The Borden Friendship Club held their final business meeting before the summer break on June 14 to discuss summer events. Upcoming is a dinner on June 20 at 5 p.m. with guests from Langham, Radisson and Maymont in attendance and Slim Chance entertaining. The potluck supper and June birthdays will be held June 28 at 5:45 p.m., with local talent, then on July 26, a barbeque for the Borden club members will be held at the acreage of Ed and Dianne Rawlyk, starting at 5:45 p.m. The club will provide the meat, buns and dessert.
The Borden Co-op held their annual meeting June 14, preceded by a roast beef supper catered to by the Lions. John Buswell was appointed chairperson and Ruben Rempel the recording secretary. Luke Walker gave the president’s report, stating the stores both had losses in 2016, due to break-ins and renovations. It is difficult to make a profit in these smaller co-ops due to the proximity of larger cities like Saskatoon (over $1M in sales from Borden) and North Battleford (close to $300,000). General Manager Kori Fast spoke on the need to support our local co-ops if we want them to continue to be operating, and out of 217 smaller co-ops in western Canada, 50 per cent operate at a loss. Repairs and renos have been expensive and if it were not for the FCL patronage the loss would have been greater. Times are changing and the co-op has to change. He thanked the members, board and the staff for their great work and commended David Sutherland who has served three terms on the board and is now retiring and also Jean Brooke who has worked at the Co-op Grocery for 16 years and is retiring this year. The financial statements were reviewed by Tom Plishka, MNP, showing sales of $3,014,876, gross margin of $327,433, expenses of $440,827, loss from operations of $113,394, patronage refunds of $157,874, net savings of $41,587. Sales for each store in 2016 (2015 in brackets) were: General store - $610,015 ($660,051), Farm Supply - $483,816 ($502,816), Petroleum - $1,921,045 ($2,041,244) for total sales in 2016 of $3,014,876.00 compared to $3,204,111.00 in 2015. Appointed to the board were Diane Tracksell and Glenn Sutherland joining Luke Walker, Kendall Redhead, Gary Nickel, Roy Saunders and Darrel Wiebe with Kori Fast of Hepburn as General Manager. Door prizes were given out and 12 collapsible food covers went to 12 lucky members, while the Dewalt Drill set to Stew Walton, rachet set to Heather Prescesky, Viveda Spin Mop to Diane Tracksell and a barbeque to Peggy Wainwright.
At the interschool slo-pitch league finals on June 14 in the 18 and under age group, the winner was Maymont/Radisson over Hafford with Borden placing third.
