Stone Valley Community Market Considers Board Recommendation to Close

Stone Valley Community Market in Poultney, Vermont, is holding a public meeting to raise questions and concerns regarding the board's recommendation to close the co-op.

The Stone Valley Community Market Board and staff have been struggling with the fact that the Market does not bring in enough money to sustain itself. The Market needs to bring in at least $1,100 a day to pay for its expenses (with a little growth) and our average daily sales have been $782 since January 2018.

The Board reached out to the member-owners this fall for two member forums to discuss options in hopes of moving the market in a direction that would be solvent. We focused on some short term fundraising goals to try to build momentum for a new business plan and better things for the future. Three weeks into this new push we have seen results that make us question the long-term viability of the Market.

Sales for the month of September were down a significant amount from September 2017; they were down 22%. This is an alarming fact.

Although many members responded to our first week “push”, we did not make the cash projections in the second week of “push” of October.

The Board must respond to the current facts and business climate on behalf of the member-owners.

The Board met on Monday, October 22, 2018, and voted to recommend closing the market and dissolving the cooperative, per Article 10 of the SVCM Bylaws. We know that transparency is of utmost importance. The bylaws require the Board provides notice of 10 days ahead of a meeting with membership. As such, a Member Meeting is hereby warned for:

Monday, November 5, 2018, at 5:30 pm