AS A RESULT of the interest last fall, the COC, and Cornelius May in particular, have tried to explore new means of improving employment at the Coop. "Besides ABCD, we have been working with a number of tenants associations and merchants in Roxbury and Cambridge in an effort to provide additional employment opportunities, "May said. We've pulled in a number of people from Roxbury in an attempt to set up some sort of self-replenishing feeder organization to supply the Coop with a steady stream of employees."

INCREASED community involvement was one of the central goals of the alternate slate. At first the organizers questioned a number of the Coop's employment and investment policies, where it quickly turned out that the Coop was in most cases doing a good deal already. At the time Wes Profit admitted, "Like Harvard, the Coop does a lot of worth while things which never get publicized."

Instead of pointing out specific grievances from then on, the organizers of the alternate slate stressed the need for a new outlook on the Coop's Board of Directors. "By the time the annual meeting came around," David Kirp, instructor at the Ed School and a member of the alternate slate, said recently, "our attitude was pretty much one of we don't know exactly what can be done to improve the Coop's relationship with the community, but elect our slate and we will, at least, take a look at some possibilities never tried before."

ALTHOUGH that slate was not elected, its very existence and insistence has spurred the Coop to take some of those looks for itself and to expand its existing program wherever possible. "Perhaps these new approaches would have come about eventually, but they would have taken a lot longer." May says.

Because the Coop itself is in debt, it cannot be of very much direct monetary aid to the community. "To expand, the Coop had to borrow from local banks and the John Hancock Company. The terms of those loans expressly forbid us to invest in any other businesses," Brown explains. The Coop can, however, give about $5000 to charity each year, which it donates through the United Appeal.

The COC is looking into ways for the Coop to help the larger community in ways other than money. Besides the proposed employment plans, the COC will attempt to set up a reciprocal agreement with area merchants, such that the Coop will recommend customers to other stores in the community if it can't supply a desired item, and vice-versa. May is quick to point out that the Coop's new ideas do not just involve the black community. "We are trying to establish more extensive relations with the whole community, which includes both black and white," says May.

As a direct result of the suggestions in October, the Coop very quietly in December deposited $15,000 into a savings account at the Unity Bank and Trust Company in Roxbury. Many other businesses in Boston have also shown their support by making similar deposits, yet the Coop's is larger than those of many companies with much more available capital. "We didn't publicize it," Brown says, "because we didn't want to appear as if we were patting ourselves on the back."

The Coop has far from explored all the potential means of improving itself both as a store and as a member of a larger community. But it has, at least, begun to take a long hard look at itself. No one can say how much the Coop would have actually changed if the alternate slate had been elected.

However, the management of the Coop' seems to have listened to the ideas raised by its members last fall and to have taken them to heart. Change comes slowly and carefully in a successful 87-year-old business, yet it appears that last October the gadflies may have actually succeeded-without winning-in precipitating a healthy identity crisis for the Coop.