Co-op News December 1978 PDF
CO-OP STILL IN BUSINESS
Whatever became of the Co-op’s financial crisis last summer? Is the Co-op going to survive? Does anybody know? Yes, some of us have some of the answers. The purpose of this article is to spread a few of those answers around.
The specific crisis last August centered on the fact that we had a demand to pay mup past taxes and no money to pay up with. So we put out the alarm and received the needed support primarily via long-term personal loans.
The Co-op still has a large deficit, approximately $14,000. The reason this does not currently constitute a crisis are 1) we are now consistently showing a profit instead of a loss on the books (yes, we do have good books thanks to Sandy) and 2) the demand for repayment on the deficit is, at this writing, not exceeding a payment schedule we can meet.
Can we expect the fair financial weather to last? Probably not. A large part of our deficit is still in past due accounts payable, money owed to our major distributors namely, Community Produce and C.C. Grains in Seattle; and in past due loans payables to members. We are responsible for paying these debts on demand if the demand is made and they cannot be put off indefinitely.
On the bright side is our consistent profit which pulls us slowly out of this dangerous situation. The other, newest measure is the passage of the capital funding proposal by membership balloting last month. In effect, this system allows the Co-op to borrow a large sum of money by borrowing a little from a lot of people over a long period of time. The capital fund should allow us to avert financial crisis until we are out of debt and will enable us to offer better services in the future.
The statements in this article are very general. The Co-op does maintain an open books policy and specific details and figures will be made available upon request.
