Coop sees a record number of shareholders at meetings
A RECORD number of shareholders took part in members’ meetings held by the Channel Islands Coop recently, where they were given the opportunity to air their views of the company’s operations and how they felt about being members.
Chief operating officer Mark Cox said that these sessions had been held before, but there have never been so many people interested.
‘Democratically it’s important to the Coop that we engage with members in terms of what we’re doing,’ he said.
The company announced earlier this year that it was changing the dividend for the first time in many years.
‘Following the announcement it was clear to us that we needed to get our cooperative message out more strongly.
‘We invited members who were signed up to our email database and we advertised the sessions in local papers and on the radio.’
Those who did not attend but were interested will receive a survey via email.
Eight meetings were held across Guernsey and Jersey. ‘The opportunity to meet members face to face was really valuable for us,’ said Mr Cox, ‘ and to collect their feedback on what we do well and not so well.’
There was also discussion of what people thought about being members and what the Coop could do differently in future. Among concerns raised at the meetings was the consistent availability of products and how communication with members could be improved, while company representatives shared details of initiatives that were being planned. One of these will be to modernise the signing up of new members, which will be launched next week, alongside another initiative which Mr Cox said will have details published at the time.
