This past Friday, October 28 our Annual Meeting was held at Stonewall Farm in Keene. This years theme was “Sustaining Our Local Farms.” The Co-op was joined by speaker Britt Lundgren, Director of Organic and Sustainable Agriculture at Stonyfield Farm in Londonderry, NH. She spoke at length about Gary Hirshberg’s new initiative to save organic dairy farms, The Northeast Organic Family Farm Partnership. More than 100 member-owners, staff, and co-op friends attended and enjoyed appetizers prepared by Susanne Fortier and the Prepared Foods staff plus local beer, cider, and wine before the business meeting. After the meeting guests enjoyed locally made Saxy Chef gluten-free brownies, coffee from Terra Nova and Frisky Cow Gelato.
The annual meetings are an extremely important opportunity for us to be transparent with our member-owners by sharing a report on the store’s operations and finances for last fiscal year. We also close the voting and report on the election of the board of directions — another critical piece of our democratically governed Co-op.
Michael Faber, our General Manager, David Sayles Board Treasurer, Lisa Mahar Board Vice President, and Carolyn Crane, the Board President, all shared news about our financial picture, our efforts to meet the goals of our Ends Statement, and our support of local farmers and vendors. For more specific details about our recent fiscal year, please check out the 2021-2022 Monadnock Food Co-op Annual Report, available at the store if you did not receive a copy.
Our Board of Directors Election results for 2022 are in! Congratulations to Carolyn Crane, Sandy Hamm and Nicole Flynn!
Carolyn Crane
Sandy Hamm
Nicole Flynn
At the Annual Meeting, the board presented the annual Co-operator of the Year award to John Kondos. This award annually recognizes a co-op member-owner, vendor, staff member, community member, or co-op friend whose work exemplifies the co-operative principles first stated by the pioneer Rochdale cooperators in 19th century England. John works tirelessly to find solutions to our greatest challenge, climate change caused by fossil fuel consumption. Johns passion for energy conservation, renewable energy, and land stewardship inspired him to found the Monadnock Sustainability Hub, Home-Efficiency Resources, and Monadnock Chapter of Citizen Climate Lobby. Our Co-op continues to benefit from John’s passion for renewable energy. In 2015, he worked to launch the first Community Solar Project hosted by Monadnock Food Co-op. John organizes Drive EV Expos to build support for electric vehicles in or region. John also serves as a leader and partner in bringing Fast Charging EV stations to our region and making our Co-op the first location to provide the service.
The board would like to thank all of our store staff who helped to make this Annual Meeting successful.
