Earlier this month, we opened our fourth store in Mequon. It was a really exciting day for the Outpost community and for the many Outpost owners in Mequon, many of whom had been travelling all the way down to Capitol Drive to shop.

The newest Outpost Coop location will open in Mequon on Monday, May 12.

For over 600 owners in the Ozaukee County area, who previously made trips to one or more of our urban Milwaukee locations for groceries and supplements, the new location provides easier access to local, sustainable food. And we expect ownership to grow by 500+ owners in the first week of business. That’s over 1,000 people with access to great, healthy food!

So, I got together my gumption and attended the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) organic farming conference February 27 and March 1 in LaCrosse.  I heard tell that some Outpost staffers were there, but in the crush of 3,000 plus attendees, who could tell?

Recently, we did some much needed household cleaning. It wasn’t the dirt or grime that we were after; we do pretty well in that category. It was the seemingly endless presence of household clutter that made our lives a mess!

If you attended the Annual Meeting of Outpost Owners on February 16th you would have heard guest speaker Venice Williams, Executive Director of Alice’s Garden speak about creating a community table for all come to and share a meal. Venice shared many stories of growing up and gathering in the kitchen to share a meal of good food. There was something she said that struck me from her stories and that was we have our “Eyes wide shut.” I understood this to mean we are all a part of a larger community in which we need to make sure everyone has access to good and affordable food. This got me thinking, what am I doing? What is Milwaukee doing? What other cities are facing food accessibility issues?

I remember when I first was made aware that I could run for the Outpost Board in Winter 2012. It was advertised on one of the winter mailings and since the deadline to apply was in June, a whole five or six months away, I filed it away and promptly forgot about it. Every couple of weeks, I would be griped with the anxiety that I had missed the deadline, only to see that the deadline was still a couple of months away. 

Most monthly meetings of the Outpost Board of Directors include an opening session “Envisioning the Future,” in which a board member or guest speaker presents a topic that, ideally, both informs and inspires directors to think creatively about Outpost's future and role in the community. I think we all look forward to these sessions, because they really do expand our horizons, and they're (almost) as much fun as poring over financial reports.

As board members, we have a fiduciary responsibility to every owner of Outpost Natural Foods. In other words, the nine of us have been elected with trust and confidence to help manage and protect the co-op’s interest. We do this through sound decision making and representation.

As we move forward into a brand new year, it’s a great time to take stock of the good that cooperatives like Outpost do.

One of the big things on my list? Education.

This past October, a group of about 30 owners and employees had the good fortune to participate in a national screening of Food for Change, a film produced, written and directed by Steve Alves.         

As we enter the holiday season, what does the art of giving or giving thanks mean and are they different? The golden rule has always been that it is better to give than receive and that we should always give thanks for what we have. 

Authors Karen Zimbelman and Marilyn Scholl wrote an article for food cooperative board directors titled: The Ownership Toolbox. They tried to define members of cooperatives by level of involvement. At Outpost, we refer to our members as owners. We hope that all shoppers someday choose to expand their involvement and become owners.  They can do this by purchasing a share of the cooperative. At the same time, we hope that all owners continue to expand their participation while enjoying their ownership. How would you define yourself as an owner? Do any of these definitions of participation come close?

As a political junkie and policy nerd, I love cooperative principle #2: democratic control. It’s so elegant in its simplicity and so ultimately truthful that it stands as the fundamental electoral principle of our country and the goal of developing democracies throughout the world: one member, one vote.

One of the really cool parts of my day job at Feeding America is that I get to travel around the country to join, start, simplify, complicate, explicate, and otherwise advance some of the big conversations surrounding food, food access, hunger, and food systems. It’s really one of the favorite parts of my job.