Throughout their existence, the Southern Plains Co-op just keeps giving and giving, and the 2017 year was no exception.
The co-op paid back $1,491,105 to its members last year in cash.
“We saw steady growth in 2017,” said co-op board chair Robert Grimsrud. “Our sales have continued to grow and our sales have grown over the last three years, coming out of the downturn in the oil industry.”
Grimsrud said the co-op was happy to be able to do their payback again this year.
“Our balance sheet is strong and our financial position is strong,” he said in an interview after the meeting. “All in all, given the environment we’re in, I thought it was a good year.”
It wasn’t only that the co-op was able to give back to the community throughits member equity, but there were a lot of donations of time and money that were made by the co-op and its members.
In 2017, the co-op invested into grading day in Carlyle, the Bow Valley Jamboree in Oxbow, the SaskTel Tankard at Affinity Place, the Halloween Trail of Terror in Estevan, the Festival of Lights in Estevan, the Festival of Trees, Habitat for Humanity and the United Way. They also were a major sponsor once again of the Estevan and District Music Festival in addition to their 383 hours worth of volunteer hours to help with community events.
“It’s one of our primary functions, to give back, and to reach out to our communities,” Grimsrud said. “There’s literally dozens or hundreds of smaller donations that take place throughout the course of the year. Then we have some of the larger donations for the larger projects that come up in the southeast part of the province or the communities. We look at those seriously, obviously but we sponsor a large number of events throughout the year.”
The Southern Plain Co-op is in the process of getting a card-lock fuel filling station on the bypass that they aim to have open later this year.
“We have the land and the land’s been developed, so we’re ready to look at developing the actual facility,” he said. “We’ll be working with Federated Co-op and as Brian (Enns, general manager of the Co-op) mentioned, it’s going to go to tenders really quick. Hopefully in the next short while, people will start seeing something going up there on our site.”
At the meeting, Enns described the co-op as people in the community who are invested in the business.
“For a $10 lifetime investment, members or shareholders are guaranteed a share in the profits based on their purchases and the profitablility of the operations of the business,” said Enns told the AGM. “It’s a very different business model from other business. Also, a portion of our profits are re-invested back in the community through new assets or business expansions. We’ve done a lot of that over the years.”
Enns brought up the cardlock facility that they’re hoping to have construction on this summer.
“Our business is not about one person or one location, but the good of the whole,” Enns said. “We are continually re-investing in our communities and the people of tomorrow.”
The food stores saw a slight sales increase of 4.9 per cent, with Oxbow and Carlyle’s stores accounting for the largest increase of that while Estevan’s food store was relatively flat from the previous year. The bulk agro home sale saw an increase of 22 per cent, helped in part by the addition of the Alameda home centre. Gas bar sales were up slightly in Estevan but went up 10 per cent in Oxbow and Carlyle.
“We’re seeing some nice improvement in sales there.”
Barb Schaefer will be leaving the board, while Frances Boutin, Scott Kienlen and David Murray had their terms expire. The co-op filled the board vacancies by reappointing Boutin, Kienlen and Murray, and new member Michelle Diechert through acclamation.
