Red Deer Co-op Relations Report
Annual Meeting - April 22, 2008

Good evening fellow Co-op members and I thank you for attending our annual General Meeting tonight.

My name is Jim Ingoldsby, and I am the Chair of the Member & Community Relations Committee, of your Board of Directors. I will be giving our annual report to this AGM.
It is my pleasure to introduce you to the members of our committee. Jim Dick Board President, Shirley Gordon Director, Lawrence Henderson Director, Larry Parks Red Deer Co-op General Manager, and Fran Kelly Red Deer Co-op member.

A quick review of our past fiscal year with some highlights of the donations and sponsorships that our committee and our management team have approved to support our members and our community:

Scholarships & Bursaries – over $6000.00
Seniors Shuttle Bus Service - $12000.00
Youth Donut Club @ Deer Park & Plaza - $2200.00
Kids Club in Lacombe - $3100.00
Westerner & Centrium - $3000.00
Matching Staff Donations to the United Way Campaign - $1650.00
David Thompson Health Region Festival of Trees House of Miracles - $6000.00
General Donations of cash & merchandise to over 125 non profit community based charities, events and causes in our market areas - $40,000.00
Our total for the year was close to $100,000.00 and we were actually a little under budget.

For the upcoming fiscal year, we will continue to support the many organizations that have asked us for assistance. With the guidance and assistance of our management team, and within our budget we will continue to represent you, the members, in our community.

An organization as large and as successful as Red Deer Co-op, has a social responsibility to play an active part in the communities in which we do business. A reminder to everyone, one of the founding principles of Co-ops’ is CO-OP ALWAYS GIVE BACK!

We have some new and exciting opportunities to further display our community support. Red Deer Co-op has made a recent donation to the Lacombe Ambulance Service for $12,500.00 for the purchase of a portable ventilator for the Lacombe ambulance.

We are also pleased to announce a very exciting opportunity that you may have seen in the paper recently, regarding the largest single donation our Co-op has ever made to the community.

Red Deer Co-op has pledged $75,000.00 over 5 years to the David Thompson Health Trust. This donation is for the purchase of 5 state of the art palliative care hospital beds for the Red Deer Regional Hospital.

We are pleased to have as our guests tonight Gail Urquhart, Executive Director of the David Thompson Health Trust, and her husband Marty. Thanks for coming tonight.

The Member & Community Relations budget is over $100,000.00 this year. The committee, along with our management team will continue to manage these funds, on your behalf & to do as much as we can to benefit our members, our community and our businesses.

If you have any questions I will do my best to answer them tonight. If I can not I will contact you at a later time with an answer.

Thank you

Jim Ingoldsby,
Committee Chairman