A Tale of Two Co-op Gathering

I am closely involved with a cooperative house where I share meals and community, I bank at a credit union, and I am on the board of the Peoples Food Co-op of Ann Arbor.  Passionate as I am about cooperatives, I've been lucky this past month with opportunities to go to two weekend programs about building co-ops. Both programs were in Western Michigan, one at Circle Pines, a cooperative education center http://www.circlepinescenter.org/ located between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids , the other at a Unitarian church in Mt. Pleasant. These two groups would like different elements of the community of movers and shakers in the co-op movement. 

The first was an event sponsored by an organization with the most peculiar name, the Latter-day Society of Equitable Pioneers*. The group started last fall and this was its third meeting.  This retreat was a wonderful opportunity to meet with co-op activists from across the state.  While there was some structured activities, I found the really juicy part of this event to be the opportunity to talk to people who were excited about co-ops. There are some interesting new co-op projects going on around the state. 

Grand Rapids seems to be bubbling with co-op activity. A restaurant, a new co-op house, a brewing co-op, and a food store are all Grand Rapids projects in various stages of start up that I learned about.

Detroit also has some promising co-op potential. I got to meet two organizers of the Detroit Community Cooperative. One of the organizers, a lawyer who specializes in worker ownership, has been laying the groundwork for this project for six years.  I am impressed with her vision. It is now launching a business services cooperative which she hopes will be the hub for a collective of workers cooperatives. The model for what she would like to see developed is Mondragon, the largest workers cooperative in the world. The Detroit Community Cooperative is having an organizing potluck on June 6, http://www.c2be.org

The event also attracted the general manager for the Kalamazoo food co-op. I admire his co-op leadership. The Kalamazoo food co-op recently built a new storefront, with an adjacent community kitchen that acts as a local foods incubator. The Kalamazoo food co-op has been important to their community in other ways too, like creating the system that allows Kalamazoo's farmers market to accept food stamp cards. When I asked him what made his co-op so effective, he suggested that it was alignment of vision between the board, himself, and his staff.

I walked away from the Circle Pines retreat with a renewed eagerness to make things happen in the co-op world. In theory the focus of this group is to link up experienced cooperators with new co-op activists. I think that new and old are not so clear lines in the co-op movement at this time, there is a lot that many of us can share with each other. Another function the organization serves is exactly what I got, to help co-op activists feel connected to a bigger movement, giving us the support and courage to continue our work for a better world.

The second event, the one in Mt. Pleasant was a Co-op Board Leadership training called CBL 101. This training was put on by Cooperative Development Services Consulting Co-op http://www.cdsconsulting.coop/  that works with food co-op boards of directors. The event was a statewide event, including board members from eight food co-ops, seven in Michigan, and one from Indian.

This co-op training was considerably more structured than the Circle Pines event, a one-day event with two morning sessions two afternoon sessions, and an opportunity to tour Green Tree food co-op in Mt. Pleasant.  The membership of these eight co-ops totals to about 20,000. People's food co-op in Ann Arbor had more members than those of the other Michigan and Indiana co-ops attending. In addition to the event itself a highlight was driving there and back with three other Peoples Food Co-op board members. 

The first session of the day was about co-op history starting with the origins of the Rochdale co-op in England in the 1800s. I appreciated the concerns raised by the woman sitting in the row behind me, she wondered if focusing on an Anglo European origin for co-ops gets in the way of having a more culturally diverse co-op movement.  A second session covered the legal responsibilities and protections of a board of directors. 

After lunch we had a session about a process called policy governance, this is the method around which the Peoples Food Co-op board organized. I have had an uncomfortable relationship with policy governance, there are parts of it that I find helpful from the standpoint of running an effective cooperative, on the other hand there are elements that I believe can create an excessive hindrance to effective cooperative operations.

 I will take a moment or two to explain how policy governance works, because it is at heart of how most food co-ops are run, if co-ops are to be Democratic their members should at least know this. In a nutshell what policy governance is about is separating larger policies of an organization, from the operational tasks of running that organization. The job of the board, it is postulated, is to set a broad policy framework, then it is assumed that the board should turn operations over to general manager. Policies that a board develops include, policies on how the board itself runs, policies about the relationship between the board and a co-ops general manager, policies setting out the desired results wanted from the cooperative venture, and finally limitations for the general manager on how to achieve those results. 

 Potential pitfalls with this approach that I have observed include a lack of organizational transparency, limiting of organizational descent, and the hindrance of the implementation of board vision. I don't believe that any of these pitfalls are insurmountable within the structure of policy governance, but it is not always clear to me how to surmount them. This session and some conversations peripheral to it were helpful for me in getting clarity around how best to use this methodology. In terms of the food co-op board that I sit on, my take-home message is that we must work more with our ends policies, these policies are where the board articulates the results it wants from the co-op.

Finally the fourth session focused on understanding finances. A simple exercise that was part of this session and used real data from our co-op gave me confidence that our co-op has resources with which we could be doing more than we are presently doing . First things first of course, the People's food co-op of Ann Arbor is looking for a general manager, this position needs to be filled before the store takes on anything new. Nonetheless, I believe the board can begin to lay the groundwork now.

The Mt. Pleasant event also gave me an opportunity to begin to meet and connect with other board members from other co-ops. There is a natural comradery among this crowd, and, comrades are good to have.

In Michigan there is a healthy community of co-op movers and shakers,  activists and leaders. I believe that co-ops in their many forms are seeds for the type of economy we should strive to grow. From that perspective this community is far too small. Nonetheless, I feel proud and honored to count myself among this community.  

*this group is named after the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, the Rochdale co-op developed what is now known as the seven principles of cooperatives.

What a neighborhood!

At the risk of expressing my parochial bias, I'd like to go on record as stating definitively, that I live in the best neighborhood on the planet. While this status may be something that ebbs and flows, it was definitively the case on Sunday, May 6. I know this is true, because on that day I asked a number of my neighbors if they agreed with me, and sure enough they felt that we lived in the best neighborhood on the planet as well. 

The cause of this clarity was a most amazing little music Festival. Over 70 stages, genres as diverse as punk rock, classical quartets, brass jazz bands, folk, salsa and more. The highlights for me were about as diverse. My all time favorite performer of the day was Magdalen Fossum (www.wix.com/magdalenfossum/music ) a 10-year-old with a voice to be reckoned with. Someone said, we have to go hear her, so we wandered up Brooks. I was entranced by her music. From where I stood, I didn't recognize her, it was only later that I figured out that I know her mother, and my sons have played with her at a potluck and on a couple of other occasions. Other favorites included: The punk band, Suicide By Cop, I found a place where the volume was just right to get me hopping. I liked the little bit of the psychedelic DJ I caught from John my neighbor across the street. And I made sure to end the day where I had and it one year before dancing like crazy to the Latin jazz sound of Los Gatos. This year I picked up one of their CDs. 

I'm not the kind of person who goes to a lot of shows. I like music but probably listen to it less often than I should. But this festival was just what was needed to feed my soul. There were the many and amazing acts, too much for anyone to take in in an afternoon, but I also loved the way the streets of my neighborhood became alive with people full of joy! So you stand or sit and listen to a song or two or even a whole show, then when the act ends or when you're ready to move on, you wander down the street either with a program map in hand, or following your ear and instinct, then you see someone you haven't seen in a while and you stop and talk, or just say hi, and maybe all walk together to the next act. There are surprises you might just walk by, houses you may have walk by everyday never knowing the virtuosos inside. I remember walking by one house, and from the front window I could see a man at a piano, the music drifted lightly out the window to sort of pat me on the back as I walked by. Paul Tinkerhess is a genius for having conceived and organized this event now two years in a row.

Back to the glory of my neighborhood, it is not just for the geniuses like Paul that my neighborhood is great, it is not just for the wealth of talent that clearly resides here. Perhaps it's biggest fault is people like me who think it is the center of the universe, but the greatness of the Water Hill neighborhood rises above all that, when almost spontaneously the neighborhood bursts into song and Festival! By “spontaneously” I don't mean for a moment to downplay the efforts of all those who organized and contributed to making the event, I only mean that each person who participated in Sunday's event, each musician who took their time and energy and projected it from their porch did so as a spontaneous gift. In so giving they created something amazing. They have projected utopia into a place. The Water Hill Music Fest lived up to the slogan on this years poster, ”love your neighbors.” We are loved.

A week or a month from now, my neighborhood may no longer be the best place on earth, but for me at the moment the glow of the weekend still permeates my experience of the streets and my neighbors, thanks to all of you! I spent that particular afternoon with a friend and artist from the East Coast, when he left he took a program with him, and he told me that he had a friend back east who he thought might organize a similar event in a town in Connecticut.

While extolling the virtues of my neighborhood I should at least make reference to an upcoming event that I will be out of town for, and so will sadly miss. June 9 and 10th, in the 700 block of Fountain Street and event called Mission Zero Fest (www.missionzerofest.org )  is being organized. The mission is to get to zero carbon emissions. With a focus on home energy efficiency and “homegrown tomatoes” the festival promoters promise “real solutions for saving money and living a more purposeful life.” If the music Fest is a model utopia of joy and song, Mission Zero Fest reaches for the utopia we need in a more material realm. I regret that I can't be in town to showcase my own Mission Zero project, a passive house addition, but there are other interesting and exciting energy efficient houses just up the street from me. I hope you can make it in my stead.

the eco-building geek community

This past Sunday we had an open house, inviting friends and neighbors and friends of friends come and see the eco-addition we built on the back of our house. 18 inch walls and triple layer Windows, tapes to be airtight with special tape all the way from Europe. We had a small but respectable stream of interested friends and neighbors show up and share some crackers and cheese with us. What makes this event something to write home about is that those who came were the tip of an iceberg of eco-housing geeks.

I'm not a builder by trade, nor architect, nor city official, I don't run an eco-business and I'm not even that good at getting to green fairs or eco-events. Although I often consider myself to be only distantly connected to the eco-building community of Ann Arbor, the reality is that I'm more a part of that community that I often notice. Sure there are people I don't know whom I would love to know, people like Matt Grocoff of Greenovations TV,  Wayne Appleyard chair of the city energy commission. But I to know a number of interesting eco-housing and energy advocates. 

I was amused by some of the juxtapositions of visitors for the open house. People who knew each other seemed to have a knack for showing up at the same time.  

Some of the eco-geeks who came to my open house include: my brother-in-law who lives just off of North territorial has the largest tracking solar array in the state of Michigan. He and his father's efforts were instrumental in getting net metering in Michigan. My friend who has been experimenting with solar and wind energy about as long as anyone in Washington County came by but never got to tour the house because he became so engaged in conversation with friends he recognized, and then he had to go to work. he is married to my friend and architect consultant, one of the only passive house certified architects in Michigan. I know two Jim who coincidentally showed up at the same time, one who has a decent array of solar panels on his roof, the other has for countless years been  involved in putting together a super insulated, carefully thought out, and built to endure house three blocks from me. That house has certain similarities to my structure. My friend who builds houses to extend the growing season Michigan also showed.

Beyond those who came to my open house, there are others in this community who I know and have connections with. I have a neighbor who is a leed certifies, another neighbor is an urban planner, and yet another neighbor is the director of the ecology Center. When I visited the B Green store looking for a counter I ran into a former co-op mate of mine. And the list goes on.

The green building community is an old patchwork quilt. Each of us are loosely stitched together to a handful of other squares. Our town has innovators, entrepreneurs, experts, advocates, builders, architects, do-it-yourselfers like me, and leading-edge thinkers on green building and eco-energy. At least that's how it looks to me. I know there are those who are much more centrally involved. Their picture of the community may be much different.