|
MEC broke in like 2011 when they changed the board election structure so that they had a board recommended slate and qualification requirements to run. It had already moved towards the big box outdoor retail store model but really started sprinting then. Regular members couldn't get on the board, so the democratic part of the structure broke because without that there really isn't a voice. There was no way to affect the ideology of the board, effectively, and that's the only power membership theoretically had in that type of coop structure if the board doesn't otherwise engage. They moved into the mass biking and skiing market for some reason, even though those have both always been heavily serviced by locally owned stores. There was lots more leisure types of stuff. They started manufacturing or contracting branded products that already had alternate stuff available. The total number of products hugely increased, mostly in mainstream stuff, instead of having a few good products for otherwise available things and larger selection in specialty stuff. They expanded in ways that maybe make sense if you're trying to maximize profit but not if you're just trying to be a sustainable organization. Even with a pandemic, it's insane that a co-op that old should have had so much debt on the books that it had apparently zero value when sold. They had heavily leveraged in the years coming up to COVID to 'grow the business'. The whole point of structures like co-ops is that you can putter along happily doing the poo poo that actually helps the membership without having to do everything. It's also completely insane that a co-op didn't have member meetings in the lead up to bankruptcy that the board presumably must have known was coming. They announced that it was sold at the same time they announced bankruptcy, which is crazy. That whole year they were also fighting staff unionization, which was loving garbage. Not in a 'don't unionize, we are on the verge of bankruptcy' way (which would still be terrible). They were trying to invalidate votes. It feels like because it was a co-op the board didn't get held to having a fiduciary duty to anyone during the collapse. They acted like their duty was to the ongoing operations of the retail organization rather than to the membership. T.C. fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Apr 3, 2024 |
#
¿
Apr 3, 2024 10:32
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 5, 2024 11:22 |
|