Taken (cross my heart) from this week's Independent commentary on candidates for the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners:
"To the town's credit, outsiders see a quaint, beautiful downtown, but there are other sides of Hillsborough where, yes, there are poor people who are not shopping at Weaver Street Market."
Ouch! This is how the region's premier progressive newspaper views the Weaver Street Market Co-operative?
Co-op's originated in Great Britain as an antidote to corporate general stores, where ordinary working folk were gouged by the prices.
Have we (I work at the Southern Village Weave), have we become the very company stores we are supposed to be replacing?
I remember asking at my original WSM Orientation (er, I didn't wait long to start causing trouble ... ) why price did not figure as an item in the WSM Mission Statement.
I was told (loudly) by the then WSM Operations Manager that he had never heard anyone complaining about the prices.
Of course he hadn't. The customers at that time (and probably now, as well) were too busy worrying about whether they'd missed the 30,000 mile maintenance check on the Land Rover.
Look. It's all very well engaging in social experiments to try to provide local, organic, natural, hemp-based, hippy-grown, fair trade, whatever.
But not if we are in contravention of our most important mission: inclusive - accessible to the community.
And clearly, The Independent thinks we aren't making ourselves accessible enough to our disadvantaged friends and neighbors. Shame on us.
[As always, I am bound by the new WSM Employee Policy to let you know that these views are not necessarily those of the WSM corporate office management team. Although, quite how you would mistake them for such is beyond me. Now. When I'm not writing this blog, I perform hi-energy, interactive Beach Pop, as Pop Vox / Geoff Gilson. My next gig is on Saturday, November 30, @ 2nd Wind, beginning at 10.00pm. Preceded @ 8.30pm by the wonderful reggae band, Broadleaf, which includes work-mate, Greg Sronce. Wow. This is one heck of a footnote ... ]
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