Hey, Cooperation Nation. I'm Emily. I'm Alessandra. And this is Smooth Co-operators, a Belfast
Community Co-op program. And we are here to talk to you about cooperatives and particularly
the Belfast Community Co-op. Hey. So happy to be here. Falls right around the corner,
slash feels like right now. September is a month that brings all kinds of new things
to our lives, slash again old things, like school. Oh, school. Oh my gosh, it's so
busy. Kids moving them around, place to place, watching sports, making things for bake sales.
Mothering. That's what we do. Mothering. What else we do? Co-operatives. So Alessandra,
with Fall upon us, what's one of your favorite things to do? I think what's crazy for me
is when the light starts to change, it like registers inside my body in a different way.
And I look around and it feels so familiar in a way that like other seasons feel familiar,
but Fall is particularly noticeable. It just reminds me of like all the times I've seen
the leaves change, all the apples I've tasted, all the pumpkins, all of the sort of like,
the light feels more brilliant. In summer, it's like high, it's hot, it's really bright,
but it's sort of this like jewel toned. Yeah. And so in September, it's like the sun is right
in your eyes again. And it's just this golden amazingness. And it makes me think of the common
ground fare. It makes me think of just like waking up early and the fields are misty and you're like
going to learn about homesteading and food and watch the sheep dogs run around and pet big animals
and eat great food. Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah. I agree with all of that wholeheartedly. It sounds just
delightful. Yeah. I was thinking this morning as I was walking my dogs how nice it would be to go
kayaking. It's one of my favorite things to do. And in the summer, you're just out on the water
with the sun like burning down on you. But this time of year, so nice. Yeah, you get to watch
the leaves like reflect in the water. Yeah, maybe scare up some ducks. On the path of immigration.
Oh, I love it so much. So Emily, pop quiz. We've been talking about the cooperative principles
in order. And I was wondering if you remembered what principles one through four are. I do.
Principle one is voluntary and open membership. Principle two is member democratic control.
Principle three is member economic participation. Principle four is autonomy and independence.
And guess what we're going to talk about today? What are we going to talk about today?
Principle five. And that is education, training and information. I've heard of that one before.
I believe the definition for that is that cooperatives provide education and training for
their members, elected representatives, managers and employees, so they can contribute effectively
to the development of their cooperatives. They inform the general public, particularly young
people and opinion leaders about the nature and benefits of cooperation. That's the definition
from the International Cooperative Alliance. Yeah, this is one of our favorite principles
because it directly affects what we do in our workplace. Alessandra is the community outreach
coordinator, which means talking to the people in the community about the co-op and educating them
is one of her focuses. And Emily is the ownership coordinator. And so reaching out and talking to
owners about this business that they co-own is the part of your everyday workflow. It really is.
So something that's also really interesting, all of these principles that we talk about,
they date back to the Rochdale pioneers, which we touched on in earlier episodes.
They're the people that really started the cooperative movement. There are plenty of
co-ops that had been started prior to the Rochdale pioneers, and many of them had not succeeded.
But they took what they had learned from previous businesses and created their own principles
and implemented things that they thought would make them be successful. I believe it has worked
from 1844 onward. We have had successful cooperatives. So something that they really
valued was education. In the 1840s, 1850s, there were laws talking about how people who were
not educated could not vote and therefore could not participate. They really wanted to make sure
that the people that they had in their ranks, part of their cooperatives, had as much power as they
could. And so educating them, they started reading rooms, they started libraries, they started printing
presses, they started collecting funds to make all of these happen within each cooperative,
which is just amazing. That's not something that has carried forward today necessarily,
but I think it really helped people when the movement was beginning.
Yeah, it seems like the time period that we're talking about the or the mid to late 1800s,
education was reserved for people who were privileged. Absolutely. They decided that if
they were all going to co-own this business together, everybody needed to be educated enough
to run the business. In some of their early publications, it's required that a percentage
of their profits should be allocated to education. So not only were they using their time to educate
the co-owners of their business, but they were using their money to continue to educate people because
just like any business, things change. And so you have to continually educate the people who are in
the business, whether they're owners or consumers or managers, because everything is going to be
changing and you have to be able to make decisions based on those changes. And if you're not paying
attention or being educated about them, then those decisions won't be the best decisions for the
business. Yeah, it can affect the fate of the business. Yeah. I was reading something recently,
cooperative businesses aren't run by rules and rulings. They're run by principles and values.
And so it's like when we say we want them, that they have to educate people so that the business
does well. I think our American default is like, yeah, the business has to do well to like make
this endless money. But because the cooperative business structure is based on the principles and
the values of cooperative business, the reason we want the business to do well is to perpetuate
those principles and values, which is strength and community and education and autonomy and diversity.
And like all of those things are really the end product of a good cooperative business.
Yeah. And so how have we taken that and made it into the principle that we have today? And specifically,
like what are we doing at the Belfast Community Co-op to make sure that we are abiding by principle
five? When we think about who we're educating and how and why, if we start with workers, we have to
educate workers, we have to educate the managers, we have to educate the board of directors, we have
to educate the owners, and then we're also committed to educating the community. So if we start with
workers, we have annual trainings, we have annual staff meetings, we have an internal bulletin board
where we send out interesting information like, hey, did you want to know how your cooperative
supports the community? And we also have required information like, hey, this is for safety or this
is for our internal standards. We also have educational credit program where people who are
workers can attend meetings or trainings or read books or watch documentaries and then they sort
of submit that time and they can get a certain amount of educational credits, which is essentially
like paid time off, earning that through participation in the cooperative business.
Yeah. And what's pretty cool is we actually have a little staff library,
which kind of is a nod back to the cooperative reading rooms. Absolutely. During COVID where
we were all just like a little more separated or we were not encouraged to touch other things that
other people were touching, I think that fell by the wayside. Now with the renovation, we don't have
the dedicated space for it in the basement like we used to, but that's definitely something that
will come back in the renovated space when we have a dedicated break room for staff. There's all
kinds of posters and stuff that for the labor department we have to put up and that's usually
where this optional reading comes in. So I do the sort of initial orientation and walk through
with all of our new workers and really that's just like storytelling about where we came from,
what the principles and values are and where we're going as a cooperative.
I love bumping into you when you're doing your orientation and talking to the new workers.
Yeah. It's always fun to hear what they have to say. Yeah. Something else that's worker specific
is we are part of NCG, which is a cooperative of cooperatives and they do put on conferences that
are department specific so we can send our department leaders to those, bring ideas back
to do collaborations with other department leaders from other co-ops, gathering ideas and
best practices, which I think is really cool and invaluable. I think the co-ops are super lucky
to be all of us be able to rest on these principles and values that are common for us.
It means that a lot of times we come to the table with our hardships and with our problems
looking for support from other businesses that are cooperative businesses because it's a little
bit unique, but it means that we are like humble and vulnerable and share the things that haven't
worked for us. A lot of times it seems like that's just as educational for other co-ops
as it is to share what it was, like how we're thriving. There's a lot of talking about what
didn't work, what we would do differently. I know that being on the capital campaign team,
we talked to other co-ops that did capital campaigns and they were like, hey, maybe don't do this.
We made this mistake. We don't walk away from that thinking like, oh, that other business
made a mistake. We walk away from that thinking like, well, I'm so thankful that they shared
that information with us and we don't look at mistakes as weaknesses. We look at mistakes as
opportunities to learn and share and that feels really huge. Another thing that NCG
and just cooperatives in general do for their workers is they find people, co-ops find people,
who are curious and dedicated and interested and we say, oh, you didn't realize that you were
going to have a lifetime career in grocery? That's okay. We can train you. You don't understand
finances. Sometimes it's really hard. We have all of these resources. Oh, you have no idea what a
margin is? Hey, let me tell you. Not sure how to manage people? Come to this conference and we're
going to make you the best HR manager we possibly can. There's all of this learned experience that's
valued rather than a degree or previous experience. We're like, oh, are you a decent person? Okay,
we're going to invest in you and we want you to stay here and carry on this cooperative tradition.
I think that that's pretty unique in terms of sectors. There's always continuing education.
There's always credits or classes that you can take and I think that the co-op has really honed
in on how to keep the workers in the cooperative sector or like, hey, you didn't know you wanted
to be a general manager. We can train you for that. It's pretty amazing. That's how we train
workers and all of those extended trainings that I was just talking about. It's sort of how we train
managers and there are all of these different educational expectations for managers and a
lot of that stuff comes from knowing this particular cooperative business and this particular
cooperative community really well, but it also means humming the best at what it is that you're
doing. If you're buying groceries, if you're keeping the store safe, there's a pretty high
expectation for internal readiness, especially through our renovation process, especially with
other co-ops through any of their growth. There's a lot of focus on that aspect, which is really
all about education and training and keeping people. Yeah, something that's exciting that is
relatively new. There are now programs where you can get a degree in cooperative management.
So this is something that is, we've talked about before, how co-ops are not taught in business
schools or sorry, the cooperative model is not taught in business schools, but we are lucky enough
to be close to Nova Scotia. What's in Nova Scotia? Oh, just a Scotia way. St. Mary's University.
They have a business school there, the Sobe School of Business, where they offer part-time online
degrees in cooperative and credit union management. That's amazing. Yeah. And I think they have,
weekend style classes that you can do in person or virtually. I think they have a 10-month program
that's more of like a master's style program. And I think they have a two-year program, which is
more of like a graduate school degree style program. I think the University of Wisconsin also has
cooperative programming, but what's really interesting about their cooperative programming is
it's not we're studying to get a degree in. They study and analyze cooperatives for like whatever
their function is. Like it's very numbers-based and statistics-based. So it's not that you go to
business school to learn how to run a cooperative. The University of Wisconsin just focuses on how
cooperatives do in the economy. And we actually get a lot of data from that. We sure do. And they
put on a really fantastic conference every year. The Consumer Cooperative Management Association
is called CCMA. And we try to send management staff and directors there when possible. You know,
it's really cool. I do. So that is something that takes place in June. Every year, it's nationwide.
There are co-ops all across this country. Board members and general managers and consultants
and distributor heads all get together at this conference. They share their successes and their
failures trying to uplift this cooperative model. And sometimes it's just three time zones away.
And sometimes it's like two connecting flights away. And sometimes it's in Portland, Maine. I know.
Which means that this is as close as we're going to get to our home conference. You hear that
cooperation nation? Mark your calendars. June 2024. Portland, Maine. CCMA. We're just so excited.
It's going to be really cool. And we're going to have a brand new store to show off. And we're
going to have all of our successes and failures through planning and promoting and fundraising.
And then building and shopping while building. We're going to have all of that to share. And
hopefully new co-ops or co-ops that are getting ready to expand or co-ops that didn't know they
wanted to get ready to expand. But they hear from us and they're like, oh, it's our time. We're going
to do it. We all get together in Portland to share that experience. The next aspect of who we
train and educate and why are our board of directors. So the owners get to elect the board.
Nominations are open now if you'd like to apply. Then those people are in charge of running a huge
business, running a $12 million business with 5,000 owners. That sounds like a lot. It does.
It is. So if you don't know how to do it or if you're overwhelmed or you're excited and you just
want to know more, there's so many different ways that the board of directors can and do educate
themselves. What are some of those ways, Emily? Well, every year they have an annual retreat. So
right after the elections, they start scheduling that for late spring, early summer. And basically,
it's everybody on the board. So new and current directors get together and they talk about specific
topics and really dig deep into that. They really enrich themselves. Generally, it's based around
policy governance or the like. One of the primary resources our directors have is a consulting
co-op called Columniate. They offer trainings year round. And since the pandemic, they have put
so many more trainings online. So travel time is cut down. They're very convenient. They can be
super interesting. You get to be in a training with people from all over the country and then
go into breakout rooms and talk with them for a time. Their topics span from facilitation to
financial training, cooperative board leadership. It runs the gamut. It's really wonderful and it's
an amazing resource. Many of their trainings are actually also offered to cooperative workers.
So that's handy for our staff also. Yeah. Being a former board member and a current worker,
I've done a lot of trainings with them. It's just been profound in building my knowledge around
governance, around the cooperative model, around the history of co-ops. Sometimes when you think
you've just seen it all, they have a co-op café, which is where sort of anybody involved in the
co-op community, whether they're owners or board members or managers gets together and they talk
about, I don't know, some kind of like interesting juicy topic that will help cooperatives all across
the country. And the most recent one is called Creative Destruction. And it's like, hey,
we're always trying to do more. As co-ops, we're just trying to do the best we can. And we're like,
let's add this program or let's add, you know, this feature or something. And this particular
co-op café was like, what can you stop doing? Like, what are you doing right now? It's actually
not great. And instead of changing it to do more, you can just maybe not do it at all. And that was
a really fascinating eye opening. So eye opening topic to be like, Oh, this is exercising my brain
in this different direction, and just sort of helped me look at our business model and what we do
in just like a sort of constructive way. That's how the board gets educated. There's also just like
online resources and historical records about our own business that just date back until the
beginning of time. There's so much to know and so much to read. And that is like not the be all end
all that's like the whole point of getting educated away from the boardroom isn't just to like have
that knowledge. It's to bring it with you to the boardroom to make the best decisions on behalf
of the co-op but also to like get to know the people you're making decisions with and for a
little bit better. Because if you can ask questions or look at a topic in a different light, like not
from your own perspective, you get a little bit more clued in on the values of the people around
you and the values of the people you're serving. And sometimes that means like finding out about
what it means to be in the grocery industry. Like here we are, we're like, Oh, we're all
principles and values. And it's like we are and we have to sell food and with a store that stays open
with people who we can pay and treat fairly. So that means we have to understand labor laws. It
means we have to understand trends in the grocery industry, all these things. Some people are here
on purpose because they love grocery and some people are here by accident because they love the
cooperative model and food is a fundamental human right. The board of directors kind of helps to
educate the owners. So for owners, we have the e-newsletter, we have owner forums, we have materials
inside the store that tell you everything from, you know, the renovation summary to co-op deals,
I would say is educational. We have a lot of information about different farming techniques
and what the differences are between those. We try to promote other cooperatives to owners.
I just was thinking about this as we were first sitting down and chatting before.
The bulletin board for me is like a really big way that we educate all of our owners because
we're educating them about the community around them and so it's this reflection, it's this mirror.
You walk into this store, you feel that you are a certain way and have certain values and you look
at the bulletin board and you're like, oh, I can take a class or I should offer, I want to offer
a class. I have something to bring to this community or like someone's looking for a resource and I
can help them out with that and that just kind of continues to cement this cooperative economy
that's also a community. I would also say the tabling events that we've been doing in front
of the store are a great opportunity for our owners to come by and get some information.
We've got handouts and our brains are full of it. You want to talk to us? We would love to talk to
you. We generally do that on Fridays. Also, board meetings. I mean, you're watching your
elected representatives make decisions for the co-op. In all of those minutes, once they get
approved or online, back to what, like 2007? It's spotty. It gets really regular around 2012.
But that's a whole history and education of how we got here, what the decisions were made and
who was there? Who was at these meetings? It's so interesting. I love reading old minutes.
Yeah, and you're like, wait a second. I had no idea that person was on the board.
And then educating the wider community. That for me is that's kind of how everything gets built up
and out because it's important for us to tell people who we are and how we're doing and what's
different about the cooperative model. Because it's like you can sit down with somebody and say,
you know, we have 5,000 people who are invested in this business. Almost 600 of them are fully
vested, which means they've paid their $200. That's a choice and that shows a lot of strength.
We can tell them that we are a $12 million business. But if we don't tell them about the
principles and values that drive us, then they just think we're another business with our doors
open or another business that's renovating to make the most money. And it's like, oh, we're
actually renovating to serve our community. That's our bottom line. And so that's a huge part of,
you know, when we try to build press releases or brochures or even like during the groundbreaking,
the news folks were coming. I was like, hey, I want you to hear this successful story that's
going to grab people to read this. And like, I want to tell you what a co-op is. I want to tell you
what we're doing and why it's different. Because this is something that is supposed to raise all
ships, like a rising tide raises all ships. Like that's what we're doing here. We don't want to
leave people behind. We want to bring people along. Shout out to rising tide. Hey, all those co-ops up
and down the main coast. Yep. The education and training is important for moving our co-op forward.
And I just had thought to myself when the pandemic hit, how everybody had to learn new technologies.
And those helped our business keep running and helped us be successful. It helped our board when
we went to fully zoom meetings. And that was a very new thing that had never happened before.
But everybody worked together and figured it out. We didn't miss a regularly scheduled board
meeting, which I think was really cool. There's a laundry list of technologies that we've implemented
in the store to make sure that things keep going. And those are going to help perpetuate the store
into the future. So that's P5. Again, one of our favorite principles. There's also been a lot going
on the store recently with the renovation. Do you want to give us a quick update? Sure. It's been a
little loud as we have been like moving into the sales floor demolition. We've already done a lot
of demolition in the store. It's mostly been in the basement. So if people haven't really been able
to tell, is it loud? Yeah, but it's a whole floor away. Is it stinky? Yeah, but it's a whole floor
away. And now it's happening literally all around us. We are demoing the old customer bathrooms,
because that's going to be store space. We're rebuilding the new customer bathrooms in old
offices. We're taking down walls. We're taking down single pane glass that leaked water and
leaked heat and leaked air conditioning, but also made for beautiful natural light, which we're keeping.
And the huge thing that we're doing now is like tying those new parts of the building to the
existing parts of the building. So structurally, those buildings can't be separate. They have to
be together. And so that's really the big push right now. When I think about how that impacts
people, if you're sensitive to sound or you're sensitive to non harmful smells, it's probably
going to be a hard time for you to be in the store during the week. They have very regular,
hour long lunches, our construction worker buddies. So come in at 12, it's quiet. It's real nice.
Come in after 430, between 430 and eight, the walls will still be there and the construction
equipment will still be there, but the sounds are not there. Right. And same thing for the weekends,
our construction workers don't work on the weekends. And so they button everything up and
leave it nice as they can. And then we have the whole weekend. So it's pretty undisturbed then.
And there's shop for me. So you can put an order in online. Someone will shop it in the store for
you and then bring it out to your car, which is pretty awesome. We're slowly taking all of the
ceiling tiles down. And if you love behind the scenes things like I do, like go look up at the
ceiling. Well, we've been seeing it for a while with all the leaks. That's true. But this is
definitely more exciting. Yeah. You're like wires and pipes and ducks. It's crazy. And so all of that,
the drop ceiling will be going away and then they will remove some of the stuff that allowed for
the drop ceiling to be there. And then they are either going to rerun or tidy up the wires and
pipes and ducting in the ceiling. And so it will have that sort of like more lofted feel to it,
which I think just a little industrial. It's also like a little more clean. Yeah. Love a drop
ceiling in some situations, but lots of stuff can build up in there if you're not careful.
And then when your roof leaks, then all that stuff comes down. So fun. Yeah. I guess the other
thing I would say too, because we're moving stuff around, if someone's wearing a name tag or they
sort of look like they work there, just ask them a question and find out where something is because
the bananas are in a new place. The bread. The bread. We still have takeaway food from prepared
foods, but it's hidden behind this little plywood wall. And the fermented foods are now in the dairy
cooler. Yeah. So that's kind of a big change. Yeah. And juices over there too. If you ask,
people will be happy to show you. I think, and we're also doing like a one-way flow. So when
you come in to the store, if you go directly to the left, that's going to take you into the store
instead of cutting in front of the registers. So we're trying to have a one-way flow just because
it's tight in there. We know we can make it work. And if we all are able to be adaptable to the
signs and stickers, that would be a great thing. Yeah. So thank you for bearing with us. We know
it's an inconvenience. We're really excited to see this next phase and push through. I've been able
to go over into the side of the store that's blocked off and they have taken the floor out.
They've taken any walk-ins, all the kitchen equipment, everything is out of there. And
they're starting to bring it back to the bare bones so they can build it back the way that it's
going to be. And the store looks amazing. I think we're all like a little worried looking
underneath everything that the store was going to look, I don't know, a little rundown. But it's
in really good shape. The walls are in good shape. The floors are in good shape. And it's really a
nice blank canvas to apply this really well-designed store layout. We're going to just have this well
designed kitchen and this beautiful bright cafe space. There's so much potential right now.
That's really exciting. It looks really great. That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah. If you look online,
our general manager Doug does a video every week to show you the most up-to-date aspects of the
renovation art. So if you also would like to see the side of the store that's being renovated,
there's a video online. You can find them on Instagram or on YouTube. If you sign up for our
eNews at the bottom of our homepage, you can see the videos through the eNews. Do you always reach
out to us at ownership at bellfast.coop, if you have any questions. Yeah. And we'll try to answer
them here for you. All right. And also write you back. Also become fully vested, which means that
you've invested your $200 equity payment in the store. I know. I was going to say that we did send
out an annual appeal letter for equity investment and whether or not they were acted upon, that is
another source of information. Thank you for everyone who has acted on that. It's been really
exciting for us in our office. Yeah. And thanks to Vic and everybody at WBFY. Couldn't do this without
you guys. You make us sound awesome. So thank you. All right, everyone. Have a good one.
You have been listening to episode number six of smooth cooperator,
hosted by Alessandra Martinelli and Emily Berry, produced at the facilities of Bellfast Community
Radio.