one-day workshop with an inclusive theme of "We" provided them the opportunity to meet with other cooperatives - directors, grocers, and even a housing cooperative! Small group activities focused on strategic discussion to generate new ideas and ways which we can better serve our owners and community.
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The board has been busy planning our spring and summer co-op activities, but it seems as though mother nature is not quite as ready for spring as we are! Regardless, we are setting our plans in motion.
We continue to actively work towards meeting our next major milestone of 700 owners. As I have mentioned in the past, this is a necessary step in being able to secure a location for the co-op. We need more owners, so please continue talking about the co-op to your family, friends and neighbors. If you have questions let us know; we love talking about the co-op and the benefits it will provide in the community.
While working towards our ownership goals we are also spending time on business planning activities. The board met with a consultant from CDS a couple of months ago and this coming weekend the board will re-group internally to ensure that we have our priorities aligned for the remainder of the year. I will update on those in the next newsletter.
Speaking of priorities - we are still actively recruiting volunteers to join our Finance committee. If you have a finance or accounting background (or have personal expertise in this area) - please reach out to hudsongrocerycoop@gmail.com for more information. The time commitment is minimal, but the value this committee will provide for the co-op will be immeasurable.
As always, thank you for your support - and don't forget to follow us on social media and help us spread the word in the community!
Katie Nelson-Heil
HGC Board President
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Jocelyn Young: Owner #478
Meet Jocelyn Young, one of our newer Co-op owners. Her hope is that we get more Co-op owners so we can establish our local Co-op sooner rather than later! Jocelyn believes a Co-op will bring our town closer by providing a friendly place to purchase locally grown, healthy food and mingle with business owners, neighbors and visitors to beautiful Hudson and surrounding areas.
Jocely is the owner of St. Croix Skincare. Recently, she has been busy moving her business to a new and larger location in Hudson. Now that the move is complete, Jocelyn looks forward to becoming more involved in community activities and the Hudson Grocery Co-op.
A favorite food memory for Jocelyn - remembering her Granny picking veggies from her garden, preparing the produce in her kitchen, and letting Jocelyn feed the leftover scraps to the chickens as a special treat!
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Kathleen Quinn (left) and Pam Brokaw (right) volunteer at the Spring Showcase.
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HGC at Spring Shows
HGC hosted a booth at the annual Hudson Area Chamber’s Spring Showcase on March 18th. We had a steady stream of people stop by to learn about the Co-op and many signed up for the Beet newsletter. Thank you to our volunteers for helping work the booth: Carol Zempel, Pam Brokaw, Kathleen Quinn, Jacki Bradham and Beck Peters.
The St. Croix Valley Home Builders Association held it’s Spring Home Show on March 24th and HGC was invited to set up a booth. Thank you to our volunteers who worked this event: Buck Malick, Kristi Juen, Don Kirkpatrick and Deb Beaudway.
HGC participates in these types of community events in an effort to continue to build awareness of our efforts to bring a grocery co-op to Hudson and work to build our ownership base.
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