Cooperatives
NEWS
august – september 2007
www.nz.coop
1
Rural Couriers Society (COURAL) –
Twenty-six years of service to the
rural community
by W. (Bill) Johnston
Chairman, Rural Couriers Society
There are some 550 rural delivery contractors
who
are
independent
owner-drivers
employed primarily by New Zealand Post to
deliver mail to people and businesses in rural
areas.
In addition to this
work, they rely on other rev-
enue to protect their inde-
pendent status, and also the
sometimes substantial good-
will they have paid for their
delivery businesses.
Twenty-six years ago, these RD contractors
were made aware of an opportunity for delivering
rural unaddressed mail which was created by a
constraint in the service offered by NZ Post. After
extended negotiations with NZ Post, a coopera-
tive society was formed to fill the gap. An alterna-
tive rural delivery system for unaddressed mail
(circulars, newspapers etc.), using a network of
RD contractor distributors, was quickly estab-
lished.
From a slow start, the cooperative has to date
delivered over 500 million circulars. Its ticket sales
for the delivery of rural parcels etc. over that peri-
od have exceeded $20 million, and the Society
pays the RD contractors for the circulars and
parcels they deliver.
Their cooperative, Rural Couriers Society Ltd.,
(COURAL) is an Industrial and Provident Society,
with liability limited by the value of the number of
issued shares. These shares are allocated to the
RD contractors on the basis of the number of
boxholders they service on their delivery routes,
and their dividends have been one of the best
rates of return in New Zealand.
In 1998, the Postal Services Act was passed to
bring benefits to consumers in the postal market
through increased competition, and COURAL
became one of the first registered postal opera-
tors to be accredited under the new legislation.
Since 1998, COURAL has been active in trying to
get regulators to recognise that the problems now
being addressed in the telecommunications
industry to allow full and fa