This site will publish articles submitted by any HWFC member, shareholder, or employee, provided that they are:
- On a topic directly related to HWFC and relevant to all members of the HWFC community,
- Aligned with the goal of HWFC’s success as a cooperative, governed democratically by its members, and
- Engaging in respectful dialogue, refraining from personal attacks.
Submissions should include your full name and your role in the coop. Please send them by email to hwfcinfohub@gmail.com. Posts submitted requesting anonymous publication are discouraged, but will be considered on a case by case basis.
hwfcinfohub 
I like it.
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This information was sent to me by a member-owner. How can i continue to get the updates and find out about these meetings before they are over? Today is November 3, and I just received this e-mail. The meeting was November 1.
I am a member -owner and believe that as a member-owner I can work at my coop and receive a discount for my groceries. After all I am a member-owner as well as the other member worker owners.
This has been a very sad and disappointing time in the life of the coop. It is important for the core values to remain. We must not become a common health food store.
Question: Who are the share holders verse the member-owners?
debbie L
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Debbie L.: Non-working members (I am one) are now being called shareholders. I feel there is a reluctance to refer to us as “members” these days. We lost the right to vote when some people became convinced that our voting would pose a “risk” to the co-op. The case law on that issue is as flimsy and vague as the case law on the “risk” posed by member labor. Over the years, it seems, some of the working members have come to view us as a very different class of people, to the extent that a recent discussion on an apparently “closed” site has brought up a question as to whether what is being discussed can even be mentioned to us! This is how far and wide the “divide” has become. It’s very disheartening to me. I would like to believe that we are all in this together, and that the decision to work should result in higher grocery discounts, which it does, but NOT in EXCLUSIVE voting rights and knowledge rights. If all shareholder-members wanted to work, I think it would be chaos. I think we have the right balance of workers and non-workers as it is, and I am in favor of the member labor program, although I can no longer vote on any issue. Sorry if I’m posting on the wrong site. I apparently no longer know how to access the voting discussion thread, OR maybe it has been discontinued?
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I tried to leave a comment on the board but I guess it was denied by who ever is running this blog. Who are the people behind the curtain?
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Your comment wasn’t denied, we just had a delay in moderating. Sorry about that. You should be able to see it now. There are 3 of us who moderate but none of us is online all the time. I’m Rebecca Tell. I would need to check with the others whether they would like their names to be public.
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I attended the imformational meeting last night at the Ramada Inn. I came away with HOPE that the demise of the HWFC as we know it can still be avoided. In my opinion, Kate Doyle, Carolynn Presser and Chris Colarusso, with the aid of all who helped them, did an excellent job of articulating the issues accurately and passionately. The current circumstances involve more than simply changes to the “Member Labor Program”. We, the member owners must stop the multipronged attack against us by:
* retaining our voting rights / residual authority over all HWFC actions. The proposed rewrite of the HWFC bylaws to shift the vast majority of authority/power FROM the membership TO the Board of Directors must be rejected.
* the dilution of the membership’s voting power by extending voting rights to all shareholders must be rejected
* the illegal back door effort to eliminate member’s voting rights by limiting their access to work hours must be stopped/reversed.
I learned that it is these precise attributes of the HWFC (continual member owner exertion of control and direction over the coporation from its inception) that most justifies the position that we are OWNERS, NOT subject to the concerns / ‘issues’ being raised about the FLSA and DOL sanctions / violations; that it is these attributes, which the Board is attempting to eliminate, that distinguish us from being simply employees or stockholders. I learned that an article (I had previously read via links provided in Board distributed materials) on cooperatives ending member labor programs due to concerns over FLSA and DOL sanctions was actually authored by a CDS Consultant (Thane Joyal – Google her!) hired by the HWFC (not sure if it was the Board or the Leadership Team that hired her). I learned from Thane Joyal’s profile on the CDS website that her forte is ‘helping’ cooperatives in establishing structures that strengthen and perpetuate the Boards of the organizations! I intend to read some of her other articles to ascertain if there is an overal bias I would object to. I did notice that one of her other articles covered “Fiduciary Responsibility” and contained language very similar to that used by a member of the Leadership Team seeking to influence the agenda of the Special Membership Meeting being conducted by members objecting to the Board’s actions.
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This “infohub” is marvellous! You go, Gene. However, there are many members out there who don’t know what’s happening. I hear it every day. How do we reach them?
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I just want to say Thanks to everyone who was at the “meet the candidates” meeting today. You all kicked butt.
Now there are still members out there who don’t know what’s going on, What to do about that?
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For some reason as of today (Nov. 24, 2015) I am no longer able to access this site – receiving message that I need permission. Did something change?
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Nothing has changed on this site. Are you still having the problem?
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Honest Weight Community Members, please read my open letter to our community:
http://mardenconsulting.com/dear-honest-weight-community-members/
Thank you,
Jeff Marden
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Sad to say, yes, but it’s these disagreements that make us great. We can do this and nobody can tell us we can’t disagree. I’ve heard many things on this list. I also speak from 30+ years and I say that these things have happened before and probably will again. I think, perhaps, that when we listen to the membership and act on it, it makes us stronger as a community!
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Hi, everybody. Membership committee meeting tonight and Board meeting at the UU on Washington Ave. tomorrow evening. See you there.
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