In the summer of the current year, the society went through an acute crisis. The board managed the society’s affairs unsuccessfully; abuses were discovered, and the society suffered a loss of several hundred million, a large sum for it. In July, at the insistence of the local instructor and the society’s audit commission, the board was re-elected. The board included long-serving workers of the society and conducted business very prudently and cautiously, treating any risky operations with distrust. The local branch of the Provincial Union provided such credit as it could, and the society justified the trust placed in it. It fully coordinated, for the purpose of eliminating competition, its selling prices with the prices of the branch’s retail store and paid its debts to the branch exactly by the established deadlines. It even found it possible to direct some free funds to закупка in Moscow of those goods that were not available at the branch. At present, the society’s operations are not extensive, but the results of the board’s prudent, systematic, strictly calculated work have already made themselves felt. On the society’s balance sheet, instead of a loss, a certain profit is recorded, and up to 200 share contributions. In the shop there is a small quantity of goods, but a fairly diverse assortment. Among private shops, the society’s shop is beginning to play a noticeable role, and the city’s population feels its presence. The board attracts share contributions by means of a discount granted to shareholders off the selling price of goods.
The board itself makes an original impression. The chairman of the board, I. I. Osipov, is a gray-haired old man and has served on the society’s board, with short breaks, since the very founding of the society in 1897. The society’s accountant, M. M. Mikheeva, has likewise served since the founding of the society and alone keeps all the accounts. Another board member, I. A. Voinov, has also been working already since 1901.
There is a sense of confidence that in these old people, who have perhaps devoted most of their lives to the development of the Pereslavl City Consumers’ Society, who have become accustomed to its life and live by its interests, there lies the guarantee of the society’s further strengthening—perhaps not rapid, but steady.