The Gateway Co-op hosted its set of informational annual general meeting at select locations starting on October 27. The first meeting was held in Buchanan, followed by Sturgis on October 29, Preeceville on October 30 and concluded in Canora on November 3.
Heather Prestie, office manager, gave the financial statements and Brad Chambers, general manager, gave finance information from an operations perspective. Lyle Olson, president of Gateway Co-op chaired each meeting.
At the Sturgis meeting additional discussion was held regarding the improvements made at the Sturgis Gateway Co-op location and the compliments for the new manager, Amanda Balyski.
At the Preeceville meeting further discussion surrounded the topic of the new location and the timely manner that it was built.
"Investments in Federated Co-operative Limited increased approximately $544,000," stated Prestie in her financial report. "Fixed assets increased substantially from the prior year as we had already recorded $2.6 million of the Home Centre project. Current liabilities increased as a result of the construction that was in progress at the Home Centre. Total current liabilities equalled approximately $3.3 million. The long term liabilities had a decrease of approximately $125,000 over the previous year. Members鈥� share capital increased approximately $198,000 which is the current year allocation netted with equity repayments of $707,000.鈥�
A total of 282 new memberships were sold during the 2019 fiscal year. There are 5,962 total members.
Statement of Net Savings: Sales decreased slightly to $40.8 million dollars. Although the sales declined, the overall margin is higher than last year due to a higher gross margin percentage. Operating expenses remained consistent with last year near $6 million. The loyalty incentive from FCL was new this year and amounted to $157,000 for a resulting local loss of $136,660. FCL patronage allocation was $2.7 million. After accounting for income tax of $433,000, 鈥渙ur net savings was $2,151,613 with approximately $866 thousand 小蓝视频 allocated to the members," Prestie concluded.
Brad Chambers, gave a brief overview of the financial report.
"Overall sale improvements were made in our food centres," stated Chambers. "Our Home Centre did drop one-half million in sales in fiscal 2019. One of the main contributors to this was that our lumber department went through an extended period of time without an onsite estimator or lumber manager. We also had significant drop in sales in grain storage. Sites that deal with fuel also saw a reduction in sales, with flat to reduced litres in most fuel commodities and a lower price per litre in the last half of the year. Our Home Centre has recovered well this year with sales increases of $800,000 over last year. We would like to thank our members for their continuing support. With the very strong support received from the C-store portion of the project, we are expecting some excellent results." concluded Chambers.
The total sales for the 2019 year was $40,858,734 and the previous year was $41,791,529.
The board of directors are: Lyle Olson, president; Alfredo Converso, vice-president; Duane Karcha, secretary, and directors are: Tammy Bobyk, Greg Olson, Eric Sorestad and Robert Lebo.
Election of delegates concluded the meeting.
In Preeceville, Duane Karcha and Michelle Bodnarz were elected to the Preeceville board. They each will serve a three-year term.
In Sturgis, Kim Mcleod and Greg Olson were elected to the Sturgis board and each will serve a three-year term. Terry Hancock and Brad Secundiak were also elected but will only serve a one-year term.
