At last week’s annual information meetings, Gateway Co-op members learned that the planned construction of a C-store will commence in Canora in July.
The annual information meeting in Canora was held on April 25 at the Rainbow Hall. A total of 57 persons attended. The Buchanan meeting was held on April 26 at the Buchanan Community Centre and 74 persons attended. The meeting for the Preeceville/Sturgis area was held on April 27 at the Sturgis Community Hall. A total of 88 persons attended.
To be located just south of the food store, the 2,800-square-foot C-store will be constructed over a five-month period at an estimated cost of about $4.7 million, said Dana Antonovitch, general manager. With a far superior design and usage of the space, convenience store will replace the Canora service station.
With four sets of fuel pumps on eight lanes, the design allows for easy come-and-go access so that eight vehicles can be fueled at the same time with virtually zero congestion, he said. The design also provides for the convenience of paying at the pumps with a debit or credit card.
It will continue to be a full service facility, Antonovitch said. In the overall scheme of things, the C-store will not be much larger in size, but because of the much superior design, it will be able to accommodate a more diverse inventory with a greater emphasis on the convenience aspect, including more quick food choices such as sub sandwiches, coffee, beverages, and even some hot meal options. The installation of an ATM cash machine will also be added to the convenience aspect.
To ensure that service will continue to be a priority, the C-store will employ about a dozen full and part-time workers under the leadership of Bryan Harder, who has been the manager for more than a year, he said.
To better visualize the finished project, Antonovitch noted that Gateway Co-op owns all the lots from the Eighth Avenue East back alley south to the Heycat Service business. When looking at it from Norway Road, the food store and the parking lot are located on the north side of the parcel of land and the C-store will be located on the south side. On that parcel of land, during the first phase of construction which culminated with the opening of the food store in April of 2010, an RV dump station was installed on the west side between the food store and the proposed C-store.
At this point, access to Norway Road will remain the same, but it is obvious that traffic flow will increase when the new facility is up and running, he said. Gateway will be monitoring the impact on traffic movement on that section of Norway Road to determine if changes are required.
President’s perspective
When announcing the C-store project at the annual meetings, Lyle Olson, Gateway’s board chairperson, said that the project has received approval from FCL (Federated Co-operatives Limited) and it is now in the tender phase. Receiving FCL’s approval means “we are eligible for FCL investment dollars which is 20 per cent of the value of the project.”
Preeceville projects
Next on Gateway’s priority list for new construction is a home centre/C-store for Preeceville, he said. That project is currently in the feasibility and planning stage. It has been on Gateway’s priority list for some years already, evidenced by the purchase of more than 10 acres of land on the east side of Preeceville (near Chris’ Place), close to the Endeavour turnoff on Highway No. 9.
A cardlock facility was constructed at that location last year and though it just opened in November, litre sales are already far ahead of projections – almost double the projection in Gateway’s budget, Olson said.
However, the heavy use of the Preeceville facility “has seemingly affected our Canora cardlock where we are behind budget. It also is affecting our full service sales at Preeceville where we are also behind budget.
“We had hoped to see an increase there when the cardlock opened. (Instead) Many of our regular pump customers are utilizing the new cardlock,” said Olson.
Buchanan area
Antonovitch announced that the Buchanan keylock facility will be converted to a cardlock facility. Members need a key from the limited number available to use a keylock facility while a cardlock facility can be used by anyone in Western Canada with a Co-operative Cardlock Card.
A cardlock facility will serve the community better by giving more people 24/7 access, he said. The goal is to increase traffic to Buchanan facilities at both, the fueling facility and the food store.
There has been some discussion about the Buchanan store in regards to the pending legislation change to how liquor will be sold in the province, said Antonovitch. The Buchanan store is the only Gateway facility to be selling liquor at present, but before the Pelly store was sold, it too sold liquor. There are only about a half dozen Co-op stores in the province licensed to sell liquor.
One aspect that Gateway is particularly looking at is whether it will be able to sell Co-op brand products through its liquor store, he said. Liquor sales legislation in Alberta is far ahead of Saskatchewan’s and there are Co-op brand liquor store products produced such as beers, lagers, red and white wines, rye whiskey, rum and vodka. These products can be sold only through Co-op stores.
Fuel depreciation impacts
financial picture
In the reports to the membership from the board chairperson, the general manager and Heather Prestie, the office manager, the challenge was to explain how it was that the sales revenue was down from the previous year, but Gateway’s financial situation was still described as being very good, Antonovitch said.
The challenge was in explaining the effect on sales volume by world-wide fuel depreciation, he said.
Overall, Gateway’s sales were down $3 million to $30.74 million, but that was mainly from deflated petroleum prices. “However, we still made the same cents per litre – profits were good.”
From the accounting perspective, deflated petroleum prices threw the budgeted margin out of kilter, but actual margin dollars were better than budgeted, Antonovitch said.
Actually, the volume of fuel sold was up and this is due mainly to increased activity by customers in the agricultural and trucking sectors.
“We sold 18,883,000 litres – an increase of 536,000 litres from 2014,” said Olson.
Financial situation
at individual facilities
Focusing on various highlights of the financial statement by both Antonovitch and Prestie, members learned that the Canora food stores sales increased by 5.9 per cent to $8,265,675; the Canora service station sales decreased by 6.1 per cent to $4,155,306; and the Canora cardlock sales decreased by 22.6 per cent to $1,155,555.
In Buchanan, sales decreased by $54,694 to $1,136,175. The Sturgis store had a seven per cent increase to $1,523,342.
The deflated petroleum prices affected the financial statement most prominently for the home centre in Preeceville, through which the bulk petroleum sales are recorded. Aside from the bulk petroleum sales the home centre sales decreased by 0.3 per cent ($14,048) to $4,012,771. The financial statement for bulk petroleum shows a decrease of 23.3 per cent ($1,699,406) to $5,592,944.
Though petroleum sales seem to overshadow most aspects of the financial statement, the home centre and the bulk petroleum department made positive local contributions to Gateway’s bottom line. It was the contributions from the stores in Buchanan and Sturgis that actually negatively affected Gateway’s financial statement: Buchanan, a loss of $51,682 and Sturgis, $67,489.
The Co-operative generated local savings of $156,000, down $2,000 from the previous year.
“This was very encouraging, considering continual losses from the fuel inventory throughout the year,” said Olson. “Management is to be commended for minimalizing losses through good inventory control.”
Olson said the board and management are looking at aggressively addressing significant losses on a continuing basis in Buchanan and Sturgis.
“These losses are negatively impacting the whole co-operative,” he said.
Patronage payments
The patronage payment from FCL was $1,335,000 – down $238,000, from last year, he said.
“All this resulted in after-tax savings of $1,336,688, down $97,000 from last year.
“The board has approved a patronage allocation of $672,091 of which 30 per cent will be paid back in cash,” said Olson. “This payment represents 5.5 per cent on petroleum purchases, two per cent on food purchases and two per cent on hardware and lumber. Equity cheques will be available at Preeceville and Sturgis on May 10 and in Buchanan and Canora on May 11.”
Elections
Elections were necessary to fill the delegate seats in each of the four Gateway areas.
In Canora, the terms expired for Nick Zawislak, Pam Rurak, George Stinka and Cindy Manahan.
Nominated for the four positions were: Zawislak, Stinka, Manahan, Tammy Bobyk and Alfredo Converso.
To make it unnecessary to decide the delegates through balloting, Zawislak, who has been a delegate for more than 40 years, said he withdrew his nomination to allow someone new to take the seat. With only four nominees, they were declared elected by acclamation.
In Buchanan the term expired for Gary Kupchinski. Tammy Senholdt was the only person nominated and she was elected by acclamation.
In Sturgis, the term expired for Carla Keller, who had served one year after being elected in a byelection. A second seat was vacant because Bert Suknasky had stepped down with one year left on his term. Keller and Jamie Lario were nominated and declared elected by acclamation.
In Preeceville, the terms expired for Lyle Olson and Howard Bilan. Olson was the only person nominated and declared elected by acclamation. As Bilan decided to retire and no one else was nominated, that delegate position remains open.
Emphasis on youth
During the general manager’s report, Antonovitch showed a video about youth camps offered by the Saskatchewan Co-operative Youth Camps organization at Moose Mountain Lake and Candle Lake. The camps are for youth aged 12 to 18 years.
The goal is to develop future leaders, he said.
The video included several testimonials from youth who had attended the camps. In addition to learning about co-operator ideals, the camps also taught essential life skills and included numerous fun activities such as canoeing, swimming, games, campfire events, singing, dancing and other social activities.
Youth are very important to Gateway Co-op, Antonovitch said. Over the years, Gateway has hired many, many part-time workers who have been as young as 14 years of age.
“During my tenure, the Co-op has offered many individuals their first jobs and the start of many careers,” he said.
