From The Board: Retreat

Retreat; most definitions relate to what one might do when confronted by overwhelming odds, such as in warfare. To assure you, this does not reflect the state of our Co-op. The “retreat” I’m referring to is much more calming: “to withdraw to a quiet or secluded place.”

For many years, our Board retreated once a year for a full-day session. For many of those all-day sessions, we self-facilitated; one of us with specific leadership skills led the group through our agenda. While this approach was simple and economical, we lost valuable insight and input from the Board member who was too busy keeping us on track to focus on the discussion. Retreats during COVID were conducted via Zoom, which significantly reduced the attention and hence, their success. Coming out of COVID and the Zoom format, as well as our movement into Policy Governance (covered in the last Natural Enquirer), gave us pause to consider another approach to finding the quiet time we needed to discuss the ever-changing complexity of this $25 million a year anchor in Downtown Mount Vernon. 

While Policy Governance has helped a great deal in organizing our Board processes, it has also made our work a bit more complicated, demanding, and time consuming. Cramming our growing retreat agenda into one long day was exhausting, and, with less than 100% attention span for the duration, left us feeling less productive. Important considerations were being short-changed. Our answer to the above was primarily two-fold: one, enlist the services of a Facilitator, and two, schedule more retreats for shorter lengths of time. This has allowed us to reduce the items on our agenda, give them more attention, and have all Board members focused on the topic.

So, over the last year we have met three times, each occasion with a three hour agenda, facilitated by a highly experienced individual with long term connections to the Co-op world. Agenda items have included: options for investing profit; redesigning our giving program; evaluating our election processes; ways to sustain the Board and ensure it reflects our community and its values; how to grow our existing community and agricultural partnerships and establish new ones; strategic planning for growth; and maximizing our current facilities as well as opportunities for expansion. Decisions on these and other retreat topics will eventually be presented to membership for feedback, additional discussion, and implementation. Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions for the Board for a “deep dive” into a subject near and dear to you that also has relevance to our Co-op, feel free to let us know. We are always looking for valid and timely subjects for in-depth discussion.