From the Board President
By Steve Maker

Board Work for 2001 — 2002

In my August President’s Report, I noted how our newly elected Directors quickly became involved in the workings of the Board. This month, I would like to address the direction the Board has chosen to take in this working year.

The annual cycle of Board work begins in our May meeting, when the newly elected Directors join the Board. After orientation, we elect the Board officers, then plan our work for the year. This year, we began by coming up with the Board’s goals for this cycle. We used the following high-level view of the Board’s entire job to bring out these goals:

Our focus for the next year is on linking to members, developing ends policies, and getting the Hanover Cooperative Community Fund up and running.

Using the results of this goal-setting session, we organized our work into committees charged with helping us achieve those goals.

Committees do not make decisions, but they do lay the groundwork by gathering information, exploring options, and bringing to the Board decisions to be made. A look at the various committees and their charges gives a clear picture of our priorities for the year.

Listening to Members (chair: Mike Yacavone) This group is charged with focusing on our partners: members, customers, staff, suppliers, and so on. They will carry out focus groups, help us think about what we are doing for each type of partner, and drive the conversation with members and others about our multiple bottom lines. This will feed directly into our Ends policies.

Policy Governance (chair: Steve Maker) Primarily, this group will help the Board create Ends policies. We will also continue to put our important practices into policy format.

Hanover Cooperative Community Fund (chair: Helen Daisey) This is an important year for the Community Fund. Getting it up and running will put us on track to increase our community participation at less cost to members.

Bylaws (chair: Andy Daubenspeck) Now that we have succeeded in obtaining the necessary New Hampshire legislative changes (see related article on page x), we need to ask members to revise our bylaws to allow more flexible voting procedures and other changes related to finances and decision-making.

General Manager Review (chair: Patricia Crawford) We are changing the way we evaluate the General Manager into a style that is more fair, is done continuously over the year, and is driven by our policies.

Finance (chair: Dan Yates) This group seeks to improve our financial communication to members, to improve the Board’s financial monitoring, and to help guide our Strategic Planning.

Board Development (co-chairs: Patricia Crawford and Steve Maker) Creating a strong board is the charge of this group. We’ll plan Board training, nomination of next year’s candidates, orientation of new Board members, and generally help the entire Board stay committed and productive.

We would love to have Co-op members involved in any of these efforts. If you are interested in joining us in this work, contact Board Administrator Sue Wallace at 603-643-2667 for more information.

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