I was the treasurer of a cooperative craft retailing gallery for 19
years. We were open from early May to the day before Christmas for
most of those years. We had a consignment fee of 15% which made a
pretty good payout for items sold.
In March we juried new members. They paid a new member fee. In
April we had the "hours" meeting. We drew numbers, laid out the
calendar, signed up in order for half our hours then in reverse order
for the other half. Each member was required to work around 80 hours
per season and we had split shifts on Thurs/Fri/Sat when we were open
from 10am to 9pm. Everyone worked their hours including the manager,
asst. manager and treasurer. Noone from outside the store ever
worked the store. The business of the store was not public
information nor was the store's till accessable to non-members. In
addition, it was critically important that the store's operating
tasks be done in an orderly, accurate and correct manner.
The manager set up a rotation of the officers who called the store
every morning to be certain someone was there. If no one was there
within a half hour of opening time, the lunch relief person was
called and stepped in while the regular person was located and got
there. If the regular person had vanished, the morning caller called
around and found someone from among the other members and the awol
person paid that replacement $50. If someone went awol more than
twice, they were invited to leave the coop immediately. If someone
was chronically late they were fined $50 as though they had to pay
the fee to a sub.
The store person for each shift called the person for the next shift
as part of his/her opening up routine.
Job trading was encouraged when things came up. As long as the
initials on the store calendar were adjusted, any one of us could
work if the original person had an emergency. Sometimes the person
would have to pay, sometimes they could just trade. But if someone
decided that they'd rather just pay than work, then they were
reminded of the fact that the gallery was a coop and everyone worked
as part of that cooperativeness.
Over the 19 years I was treasurer we lost two members to flakeyness
or rampant personal disorganization. Since everyone who juried was
told the routine when they enquired, they had a chance to consider
whether it would work with their lifestyle to be part of the store.
In addition to the new member fee, every member paid around $250 per
year as a contribution to defray the rent. The formula was:
determine what 2/3rd of the rent was. Total up the number of members
and subtract the manager, the treasurer and leave of absence members
from that. Subtract $100 from the rent for each member on leave
(work half time, pay $100 rent, get 30% deducted from sales), divide
the remaining rent equally among the remaining members. They paid in
two installments - July and August.
The store has now been in existence for 22 years - amazing. I still
do their taxes but that's it. 19 years was plenty, thank you!
Employees are expensive - the cost of an employee is approximately
30% more than their salary what with disability, social security and
such. Contract labor is tricky with the IRS. They don't like you to
have an hourly worker who you call a contractor. Beyond something
like $500/yr, you have to file a form 1065 with your tax return which
alerts the IRS to the possibility that the person isn't really a
contractor. We did actually pay the treasurer towards the final 4
years. She paid half the rent fee and got $1000 for being treasurer.
She got a 1065, too.
When you're a coop you want to keep things as unsuspicious as
possible. You really don't want to spend your time dealing with the
IRS because you made some dumb mistake!
--
Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@xxxxxxxx
508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races, press photography
http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf/
