The Alpaca Fiber Cooperative of North America, Inc. has come a long ways in the past two years. Just tonight I finished reviewing benchmarks the Board of Directors laid out approximately six months ago. Virtually every one has been, or is close to, being met. The group that makes up your Board are a diverse and talented set of people, and I feel very privileged to be able to work with them.

Still, there is much to be done. Over the next couple of months the Board will be developing benchmarks for the coming year. Now is a good time to contact a Director to give your input.

The National Cooperative Business Association (www.ncba.coop) offers a list titled, "Why Cooperatives Thrive" that I would like to share. It highlights much of what we need to focus on in our cooperative.

Why Cooperatives Thrive

• providing only the goods and services members use
• financed by the members. The greater the financing (risk capital) supplied by the members, the more efficient the cooperative.
• using all major fixed assets at the 75 percent level, or more
• members who do the majority of their business with the cooperative
• low administrative and overhead costs
• more individualized and specialized services, particularly in the marketing area
• maintaining an open line of communication with members. Individual members will then become more influential
• selecting and developing a quality management team
• placing more emphasis on electing business-oriented directors
• developing and implementing a systematic method of cooperative education for members, employees, directors and paid management
• aggressively positioning for changes in operations, markets and member needs

You will note that 6 of these 11 items are about members. This reinforces the point that a cooperative is a member driven organization!

Our cooperative is a perfect example of this. We are absolutely dependent on the fiber submitted by our members that provides the raw materials that we can turn into yarns and finished products. We are largely dependent on the purchasing power of our members that patronize the cooperative by buying our North American produced products such as our Vintage Alpaca Yarn and our woven alpaca throws (pictured above).

Your Board is very aware of our responsibilities to our members. We focus on providing goods and services that our members use. Besides processing member fiber into finsihed products, we acquire third party products, such as the hand woven scarf to the left, that members can purchase at wholesale prices for gifts, personal use, or resale from their farm stores.

We have worked hard to lower our administrative an overhead costs to the absolute minimum necessary to maintain a viable business. We are utilizing our fixed assets very efficiently.

We strive to maintain open lines of communication with our members, encouraging members to provide input and feedback, and to offer constructive criticism.

Through vehicles such as the AOBA National Conference, the Fiber to Fashion Conference, the AFCNA member website (www.afcna.com) and emails such as this we are providing education to our members about fiber production, cooperatives in general, and AFCNA in particular.

You can expect the announcement of other member focused initiatives over the next few months. This reflects our recognition that without active and involved members our cooperative will not thrive.

In short, when I compare the above list to the efforts made by the current Board, I am impressed with how well we are doing. There remains a great deal of work to be done, but with the support of our membership I have little doubt that we will succeed in laying the foundation for a sustainable future for the alpaca industry.

Elections are coming up. If you have an interest in serving on the Board of Directors, or if you know of good candidates with an interest in serving, please contact Chris Riley.

Finally, as we enter th final hectic days before Christmas, I encourage you to consider patronizing your co-op. You can shop online at AmericasAlpaca.com, or give Mendy a call at 1-877-859-0172 (Toll Free).

I hope that you have a safe and joyous Holiday season this year.

John Merrell, President
Alpaca Fiber Cooperative of North America, Inc.