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Hey, Cooperation Nation. I'm Emily. I'm Alessandra. And this is Smooth Co-operators, a Belfast

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Community Co-op program. And we are here to talk to you about cooperatives and particularly

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the Belfast Community Co-op. Hey. So happy to be here. Falls right around the corner,

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slash feels like right now. September is a month that brings all kinds of new things

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to our lives, slash again old things, like school. Oh, school. Oh my gosh, it's so

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busy. Kids moving them around, place to place, watching sports, making things for bake sales.

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Mothering. That's what we do. Mothering. What else we do? Co-operatives. So Alessandra,

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with Fall upon us, what's one of your favorite things to do? I think what's crazy for me

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is when the light starts to change, it like registers inside my body in a different way.

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And I look around and it feels so familiar in a way that like other seasons feel familiar,

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but Fall is particularly noticeable. It just reminds me of like all the times I've seen

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the leaves change, all the apples I've tasted, all the pumpkins, all of the sort of like,

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the light feels more brilliant. In summer, it's like high, it's hot, it's really bright,

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but it's sort of this like jewel toned. Yeah. And so in September, it's like the sun is right

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in your eyes again. And it's just this golden amazingness. And it makes me think of the common

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ground fare. It makes me think of just like waking up early and the fields are misty and you're like

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going to learn about homesteading and food and watch the sheep dogs run around and pet big animals

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and eat great food. Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah. I agree with all of that wholeheartedly. It sounds just

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delightful. Yeah. I was thinking this morning as I was walking my dogs how nice it would be to go

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kayaking. It's one of my favorite things to do. And in the summer, you're just out on the water

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with the sun like burning down on you. But this time of year, so nice. Yeah, you get to watch

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the leaves like reflect in the water. Yeah, maybe scare up some ducks. On the path of immigration.

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Oh, I love it so much. So Emily, pop quiz. We've been talking about the cooperative principles

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in order. And I was wondering if you remembered what principles one through four are. I do.

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Principle one is voluntary and open membership. Principle two is member democratic control.

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Principle three is member economic participation. Principle four is autonomy and independence.

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And guess what we're going to talk about today? What are we going to talk about today?

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Principle five. And that is education, training and information. I've heard of that one before.

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I believe the definition for that is that cooperatives provide education and training for

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their members, elected representatives, managers and employees, so they can contribute effectively

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to the development of their cooperatives. They inform the general public, particularly young

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people and opinion leaders about the nature and benefits of cooperation. That's the definition

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from the International Cooperative Alliance. Yeah, this is one of our favorite principles

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because it directly affects what we do in our workplace. Alessandra is the community outreach

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coordinator, which means talking to the people in the community about the co-op and educating them

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is one of her focuses. And Emily is the ownership coordinator. And so reaching out and talking to

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owners about this business that they co-own is the part of your everyday workflow. It really is.

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So something that's also really interesting, all of these principles that we talk about,

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they date back to the Rochdale pioneers, which we touched on in earlier episodes.

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They're the people that really started the cooperative movement. There are plenty of

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co-ops that had been started prior to the Rochdale pioneers, and many of them had not succeeded.

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But they took what they had learned from previous businesses and created their own principles

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and implemented things that they thought would make them be successful. I believe it has worked

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from 1844 onward. We have had successful cooperatives. So something that they really

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valued was education. In the 1840s, 1850s, there were laws talking about how people who were

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not educated could not vote and therefore could not participate. They really wanted to make sure

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that the people that they had in their ranks, part of their cooperatives, had as much power as they

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could. And so educating them, they started reading rooms, they started libraries, they started printing

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presses, they started collecting funds to make all of these happen within each cooperative,

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which is just amazing. That's not something that has carried forward today necessarily,

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but I think it really helped people when the movement was beginning.

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Yeah, it seems like the time period that we're talking about the or the mid to late 1800s,

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education was reserved for people who were privileged. Absolutely. They decided that if

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they were all going to co-own this business together, everybody needed to be educated enough

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to run the business. In some of their early publications, it's required that a percentage

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of their profits should be allocated to education. So not only were they using their time to educate

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the co-owners of their business, but they were using their money to continue to educate people because

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just like any business, things change. And so you have to continually educate the people who are in

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the business, whether they're owners or consumers or managers, because everything is going to be

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changing and you have to be able to make decisions based on those changes. And if you're not paying

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attention or being educated about them, then those decisions won't be the best decisions for the

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business. Yeah, it can affect the fate of the business. Yeah. I was reading something recently,

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cooperative businesses aren't run by rules and rulings. They're run by principles and values.

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And so it's like when we say we want them, that they have to educate people so that the business

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does well. I think our American default is like, yeah, the business has to do well to like make

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this endless money. But because the cooperative business structure is based on the principles and

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the values of cooperative business, the reason we want the business to do well is to perpetuate

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those principles and values, which is strength and community and education and autonomy and diversity.

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And like all of those things are really the end product of a good cooperative business.

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Yeah. And so how have we taken that and made it into the principle that we have today? And specifically,

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like what are we doing at the Belfast Community Co-op to make sure that we are abiding by principle

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five? When we think about who we're educating and how and why, if we start with workers, we have to

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educate workers, we have to educate the managers, we have to educate the board of directors, we have

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to educate the owners, and then we're also committed to educating the community. So if we start with

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workers, we have annual trainings, we have annual staff meetings, we have an internal bulletin board

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where we send out interesting information like, hey, did you want to know how your cooperative

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supports the community? And we also have required information like, hey, this is for safety or this

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is for our internal standards. We also have educational credit program where people who are

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workers can attend meetings or trainings or read books or watch documentaries and then they sort

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of submit that time and they can get a certain amount of educational credits, which is essentially

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like paid time off, earning that through participation in the cooperative business.

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Yeah. And what's pretty cool is we actually have a little staff library,

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which kind of is a nod back to the cooperative reading rooms. Absolutely. During COVID where

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we were all just like a little more separated or we were not encouraged to touch other things that

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other people were touching, I think that fell by the wayside. Now with the renovation, we don't have

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the dedicated space for it in the basement like we used to, but that's definitely something that

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will come back in the renovated space when we have a dedicated break room for staff. There's all

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kinds of posters and stuff that for the labor department we have to put up and that's usually

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where this optional reading comes in. So I do the sort of initial orientation and walk through

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with all of our new workers and really that's just like storytelling about where we came from,

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what the principles and values are and where we're going as a cooperative.

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I love bumping into you when you're doing your orientation and talking to the new workers.

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Yeah. It's always fun to hear what they have to say. Yeah. Something else that's worker specific

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is we are part of NCG, which is a cooperative of cooperatives and they do put on conferences that

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are department specific so we can send our department leaders to those, bring ideas back

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to do collaborations with other department leaders from other co-ops, gathering ideas and

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best practices, which I think is really cool and invaluable. I think the co-ops are super lucky

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to be all of us be able to rest on these principles and values that are common for us.

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It means that a lot of times we come to the table with our hardships and with our problems

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looking for support from other businesses that are cooperative businesses because it's a little

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bit unique, but it means that we are like humble and vulnerable and share the things that haven't

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worked for us. A lot of times it seems like that's just as educational for other co-ops

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as it is to share what it was, like how we're thriving. There's a lot of talking about what

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didn't work, what we would do differently. I know that being on the capital campaign team,

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we talked to other co-ops that did capital campaigns and they were like, hey, maybe don't do this.

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We made this mistake. We don't walk away from that thinking like, oh, that other business

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made a mistake. We walk away from that thinking like, well, I'm so thankful that they shared

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that information with us and we don't look at mistakes as weaknesses. We look at mistakes as

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opportunities to learn and share and that feels really huge. Another thing that NCG

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and just cooperatives in general do for their workers is they find people, co-ops find people,

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who are curious and dedicated and interested and we say, oh, you didn't realize that you were

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going to have a lifetime career in grocery? That's okay. We can train you. You don't understand

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finances. Sometimes it's really hard. We have all of these resources. Oh, you have no idea what a

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margin is? Hey, let me tell you. Not sure how to manage people? Come to this conference and we're

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going to make you the best HR manager we possibly can. There's all of this learned experience that's

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valued rather than a degree or previous experience. We're like, oh, are you a decent person? Okay,

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we're going to invest in you and we want you to stay here and carry on this cooperative tradition.

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I think that that's pretty unique in terms of sectors. There's always continuing education.

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There's always credits or classes that you can take and I think that the co-op has really honed

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in on how to keep the workers in the cooperative sector or like, hey, you didn't know you wanted

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to be a general manager. We can train you for that. It's pretty amazing. That's how we train

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workers and all of those extended trainings that I was just talking about. It's sort of how we train

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managers and there are all of these different educational expectations for managers and a

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lot of that stuff comes from knowing this particular cooperative business and this particular

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cooperative community really well, but it also means humming the best at what it is that you're

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doing. If you're buying groceries, if you're keeping the store safe, there's a pretty high

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expectation for internal readiness, especially through our renovation process, especially with

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other co-ops through any of their growth. There's a lot of focus on that aspect, which is really

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all about education and training and keeping people. Yeah, something that's exciting that is

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relatively new. There are now programs where you can get a degree in cooperative management.

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So this is something that is, we've talked about before, how co-ops are not taught in business

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schools or sorry, the cooperative model is not taught in business schools, but we are lucky enough

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to be close to Nova Scotia. What's in Nova Scotia? Oh, just a Scotia way. St. Mary's University.

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They have a business school there, the Sobe School of Business, where they offer part-time online

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degrees in cooperative and credit union management. That's amazing. Yeah. And I think they have,

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weekend style classes that you can do in person or virtually. I think they have a 10-month program

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that's more of like a master's style program. And I think they have a two-year program, which is

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more of like a graduate school degree style program. I think the University of Wisconsin also has

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cooperative programming, but what's really interesting about their cooperative programming is

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it's not we're studying to get a degree in. They study and analyze cooperatives for like whatever

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their function is. Like it's very numbers-based and statistics-based. So it's not that you go to

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business school to learn how to run a cooperative. The University of Wisconsin just focuses on how

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cooperatives do in the economy. And we actually get a lot of data from that. We sure do. And they

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put on a really fantastic conference every year. The Consumer Cooperative Management Association

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is called CCMA. And we try to send management staff and directors there when possible. You know,

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it's really cool. I do. So that is something that takes place in June. Every year, it's nationwide.

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There are co-ops all across this country. Board members and general managers and consultants

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and distributor heads all get together at this conference. They share their successes and their

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failures trying to uplift this cooperative model. And sometimes it's just three time zones away.

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And sometimes it's like two connecting flights away. And sometimes it's in Portland, Maine. I know.

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Which means that this is as close as we're going to get to our home conference. You hear that

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cooperation nation? Mark your calendars. June 2024. Portland, Maine. CCMA. We're just so excited.

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It's going to be really cool. And we're going to have a brand new store to show off. And we're

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going to have all of our successes and failures through planning and promoting and fundraising.

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And then building and shopping while building. We're going to have all of that to share. And

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hopefully new co-ops or co-ops that are getting ready to expand or co-ops that didn't know they

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wanted to get ready to expand. But they hear from us and they're like, oh, it's our time. We're going

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to do it. We all get together in Portland to share that experience. The next aspect of who we

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train and educate and why are our board of directors. So the owners get to elect the board.

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Nominations are open now if you'd like to apply. Then those people are in charge of running a huge

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business, running a $12 million business with 5,000 owners. That sounds like a lot. It does.

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It is. So if you don't know how to do it or if you're overwhelmed or you're excited and you just

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want to know more, there's so many different ways that the board of directors can and do educate

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themselves. What are some of those ways, Emily? Well, every year they have an annual retreat. So

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right after the elections, they start scheduling that for late spring, early summer. And basically,

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it's everybody on the board. So new and current directors get together and they talk about specific

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topics and really dig deep into that. They really enrich themselves. Generally, it's based around

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policy governance or the like. One of the primary resources our directors have is a consulting

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co-op called Columniate. They offer trainings year round. And since the pandemic, they have put

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so many more trainings online. So travel time is cut down. They're very convenient. They can be

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super interesting. You get to be in a training with people from all over the country and then

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go into breakout rooms and talk with them for a time. Their topics span from facilitation to

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financial training, cooperative board leadership. It runs the gamut. It's really wonderful and it's

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an amazing resource. Many of their trainings are actually also offered to cooperative workers.

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So that's handy for our staff also. Yeah. Being a former board member and a current worker,

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I've done a lot of trainings with them. It's just been profound in building my knowledge around

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governance, around the cooperative model, around the history of co-ops. Sometimes when you think

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you've just seen it all, they have a co-op café, which is where sort of anybody involved in the

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co-op community, whether they're owners or board members or managers gets together and they talk

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about, I don't know, some kind of like interesting juicy topic that will help cooperatives all across

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the country. And the most recent one is called Creative Destruction. And it's like, hey,

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we're always trying to do more. As co-ops, we're just trying to do the best we can. And we're like,

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let's add this program or let's add, you know, this feature or something. And this particular

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co-op café was like, what can you stop doing? Like, what are you doing right now? It's actually

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not great. And instead of changing it to do more, you can just maybe not do it at all. And that was

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a really fascinating eye opening. So eye opening topic to be like, Oh, this is exercising my brain

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in this different direction, and just sort of helped me look at our business model and what we do

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in just like a sort of constructive way. That's how the board gets educated. There's also just like

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online resources and historical records about our own business that just date back until the

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beginning of time. There's so much to know and so much to read. And that is like not the be all end

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all that's like the whole point of getting educated away from the boardroom isn't just to like have

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that knowledge. It's to bring it with you to the boardroom to make the best decisions on behalf

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of the co-op but also to like get to know the people you're making decisions with and for a

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little bit better. Because if you can ask questions or look at a topic in a different light, like not

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from your own perspective, you get a little bit more clued in on the values of the people around

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you and the values of the people you're serving. And sometimes that means like finding out about

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what it means to be in the grocery industry. Like here we are, we're like, Oh, we're all

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principles and values. And it's like we are and we have to sell food and with a store that stays open

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with people who we can pay and treat fairly. So that means we have to understand labor laws. It

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means we have to understand trends in the grocery industry, all these things. Some people are here

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on purpose because they love grocery and some people are here by accident because they love the

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cooperative model and food is a fundamental human right. The board of directors kind of helps to

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educate the owners. So for owners, we have the e-newsletter, we have owner forums, we have materials

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inside the store that tell you everything from, you know, the renovation summary to co-op deals,

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I would say is educational. We have a lot of information about different farming techniques

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and what the differences are between those. We try to promote other cooperatives to owners.

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I just was thinking about this as we were first sitting down and chatting before.

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The bulletin board for me is like a really big way that we educate all of our owners because

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we're educating them about the community around them and so it's this reflection, it's this mirror.

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You walk into this store, you feel that you are a certain way and have certain values and you look

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at the bulletin board and you're like, oh, I can take a class or I should offer, I want to offer

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a class. I have something to bring to this community or like someone's looking for a resource and I

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can help them out with that and that just kind of continues to cement this cooperative economy

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that's also a community. I would also say the tabling events that we've been doing in front

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of the store are a great opportunity for our owners to come by and get some information.

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We've got handouts and our brains are full of it. You want to talk to us? We would love to talk to

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you. We generally do that on Fridays. Also, board meetings. I mean, you're watching your

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elected representatives make decisions for the co-op. In all of those minutes, once they get

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approved or online, back to what, like 2007? It's spotty. It gets really regular around 2012.

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But that's a whole history and education of how we got here, what the decisions were made and

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who was there? Who was at these meetings? It's so interesting. I love reading old minutes.

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Yeah, and you're like, wait a second. I had no idea that person was on the board.

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And then educating the wider community. That for me is that's kind of how everything gets built up

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and out because it's important for us to tell people who we are and how we're doing and what's

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different about the cooperative model. Because it's like you can sit down with somebody and say,

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you know, we have 5,000 people who are invested in this business. Almost 600 of them are fully

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vested, which means they've paid their $200. That's a choice and that shows a lot of strength.

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We can tell them that we are a $12 million business. But if we don't tell them about the

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principles and values that drive us, then they just think we're another business with our doors

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open or another business that's renovating to make the most money. And it's like, oh, we're

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actually renovating to serve our community. That's our bottom line. And so that's a huge part of,

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you know, when we try to build press releases or brochures or even like during the groundbreaking,

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the news folks were coming. I was like, hey, I want you to hear this successful story that's

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going to grab people to read this. And like, I want to tell you what a co-op is. I want to tell you

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what we're doing and why it's different. Because this is something that is supposed to raise all

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ships, like a rising tide raises all ships. Like that's what we're doing here. We don't want to

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leave people behind. We want to bring people along. Shout out to rising tide. Hey, all those co-ops up

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and down the main coast. Yep. The education and training is important for moving our co-op forward.

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And I just had thought to myself when the pandemic hit, how everybody had to learn new technologies.

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And those helped our business keep running and helped us be successful. It helped our board when

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we went to fully zoom meetings. And that was a very new thing that had never happened before.

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But everybody worked together and figured it out. We didn't miss a regularly scheduled board

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meeting, which I think was really cool. There's a laundry list of technologies that we've implemented

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in the store to make sure that things keep going. And those are going to help perpetuate the store

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into the future. So that's P5. Again, one of our favorite principles. There's also been a lot going

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on the store recently with the renovation. Do you want to give us a quick update? Sure. It's been a

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little loud as we have been like moving into the sales floor demolition. We've already done a lot

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of demolition in the store. It's mostly been in the basement. So if people haven't really been able

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to tell, is it loud? Yeah, but it's a whole floor away. Is it stinky? Yeah, but it's a whole floor

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away. And now it's happening literally all around us. We are demoing the old customer bathrooms,

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because that's going to be store space. We're rebuilding the new customer bathrooms in old

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offices. We're taking down walls. We're taking down single pane glass that leaked water and

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leaked heat and leaked air conditioning, but also made for beautiful natural light, which we're keeping.

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And the huge thing that we're doing now is like tying those new parts of the building to the

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existing parts of the building. So structurally, those buildings can't be separate. They have to

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be together. And so that's really the big push right now. When I think about how that impacts

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people, if you're sensitive to sound or you're sensitive to non harmful smells, it's probably

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going to be a hard time for you to be in the store during the week. They have very regular,

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hour long lunches, our construction worker buddies. So come in at 12, it's quiet. It's real nice.

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Come in after 430, between 430 and eight, the walls will still be there and the construction

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equipment will still be there, but the sounds are not there. Right. And same thing for the weekends,

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our construction workers don't work on the weekends. And so they button everything up and

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leave it nice as they can. And then we have the whole weekend. So it's pretty undisturbed then.

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And there's shop for me. So you can put an order in online. Someone will shop it in the store for

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you and then bring it out to your car, which is pretty awesome. We're slowly taking all of the

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ceiling tiles down. And if you love behind the scenes things like I do, like go look up at the

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ceiling. Well, we've been seeing it for a while with all the leaks. That's true. But this is

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definitely more exciting. Yeah. You're like wires and pipes and ducks. It's crazy. And so all of that,

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the drop ceiling will be going away and then they will remove some of the stuff that allowed for

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the drop ceiling to be there. And then they are either going to rerun or tidy up the wires and

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pipes and ducting in the ceiling. And so it will have that sort of like more lofted feel to it,

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which I think just a little industrial. It's also like a little more clean. Yeah. Love a drop

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ceiling in some situations, but lots of stuff can build up in there if you're not careful.

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And then when your roof leaks, then all that stuff comes down. So fun. Yeah. I guess the other

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thing I would say too, because we're moving stuff around, if someone's wearing a name tag or they

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sort of look like they work there, just ask them a question and find out where something is because

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the bananas are in a new place. The bread. The bread. We still have takeaway food from prepared

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foods, but it's hidden behind this little plywood wall. And the fermented foods are now in the dairy

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cooler. Yeah. So that's kind of a big change. Yeah. And juices over there too. If you ask,

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people will be happy to show you. I think, and we're also doing like a one-way flow. So when

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you come in to the store, if you go directly to the left, that's going to take you into the store

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instead of cutting in front of the registers. So we're trying to have a one-way flow just because

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it's tight in there. We know we can make it work. And if we all are able to be adaptable to the

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signs and stickers, that would be a great thing. Yeah. So thank you for bearing with us. We know

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it's an inconvenience. We're really excited to see this next phase and push through. I've been able

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to go over into the side of the store that's blocked off and they have taken the floor out.

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They've taken any walk-ins, all the kitchen equipment, everything is out of there. And

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they're starting to bring it back to the bare bones so they can build it back the way that it's

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going to be. And the store looks amazing. I think we're all like a little worried looking

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underneath everything that the store was going to look, I don't know, a little rundown. But it's

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in really good shape. The walls are in good shape. The floors are in good shape. And it's really a

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nice blank canvas to apply this really well-designed store layout. We're going to just have this well

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designed kitchen and this beautiful bright cafe space. There's so much potential right now.

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That's really exciting. It looks really great. That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah. If you look online,

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our general manager Doug does a video every week to show you the most up-to-date aspects of the

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renovation art. So if you also would like to see the side of the store that's being renovated,

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there's a video online. You can find them on Instagram or on YouTube. If you sign up for our

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eNews at the bottom of our homepage, you can see the videos through the eNews. Do you always reach

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out to us at ownership at bellfast.coop, if you have any questions. Yeah. And we'll try to answer

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them here for you. All right. And also write you back. Also become fully vested, which means that

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you've invested your $200 equity payment in the store. I know. I was going to say that we did send

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out an annual appeal letter for equity investment and whether or not they were acted upon, that is

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another source of information. Thank you for everyone who has acted on that. It's been really

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exciting for us in our office. Yeah. And thanks to Vic and everybody at WBFY. Couldn't do this without

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you guys. You make us sound awesome. So thank you. All right, everyone. Have a good one.

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You have been listening to episode number six of smooth cooperator,

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hosted by Alessandra Martinelli and Emily Berry, produced at the facilities of Bellfast Community

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Radio.