The 1980s

The 1980s was spent expanding storage even further and modern cold rooms and freezers were installed.

The Reusch shops in Gawler Street, formerly the public library and Department of Social Security offices, were also refurbished to make way for a stationery sales area and a Toyworld franchise store. Other franchises included Mensland for menswear and True Value hardware.

When Bert Schultz retired in 1982, the store had grown to become a modern, one stop shopping centre. The store now looked to a future of computerisation, property development and retail expansion under a new, experienced retail manager, David McArthur. David had a strong background in retailing, having trained with the national department store chain Myer Limited. His first challenge was to upgrade the accounting system of the store, to make the management of the rapidly growing customer base more efficient. During a two year transition period, the Wang computer system was commissioned and a plastic membership card was also introduced to overcome the time consuming job of counting customer dockets at the end of each year to pay their rebate.

It was also a time of change in the Board hierarchy. Cec Robin, who had been chairman since 1975 and had been an original Board member in 1944, handed over the chairmanship to Bryce Hood in 1981. Cec is credited as the longest serving Co-operative Board member and one of its most tireless workers, eventually retiring in 1983.

One of the first property purchases during Bryce Hood’s era was the Tom’s Supermarket at 11 Murray Street, which was refurbished and re-opened in March 1987 as a furniture store.

Extensive changes also took place on the Community Store site. Modern slim-line fixturing and pelmets replaced the old dark timber surrounds of the early years, new soft furnishings and lighting were introduced and in March 1987, a $2 million extension was opened providing an extra 2000 square metres of floor space, doubling the softgoods area and making more room for the successful Toyworld franchise. A new verandah facade was built, which bore a remarkable resemblance to the original Sheard’s shopfront. Inside the store, state of the art technology such as computerised price scanning was also introduced for greater efficiency. The funding of this new extension, the most expensive in the history of the store, was made possible by a far-sighted change to the Community Co-operative Store’s Constitution to allow for a rotating levy structure. A percentage of the members rebate was allocated into a 10 year levy fund which was loaned back to the store interest free.

In 1988, the chairmanship of the Board changed from Bryce Hood, who had been an untiring worker towards the building renovations, to David Obst who was to preside over yet another dynamic era.