MAY 2018

ISSN 0009-9821
9 770009 982010
01
far more than a regular member would. I am hugely
proud to be one of the 100 members who have
this opportunity.
Your co-operatives.
Your co-op News.
AND THE HARDEST?
With an active trading membership of millions,
finding out what those members think is a really
difficult challenge. There isn’t a single issue on
which our members have a common view. The
ability for a co-op of our scale to meaningfully
engage with millions of individual members is very
difficult and we have to bear that in mind in our role
as elected representatives. It is very hard to know
what our members think on any issue.
The council is a plenary committee of 100
members, which gives us strength in depth. It can
sometimes be an unwieldy committee to chair!
WHAT ARE THE MAIN CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR
THE CO-OP GROUP AND WHAT DO YOU THINK THE
FUTURE HOLDS FOR IT?
I’m really excited about the future of the Co-op.
We have travelled an extraordinary distance since
the dark and dangerous days of 2013. I was a
member of one of the Regional Boards during the
crisis and it gave me a fascinating vantage point to
observe the crisis unfolding. If someone had told
me that a few years later we would have relaunched
the membership proposition, relauched our brand,
returned to profit, and made such improvements
to the balance sheet, I probably wouldn’t have
believed them.
I’m hugely optimistic about the future of the
organisation. The values we have and the trust and
admiration we still have from millions of members
and customers are extraordinary assets that we can
continue to leverage into the future.
And of course, we remain a work in progress.
The reality is that too many of our businesses were
underinvested for far too long. There is still a vast
amount of work to do – and investment needed
– to make sure that our businesses are fit to serve
members’ and customers’ needs into the future.
So there is still work to be done in sorting some of
those issues. I am hugely proud of the team running
the society. Steve Murrells has done an amazing
work building on Richard Pennycook’s
achievements. His recognition that we can
accomplish more by working together is welcomed
by the National Members’ Council and our
independent society partners who see that Steve
has a genuinely collaborative approach and a
different tone from some of its predecessors.
news Issue #7294 APRIL 2018
Connecting, championing, challenging
APRIL 2018
EDUCATION
Co-op learning:
principle five
in action
Plus ... 150 years
of East of England ...
and updates from the
Co-op Retail and Abcul
conferences
£4.20
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MAY 2018 | 23