Talk:Mountain Equipment Co-op

Untitled

I've never read in any MEC literature that it was modelled after REI; the only reference I can find is to it being a store where MEC founders bought their climbing gear. I'm going to revert this change untill someone can provide a source. Padraic 17:44, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

I've never heard of it either. --Spinboy 00:01, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've never heard this either, and I grew up with MEC and have only heard of REI recently. Given that MEC backpacks overseas are nearly the alternative maple leaf flag (easiest way to recognise Cdns abroad), and the massive position they have in the outdoor wear market in Canada I find it hard to believe they are a pale immitation of anything or that REI holds a similar position in the US. A friend of my dad's was a founder (someone on the first Cdn Everest expedition) of MEC and I have vague childhood memories of a small walk up office and t-shirts in red and blue with their logo on the front. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.183.70.183 (talk) 15:52, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I personally understood from reading the MEC history page that the co-op was basically inspired by the REI model, and I think it's clear that the two have more in common than otherwise. But I don't have a better source, so I've just added a note that the two stores are "generally similar", if only to better describe MEC to US readers. I'm not sure why the note about the share price was removed, so I've put that back, too. --Mvcorks 21:06, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

MEC actually started as a result of climbers from UBC outdoor club, VCC Langara and several other stuident climbing groups who were tired of paying retail costs for climbing rope by the hundred foot. They began purchasing wholesale spools of rope as wella sopther clibing gear. Eventually they got U of T students involved in largeer purchases.

As a member of the Varsity outdoors club (VOC) at UBC, a few members did found the Coop after getting feed up of always traveling to REI in Seattle to get gear and the radder poor quality of gear selection in Vancouver. There's an article in the 1971 VOC Journal mentioning the founding of the Coop. It mentions that after a crappy trip to Mt. Baker(?), the participants decided that it was time to have a proper Outdoors store with good prices in Vancouver. Apparently, the quality of gear was very questionable and the prices were expensive during that era. One of the founders is still coming on VOC related trips. We also have a copy of a MEC meeting from 1971 (not entirely sure about this, need to check...). REI did help in the beginning in setting up the distribution and various contacts within the industry for MEC. 154.20.57.153 04:43, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

This place is definately a copy of REI. Same products, same store layout, same building architecture, same "co-op" idea, similar websites, even the logo is practically identical. Far too many things are the same to be coincidence. If MEC moved into the US they would get sued and lose. Maybe MEC came first and REI is the copy? Whatever, it looks like a blatant rip-off to me, I'd change the article but I don't really know if it would improve it. 71.49.175.222 19:34, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I had never even heard of REI until recently, and I've been buying outdoor gear at MEC for over a decade. Why does an article about an entity in one country require a reference to a "comparable" entity in some other country? Should an article about Walmart make reference to IKEA, because it was an earlier big-box store? If the MEC article doesn't stand on its own, it should be fixed. If there's a reference to be made, then make it; otherwise, the line about REI should be removed. Similarly, the MEC reference should be removed from the REI page. The next question would be ... do we need a category for "outdoor equipment retailers"?  ◉ ghoti 05:38, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Obviously the 23 Jan 07 user has no idea what co-operatives are. Newsflash: co-ops don't exist to make money. By saying MEC is a 'rip-off' of REI because they're both co-ops is like saying Arby's/Burger-King/Harvey's/Wendy's is a 'rip-off' of McDonald's because they're both for profit and they both sell burgers. Moreover, as someone who has been to both REI and MEC and looked closely at how both are run, I can assure you that both are very different in how they operate. In my opinion, REI has lost its way as a good co-operative and seems way more like a for-profit business than MEC. LeoTrottier 20:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Major edit

I just added a bunch of information to this article, please look it over to ensure it is adequately NPOV (full disclosure: I am member of MEC). I removed the part in the header about not advertising - I've seen MEC advertising in paddling and outdoors magazines. The list of initiatives can be expanded, obviously. There are a couple unsourced statements which may have to go if they can't be backed up. I don't really know what came of the Vancouver Sun article but it should be mentioned. Padraic · talk 22:08, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Growth section

This section says that after the September 11th terrorist attacks, sales stagnated and the company went through major restructuring. Why did terrorism in America have such a drastic effect on sales of outdoor recreational gear in Canada? To me the phrasing seems to indicate an alleged cause-and-effect, but there are no reasons given for why this happened, so the 9/11 reference seems totally gratuitous. Unless some elaboration is made on this point, the "post-9/11" text should be changed to "late 2001." -Steve

I agree, 9/11 shouldn't be specifically mentioned as a date unless a direct correlation can be drawn, I think. We just just as easily say that "lately, sales dropped so much that it went through major restructuring"Khono (talk) 15:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

'Mountain equipment' mountaineering gear

There is a UK firm called just "Mountain Equipment". Been around since the 60's selling quite high end mountaineering equipment. It's quite well known within the climbing/hiking industry and the wiki search just leads here which could be confusing considering the similar nature of the products. http://www.mountain-equipment.co.uk/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.69.225.89 (talk) 15:07, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• yep, i also came here looking for Mountain Equipment of the UK, seams to be owned by "OSC Limited" in Cheshire, judging by their contact-us page. Also from their blog, they are not entirely limited to the UK having a concept store in Chiyoda-ku district of Tokyo, Japan, maybe others ??79.76.201.204 (talk) 16:29, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

recycling?

Article says "Operates a garment recycling program for polar fleece and polyester garments. This program has been discontinued as of January 2009 due to lack of use." I can't find anything online to use as a reference for this recyling bit. Reference used results in error page and is not at Internet Archive's waybackmachine.org. Reference used with addition of this recycling to article is also not available from waybackmachine.org. Closest I can find are Patagonia Clothing webpage and Patagonia® Fabrics webpage. --EarthFurst (talk) 03:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Found MEC pdf from 2007 saying "This year, we launched a Garment Recycling Program. Members can bring back used items with a 90% or greater polyester content. ...". Haven't found ref for the program being shut down. --EarthFurst (talk) 03:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

MEC bikes

The article refers to many bike models that are no longer available or have changed. I have updated the bikes section to better reflect the changing nature of MEC's bike product offering. I have removed the specific names and instead referred to the number of products offered. Frankieclarke (talk) 18:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Operations

The article states:

Members can shop at any of the seventeen retail stores, on-line, or on the phone. MEC also operates a "Corporate & Group Sales" store for large orders.

Is this really needed? This describes almost every retail company. Mindmatrix 18:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Section on the motion to boycott Israeli goods

It has seemed to me for some time that this section's inclusion in this article is out of place. Israel and its politics are an important issue but this doesn't have too much to do with MEC. The only thing that happened here that had to do with MEC was that an organization, or perhaps some people in an organization, wanted MEC to boycott Israeli goods and MEC said "no". That's it. This wasn't anything for or against Israel, it's just MEC upholding their policy, as they stated it in the past, of dealing with specific companies and their track records rather than countries and their records. I believe this isn't relevant to MEC as an organization and isn't noteworthy enough to be included on this Wikipedia article and it should be removed.

Please voice your opinion for or against removing this section.

Air.light (talk) 05:01, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Reads like a marketing or promotional blurb (NPOV tag added)

This article reads like a puff piece drafted by MEC's marketing department to portray the company in the best light. In fact, a quick glance at the references shows the vast majority of the information presented is taken directly from MEC publications and websites. That guarantees this article is highly biased in favor of the company. I have added an NPOV tag to the article. User2346 (talk) 01:00, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

What changes would you suggest to remedy this? Air.light (talk) 02:52, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

A series of edits currently underway here in September 2020 is actually making the NPOV and tone issues much worse right now. Once the currently flurry has subsided the article will have to be totally re-written. - Ahunt (talk) 12:08, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree with "like a puff piece drafted by MEC's marketing department to portray the company in the best light" User2346. Hopefully the recent additions that are both substantial and with reputable and independent sources re-balance the article. The NPOV tag no longer applies. Magnovvig (talk) 12:48, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

While your additions have introduced some good third party refs, they have also created some serous tone issues, using very non-encyclopedic and POV language (For instance with section titles like: A voice in the wilderness, Sclerosis of board membership, Salad days) I'll try to tackle that later on today, when I have a few hours to fix it. - Ahunt (talk) 13:02, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I have completed the changes. I have to object to your attempt to reinstate the section heading titles including "A voice in the wilderness", "Sclerosis of board membership" and "Salad days". These are the sort of thing you would expect to see in a tabloid newspaper, not an encyclopedia. They are WP:CLICHE, not supported by the cited refs, are very much non-encyclopedic language and also fail WP:NPOV. Please do not reinstate them without gaining a consensus here on the talk page to do so. - Ahunt (talk) 11:44, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

2020 sale to Kingswood Capital Management

@Ahunt: in the CBC article here, it states at the end that "The sale is still subject to court and regulatory approvals but is expected to close by the end of the year. At the end of the transaction, MEC will be a privately owned company." This suggests that the sale has not closed yet, and it may not close until later this year. Until the sale officially closes, MEC is not yet a private company owned by Kingswood Capital Management. Perhaps you would consider reverting some of the changes you made until after the sale officially closes later this year. Thanks! -- Blairall (talk) 22:25, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

While regulatory approvals are "pending" (but no objections are expected), the new CEO has already been named and the new company formed, as the Globe and Mail ref indicates. The exactly terms, including a transition date, have not been disclosed, but the G&M indicates it is a done deal. - Ahunt (talk) 22:32, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

@Ahunt: I agree with you that no objections are expected and the deal will likely close without issue. However, the small point that I was trying to make is that ownership of the assets does not transfer over until the deal officially closes, which will only occur after all of the approvals have been received under the CCAA process, etc. The G&M reporter is probably not a corporate lawyer like me and may not understand those types of details, so the G&M reporter saying it is a done deal does not make it official. The MEC press release here states near the end "The transaction remains subject to Court and regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020." Thus, until we get proof that the transaction has formally been completed (such as when MEC issues a press release saying that), it is premature at this point for the Wikipedia article to say that MEC "is owned by Kingswood Capital Management of Los Angeles" (I don't have time now to make edits to this article, but you may wish to change some things to the future tense instead, such as that MEC "has agreed to be acquired by Kingswood Capital Management" instead of "is owned by"). It may seem like a small point, but I feel that it would be preferable to hold off on some of the changes until after the sale officially closes later this year. Thanks for your understanding. -- Blairall (talk) 02:40, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

It has been addressed by other editors, but I have also restored the tagging as the article is quickly deteriorating into tabloid style language. It needs a fundamental re-write at this point.

As far as management goes, I think you will find the new CEO will start managing long before the final regulatory approvals are in place. - Ahunt (talk) 11:46, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree per User:Ahunt that this article needs an overhaul. What MEC is today needs to separated from an historical section on what MEC was. User:Blairall your point is taken about waiting till the dust settles, but the writing is on the wall (please excuse the atrocious metaphor usage). --Cornellier (talk) 14:04, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

How about splitting Mountain Equipment Co-Op into it's own article with the historical wording (was a Canadian consumer co-op etc) and running MEC (Canadian retailer) as a new article with a boilerplate. It's two completely different legal entities at play here, the current MEC is not a legal successor to the Co-Op.-- Tawker (talk) 01:21, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

We can certainly do that at some point, but I am not sure that we have enough refs or content for the second article yet. It probably should be located at MEC Canada. - Ahunt (talk) 04:06, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I see you have already started that new article at MEC (Canadian retailer). Just a point, but you should not propose something for discussion and go ahead and do it an hour later, before any discussion has taken place. - Ahunt (talk) 04:09, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

The way this place works sometimes with the number of folks having this page on a watchlist, no dissenting opinions in an hour is a green light. Anyways, thanks for the cleanup - the article more fairly represents the respective entities now. --Tawker (talk) 04:58, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

An hour? LOL, usually on Wikipedia when a consensus is sought we wait a week, because many editors are not here every day and also WP:NODEADLINE. Regardless, I think the new article should be moved from MEC (Canadian retailer) to MEC Canada. - Ahunt (talk) 13:00, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I went old school WP:IAR - sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't - anyways, I agree with you on the new article name, I will do the new article move. -- Tawker (talk) 15:14, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for moving it, now let's see if it can be expanded. - Ahunt (talk) 15:23, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

MEC Canada Inc. is the successor to Mountain Equipment Co-op, so I don't understand why this was split into two pages. It's the same organization with different ownership, with a distinction of when it changed hands. It's disingenuous to suggest they are entirely different orgs, in my opinion. PlatosPainCave (talk) 03:04, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Well as you can see above there was no consensus to split the article. Lacking consensus and the fact that the new article has not been expanded to the point where it is a credible stand-alone article, the new article can just be merged back and the that title just redirected back here. Let's see if there is support for doing that. I'm in favour. - Ahunt (talk) 12:45, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm not, while the MEC Canada is a stub, it is a legally separate organization. It's not a new owner buying the shares of the old organization and continuing as a co-op, it's 2 separate and distinct legal entities and honestly, it's disingenuous to suggest they are one and the same. Let's add the store list etc to the new stub and see how that goes (seeing some in the current tense on MEC Canada while in historical context on Mountain Equipment Co-Op. -- Tawker (talk) 20:17, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

I tend to agree with the split. Both entities continue to exist. One is a co-op, the other a privately held company. The co-op continues to owe obligations to its members and creditors. The company does not. Reasonable editors can disagree on what to do here, but I do not see how we could have both entities covered in the same article without a major rewrite. Without one, I expect readers will be confused, particularly if there is continued litigation by members and/or creditors which receives media coverage. I think the easiest thing to do is make a second article for the new company (as has been done). In the long run, perhaps it will be merged back into this article if the new entities (while different from the old) is ultimately perceived by sources to be the continuation of the business as opposed to a transformation of it. Time will tell.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 21:13, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

These are in their legal definition, two separate organizations. In addition to the points raised by Tawker, the purchaser (Kingswood Capital) did not acquire all the liabilities or any equity of the cooperative. In fact, the the cooperative still exists under a new name as ordered by the court. Fortunately there appears to be just cause to suggest the story of the cooperative is not over quite yet given there continues to be updates by volunteers within the Save MEC Facebook Group to whom have suggested they have the resources and capacity to make something of the cooperative. Unfortunately the current board members are using the current court proceedings to prevent both the cooperative's election among other issues that give rise to another need for these articles to remain separate. Munzo (talk) 21:19, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

The lead and info box are confusing. It says that MEC "was a chain of ... stores". Yet clearly there still exists a chain or retailed stores called, er, MEC. Likewise the infobox states "No longer operating ... Number of locations: 21". It would be better to frame the article as being about the brand and the stores which still exist, and were once run by a coop then sold to a holding company. The stub WP:CONTENTFORK MEC (Canadian retailer) does not add clarity, rather the opposite, and should be redirected. --Cornellier (talk) 20:27, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

The article title is Mountain Equipment Co-Op not MEC. The MEC brand (owned by MEC Canada) is operating, Mountain Equipment Co-Operative is not. It would be improper to suggest Mountain Equipment Co-Operative is operating. How can we re-word the lead to avoid this ambiguity - from my POV it's all in the first paragraph. I tried an update on the infobox to reduce the ambiguity. -- Tawker (talk) 21:41, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the infobox and the lede para are pretty clear what the situation is, as written now. - Ahunt (talk) 21:44, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm afraid I disagree. If the (ill-advised, IMO) goal is having two articles, this one about the co-op and the other about the retail brand, then this is not clear. The lead should not be "was a chain of Canadian retail stores" but "was (is?) a co-operative that ran ..." Otherwise it's confusing since a MEC branded "chain of Canadian retail stores" still exists. I'm going to make a few changes to mitigate the fact that stub WP:CONTENTFORK MEC (Canadian retailer) should be redirected here. --Cornellier (talk) 17:08, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Made a start. The lead still says "MEC is Canada's largest supplier of outdoor equipment". So, yeah, it's a mess, but better than it was. This should have been done when the content was forked by Tawker. I could look at it but honestly I think the effort might be better spent starting an RFC to demerge the two articles. --Cornellier (talk) 20:53, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, MEC Canada does claim Mountain Equipment Co-op's history as its own. See here. 162 etc. (talk) 16:33, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Past tense or not??

Hi, can you please elaborate on your thoughts regarding this company? Nothing in the article indicates that the co-operative exists after selling to Kingswood on October 30, 2020. Note that at https://www.1077holdingscooperative.ca/ the header reads "Formerly Mountain Equipment Co-Operative". 162 etc. (talk) 05:42, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

You just proved the point. The still-currently-existing 1077 Holdings Coop is just MEC under a new name. The coop organization still exists, hence present tense. See MOS:TENSE. We don't refer to Air Canada in the past tense, even though it changed its name from Trans-Canada Airways, as it still exists. - Ahunt (talk) 12:00, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

1077 is a shell with no members staff or board of directors [1] that exists only to conclude the legal proceedings related to the bankruptcy. It is misleading to imply that Mountain Equipment Co-op still exists based on this. I think a better example of a comparable might be something like theGlobe.com. Despite still being a company on paper, its core business ended years ago, and the article rightly refers to it in the past tense. 162 etc. (talk) 15:16, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Actually, even though it does no active business, all of us are still members of that coop, at least until it winds up business. - Ahunt (talk) 15:33, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I've updated my comment above. I'll move this discussion from User talk:Ahunt to the article's talk page to see if anyone else wants to chime in. 162 etc. (talk) 15:43, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Sure, good idea. I was going to suggest the same move. This page has had quite a few editors watching it. - Ahunt (talk) 15:51, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I think the last sentence of the lede pretty much sums the facts of this whole issue: The co-op entity which formerly operated the MEC stores, now renamed 1077 Holdings Co-operative, will remain separately active for an indefinite period of time to deal with remaining claims by creditors. Unless there are any other comments, I think we can close this out. - Ahunt (talk) 23:12, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll reiterate my displeasure with the current phrasing. Unless you're planning on renaming the article to 1077 Holdings Co-operative, using the present tense doesn't make sense. And, seeing that another edit attempt to fix this was just reverted, I am not the only one to find this confusing. 162 etc. (talk) 12:56, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I think we all agree on the basic facts: that Mountain Equipment Co-op was renamed as 1077 Holdings Co-operative and that that organization still exists today and will do so, until business is wound up at some point in the future. We don't use past tense for something that still exists, so based on all that, please do suggest some better wording here for discussion. - Ahunt (talk) 13:08, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

See here. We refer to 1077 in the present tense, and Mountain Equipment Co-op in the past tense. 162 etc. (talk) 13:16, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Except they are one and the same legal entity. I have reworked the first para to be more clear on the status - Ahunt (talk) 13:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Not a cooperative?

The infobox and text claim that the company was a co-op, but it does not meet the definition provided when a user click "cooperative". It was chartered under an act *called* the Co-operative Associations Act, but you can call an act anything. The proof it was not a co-op is the simple fact that it was sold without consulting the members -- who would be owners in a genuine co-op by the cited definition, but who were merely customers of the Co-op. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.23.120.110 (talk) 21:04, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

It was a legally-constituted coop under BC law and remains so today. The coop was not sold to anyone and still exists, it just sold all its assets. This is all explained in the article. - Ahunt (talk) 21:12, 2 March 2022 (UTC)