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Hello out there. Welcome to Smooth Co-operators, a Belfast Community Co-op program. I'm Emily.

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I'm Alessandra. And we're here to talk to you today about the cooperative business model and

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the Belfast Community Co-op in particular. Today we've been chatting about fall and delicious foods

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and apple crisp. Alessandra, you want to tell us about your apple crisp? I made the best apple

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crisp the other day. We went apple picking at the Hope Orchard. So we have tons of apples in the

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fridge. And some of them are good eating apples and some of them are less good. And I'm always

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looking for a dessert that feels like it's cheating a little bit. And this feels like it is because

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it has fruit in it. So I got my baking dish, covered the bottom with butter. And then I sliced up the

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apples probably like one, two, maybe four layers thick. Like it was apple heavy. It was so good.

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That sounds great. And I alternated the rose and how I stacked them. Then I mixed together a little

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bit of flour, oat, vanilla, spices, butter, and then like a lot of sugar. A little bit of cane

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sugar. But a lot of this like we sell this really dark brown sugar at the co-op. And I wish I knew

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what it was called. But it is so flavorful and molasses-y. Put it on top, sprinkled it with water,

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put a little extra butter on, and like baked it. And then made homemade whipped cream. I think I'm

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going to make it for breakfast because it feels like it has a little bit of protein, a little bit

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of sugar, and just was filling and like, I don't know. Sounds delicious. Yeah, I'm thinking about it

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right now. I often like to make muffins in the morning. I just use a basic muffin recipe and then

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put in whatever I have. So it's been a lot of blueberry muffins recently because we have blueberries

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in the freezer. But now that it's fall, it's apple muffin season. And I just love them so much.

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Do you cube them up or do you slice them? Mostly chunks. Okay. So it's a little bit of,

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it's very random. The shapes are random. And I don't know how I would store this like if I did

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my own pumpkin. But I love a pumpkin muffin. Oh my gosh. Yes. Especially with like nuts and

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chocolate and butter and pumpkin. But would you like prepare your own pumpkin puree and keep it

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in the fridge? Because I always use a can. Yeah. Growing up, my mom and I would boil or steam the

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pumpkin or squash to make it soft. And then we'd scoop it out. And then we would put it in containers

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and put them in the freezer. Like two cups at a time. So then when you were using a recipe,

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you could go to it. You saw it out. Yeah. Have you ever made a stuffed pumpkin? I have. Did we

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make stuffed pumpkins together? We might have. With like the bread and the cheese and the onions.

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Nope. And peppers. Okay. Well, and sausage. There's a stuffed pumpkin recipe out there

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where you like carve out the middle of the pumpkin. And then you put in bread and cheese and onions.

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And like more cheese and eggs and sausage. And then you bake it. It's amazing. That's so good.

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And then you cut it. So you're eating the pumpkin with the inside. Yeah. So mine, I've done a baked

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pumpkin with like wild rice and cranberry walnuts and sausage. And then again, you eat it with

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the pumpkin. Your recipe seems to be missing cheese. It is. I think your recipe needs a little

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more cheese in it. I think I would agree. Oh my gosh. We love food. Did we come to this podcast

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a little bit hungry? We might have. I think it might be a little hungry. But we actually came

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today to talk about a few other things, particularly principle six, which is the principle we're on.

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But before we get to that, we wanted to talk about things that are really exciting at the

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co-op right now. Alessandra, what are you so excited about at the co-op right now? So starting at

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6am on Monday, October, we'll say 16th. I'm pretty sure that's right. Common sense 2024 voting started.

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So at 6am, everybody at the co-op who has a valid email address got a ballot and voting started.

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And since then, 430 people have voted to determine who gets the roundup donation for next year.

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And there's a lot of super cool organizations on there. If you didn't get a ballot, you can email

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info at bellfest.coop and I will hook you up with all of your ballot information. If you didn't get

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a ballot, just go search simply voting in your inbox and you can vote that way. Voting's open

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till October 30th. And then I will spend some time tabulating the votes and we'll get ready for an

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announcement because the donations have been enormous. They have. $7,000 is an enormous amount

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of money for a small organization that literally spends $25,000 a year. Very impressive. And all

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of those organizations work to make our community better and that's what we're trying to do. We're

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trying to work to make our community better. So just feels like this really great relationship

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that we have going on and the owners choose the organizations that are the most dear to them.

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And I think that is one reason why the program is so successful. It's sort of tremendously

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excited about common sense. Can we call it the most wonderful time of the year? The most wonderful

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time of the year. What are you excited about at the co-op Emily? Oh my goodness. We talked about

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before in this show that September is our ownership month. In September we decided to focus on

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talking to people about equity and doing an equity drive. At the end of August we had 451

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fully vested owners. Currently, so right now mid-October, we have 619 fully vested owners.

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That's amazing. It is an incredible boost in our numbers. Thank you to everyone who responded,

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asked questions, decided that they wanted to support the co-op in this way. It has been

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heartwarming to know that our community is behind us. Well we talk about the monetary

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investment but also the emotional investment in this business and in this community. And I think

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when people read our appeal letter to say like, hey, this is why becoming fully vested is really

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great for the co-op. Part of they're doing that because it's like monetarily successful for the

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co-op. But the other part of them, they're doing it because they're emotionally invested in this

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community and in this business and they're like, well what do you need to thrive? Great. I'll do

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what I can to help. That speaks volumes about why this business exists and why we want to make sure

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that everybody can get food and have food access and a good job. Yes. Okay, quiz time. Pop quiz.

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It's open note folks. Alessandra. Some people know the cooperative principles off the top

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of their heads and some people are Alessandra and have to read them off their phone or Emily's list.

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Would you mind going through the cooperative principles that we have covered thus far?

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I would love to. I love these cooperative principles that bind all cooperative businesses together.

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The first one, you've got voluntary and open membership. The second principle is democratic

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member control. The third is member economic participation. The fourth is autonomy and

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independence. And last month, we visited the fifth cooperative principle, which is education,

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training and information. This month, we're focused on the sixth cooperative principle,

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which is cooperation among cooperatives. Yeah. Emily, will you define that fun one for us?

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Cooperatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement

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by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.

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So what does that mean in like lay people's terms? Cooperatives work with other cooperatives

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for the benefit of humanity. What's really fun about principle six is that it also speaks to

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one of the cooperative values, solidarity cooperatives are better when they're working together.

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When they work together, they can pool their resources to gain expertise. They can scale.

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They have a support structure. They can be more sustainable. They can have a bigger impact,

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especially they can share costs and resources, which is huge and something that our co-op

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participates in through various organizations such as NCG and Caluminate. And we're going to

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go over those in a second. It's cool because I think every time I've gone to like a workshop or

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a conference that was focused on cooperatives, the focus isn't on ourselves as competition.

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The focus is on collaboration. The focus is on sharing something that you've done that was

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successful, asking for help when something is hard, bringing to light all of these organizations

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that we've learned to use as resources that are also cooperatives and figuring out how to

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network with those people so that we can all do better. All cooperatives want other cooperatives

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to do better. Something that's really cool that happens in our state every year is the main cooperative

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business alliance. They put on a conference called the P6 conference. It brings together people from

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all different types of cooperatives within the state to talk about certain aspects of cooperatives.

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It's really exciting. It happens in April each year. I know Alessandra has attended multiple

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times. Probably, I don't know, maybe five or six. The Belfast Community Co-op is always a sponsor

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and we try to send people. Most of the time they pick a space that they think is central. So

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it's happened in Augusta a lot. A couple of years ago it happened in Belfast, which was really

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amazing. So a lot of people got to go to that one. It happened down in Rockland when Rock City was

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transitioning from a sole ownership business to a worker cooperative business. In this past year.

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It happened in Lewiston because there's a lot of cooperative activity going on out there.

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Housing co-ops, grower co-ops, farmer co-ops, as well as food co-ops. That's really fun.

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Agriculture in the Somali communities. So we should talk about NCG, which is a huge resource for us.

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NCG is the National Cooperative Grocers. Remember when it was NCGA? It was so hard for me to drop

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that A. National Cooperative Grocers Association. It's like, no, just National Cooperative Grocers.

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So this is a story that I tell in orientation, which is why I jumped in there. I tell this story.

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In the 90s, a lot of small food co-ops were putting in their orders to the big distributors

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and their orders were getting dropped because they weren't big enough. And so all these food

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co-ops called each other up and they do the thing where they're like, I'm having some trouble.

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Do you think you can help me? And the other food co-ops were like, oh, we can't help you because

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that we're having the exact same problem. So all these co-op got together and said, maybe we can

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form a larger co-op and we will file our orders through this larger co-op. And then they can't

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turn us down because our order will be big enough. And National Cooperative Grocers was born.

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So they helped to coordinate bulk ordering through all of the co-ops. And that has sort of down the

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line allowed the co-ops to get better deals on bulk buying. And then all of those sales and deals

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and cost savings can be passed down to the shopper. Even beyond that, NCG and UNFI have come together

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to create basically a store line. It's called Field Day. It's like, if you ever go into Haniford

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or Walgreens and you see there like Haniford and Walgreens branded products, we have that too.

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It's just called Field Day. And it's just like whatever you would call the generic brand. And

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we go through a lot of different steps as well as other co-ops go through the same steps to keep

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those products at a certain price so that those products can continue to be accessible staples

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in all of our stores. And then lastly about National Cooperative Grocers is when you're a co-op,

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you exist to serve your owners or your members. So if your owners and members are having a specific

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difficulty, the Cooperative Business Model calls you to help fill that need. And so a lot of startup

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co-ops and a lot of existing co-ops were having a lot of need with designing and remodeling their

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stores because they're not a typical grocery store, but you do also have to like know about

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grocery to build a grocery store. And so the NCG developed this whole development cooperative

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aspect to their business to help more co-ops exist and to like function like a good business.

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So they help to put together design plans, market studies, they can go store by store,

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they can go department by department, some people specialize in produce and they come in and they're

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like, oh my goodness, your beans are too close to your bananas. People like their beans and

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bananas separate. They help people just like be really good at being grocers. Yeah, that was a need.

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We've had department specific consultants come in from NCG. Recently we did have someone in the

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produce section. Super friendly and awesome. So glad that he came. But we've had somebody come and

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talk to us about diversity, equity, and inclusion. That was really great. They also hold department

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specific conferences. Department managers can go to these conferences where there are other

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like minded department managers from other co-ops and they can share ideas and resources and training

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and it's just an incredible focus on training, not even just department managers, but general

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managers. So our general manager has to four times a year attend meetings where the focus is on the

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cooperative business. Yes. How are things doing? What are the trends? What can you learn? How can

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you be a better manager? What are other people doing that's absolutely crazy but it works?

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What are other people doing that's absolutely crazy and maybe we should avoid it and stop doing it?

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But the focus is on training and development. We do get a lot of benefits for being part of NCG.

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Good turn just joined. Co-ops up and down the main coast. Portland food co-op in Portland.

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Rising tide food co-op in Dameroscota. Good turn food co-op in Rockland. Belfast community co-op

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in Belfast and Blue Hill co-op in Blue Hill. All of us are members of NCG. So who else? Maybe

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Caluminate next. Caluminate. Everybody used to have a different name. They used to be called this back

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in my day. Caluminate used to be CDS Consulting. They changed their name to Caluminate. It's a

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cooperative of consultants. So these are people who have expertise in different areas of the

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cooperative business. So it could be board governance. It could be operations. It could be finance.

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There's just a wide range. IT. I'm not thinking of everything obviously, but there's a very long

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list. They do things such as trainings. They have a huge amount of trainings and it's been

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really great because they used to do all of their trainings in person. But because of the COVID pandemic

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everybody has changed the way that they are operating and now they provide a multitude of

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online trainings. So they're so much more accessible. More people can join. More people can join.

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It's more flexible. Especially for us living in Maine. We don't have to travel out of state to go

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to a training. They used to try to do some place that was central to a lot of co-ops and that's never

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Belfast, unfortunately. Yeah. Sometimes we would partner with some of the other coastal co-ops here

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to have trainings. But again, then there's still logistics and everybody agreeing on a time and

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when you can join a training because it's offered three different times in one week or it's pre-recorded.

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Yeah. You can just reach a lot of people. And it's funny because CDS Consulting was Cooperative

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Development Services and so they focused on co-ops. They came from co-ops. They were marketing

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managers, board presidents, general managers, cashiers. They were everybody from co-ops and

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they came together to support co-ops. And they are a co-op. And then they kind of decided at some

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point in time that they could use the tools and the principles and the values that they were using

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to support co-ops and support other businesses in the same way that co-ops need support, other

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small businesses need support. And they thought that they were really well outfitted to bring the

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cooperative model even further into their consulting business, which is super cool because it's a

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little bit, it's all out front and forward, but it is a little bit of an unusual way to reach some

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of those businesses because the cooperative model again isn't taught in schools. It's this thing

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that it's like, it's a little bit radical when you bring it out into the world because it's about

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collaboration and cooperation and not competition. It's about running a great business and supporting

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all those other great businesses around you. Not only do they do trainings, but they also have

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specific consulting hours. So if you have an issue, like we just did our capital campaign,

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I believe we used a consultant from Columinate as well as a consultant from NCG. So having those

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resources, having those people with expertise that you can talk to is invaluable.

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And they have such an incredible reading library. If you're like, oh, I've just always wanted to

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know about board finance or about, you know, how to be an HR person in the cooperative world and

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all those things are there. Startup co-ops, all of those articles are there and are pretty wide

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ranging and pretty comprehensive. Cooperative main business alliance is another way that we can show

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there's cooperation among cooperatives in Maine. A bunch of, if not all, of the cooperative businesses

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in Maine belong to the cooperative main business alliance. We support each other with

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advertising. We support each other through funding and education for co-op month this month. Yeah,

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October is co-op month. They're doing webinars that are about finance, housing co-ops, our general

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managers taking part in one that's about expansion and how to get funding for those expansion

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projects and then also how to like continue to review the funding in a finance way afterwards.

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And cooperative main business alliance puts on the principal six conference every year. And that's

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really important because that's a place for producer, consumer, grower, worker, housing,

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childcare, co-ops all to come together and to share their successes and hopefully try to spread

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that information out into the world. And one thing before we move on to anything else that

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cooperative main business alliance is really great at doing is legislation work. So they work with

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lobbyists, I guess. We think like maybe lobbyists are bad, but in this case if it's cooperatives,

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maybe they're good. I don't know. They work with representatives from the state of Maine to get

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bills put into play that favor the cooperative business model. So that means that if you are a

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sole proprietor business and you want to sell your business, you're retiring, you haven't found a

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good buyer, or somebody you found can't afford the business, but you know that they would be great

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at running it. You can call cooperative main business alliance and they will work with you

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to transition your business from a sole proprietorship to a worker owned co-op. So that happened

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the most recently that I can think of with Liberty Graphics. Oh yeah. And so that was a sole proprietor

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ownership for like, I don't know, 30 plus years, but a lot of the workers that work there have

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are dedicated and have worked there for a long time. So they worked with cooperative main business

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alliance to build bylaws, to build a board, to build a governance structure, to build a structure

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of accountability and empowerment so that they could take over the business. And that's what

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they've done. They are expanding and they are renovating their workspace. They have new storefronts.

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They're making new shirts all the time still. And they're like really continuing this business

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that was built and run by one person for a very long time who was very successful in order to

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maintain the integrity of the business. He felt like selling it to the workers was the only way

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to do that because somebody else would swoop in and just see dollar signs and just do anything to

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make the most money. And he knew that's not the legacy he wanted to leave behind with his business.

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Such a cool story. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. And because obviously workers have to run a business that

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makes money, but it's balanced with the accountability to the community and the environment that he

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always was working for. We should also talk about CCMA, which is the Consumer Cooperative

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Management Association. They do a big conference once a year. It's always in June. This June 2024,

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it's going to be in Portland, Maine. Someone in our office looked it up yesterday. It's the last

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day in May. Yeah. May 31st, which is a Friday to June 2nd, which is Sunday. Great. It's pretty

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amazing. It's going to be a fun party time down in Portland celebrating cooperatives. Oh my goodness.

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I went to CCMA once in Minneapolis and just the energy that is developed there and the excitement

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because you hear what all these other people are doing in their cooperative to like make the world

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better. And then you and then like, well, what goes on for you when you share your story? You're

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so used to hearing your own story that it sounds normal and they hear it for the first time and

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they're like, oh my gosh, that's so cool. That's what you're doing. And you're like, oh yeah,

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we're all doing this thing together. We are all cooperating together for our community so that

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they're better. Yeah. As you might be able to tell, Al Sondra and I are pretty pumped about

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principle six. It's one of, I mean, basically when you talk about cooperative principles

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amongst the cooperative community, P six is like what always comes up because it's just really great.

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It's so beneficial. Yeah. I'm wearing a Liberty Graphics shirt right now. But we wanted to talk

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to you about a few other things today too. So now we're reaching the end of October. October has been

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it's National Co-op Month. It's been so fun to talk to people about it. I just wanted to highlight

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really quickly the fact that we sell products in our store from other co-ops and their products

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that you probably purchase. Equal exchange is a big one. They do coffee and chocolate,

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amongst other things, but we do love their chocolate. They're a cooperative and I'm just

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going to go through the list. List them up. Okay. Organic Valley. Cheese, butter, milk. I just love

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it. It's great. Florida Natural. Orange juice. Yep. Blue Diamond Growers. Those crackers,

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those salty crackers. Rio Hanna. They do wine and olive oil. They make an excellent Malbec if

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that's your taste. Frontier Co-op. The spices and bulk herbs. Rock City Coffee. That's my favorite.

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Dean's Beans. Also delicious because it's coffee. Real pickles. I'm going to comment on all these

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now because I love pickles. Yeah. Aracacia. Not sure what that is. Essential oils. Oh, they're

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great. Divine Chocolate. Again, chocolate. Yes, please. Organic Prairie. Yeah, pretty sure that's

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beef. And Cabot Creamery. African Market Baskets. Personal favorite. I have so many. I use them

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all over the house. They're so useful. Tillamook. That's my kid's favorite ice cream. That's great.

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Port Clyde Fresh Ketch. Delicious seafood. Yeah. Very local. Cooperatively caught. And Tooties Tempeh.

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That's a company that's in Bittiford. Yeah. If you haven't tried Tempeh, you should. They have

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so many recipes on their website because I feel like I was a little overwhelmed by cooking Tempeh

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for the first time. Yeah. But their recipes are easy to follow and it's all about the seasoning,

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making things delicious, get that healthy protein. I really enjoy Tempeh. Yeah. We've got a bunch of

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things that are happening in the store. But I just want to say one cheesy thing where it's like

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October is Co-op Month and we love to talk about co-ops. But hopefully that list goes to show that

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we celebrate co-ops all year long. Yeah. Our emphasis is on working with other co-ops,

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grower co-ops, worker co-ops, you name it. Those are the business structures and the business

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practices that we want to perpetuate because we know that they are making their communities better

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and we want to support them in that effort. So yeah, Co-op Month. Amen. Slash all year long.

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Stuff that's happening in the store. Okay. So renovation in particular. We are calling the

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two new structures that you can see on the outside of the store. We call them at the store the bump

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outs. So those are the new spaces that we are designing. One of the spaces is for shop for me

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and one of the spaces is for the cafe seating area. So the bump outs are framed. We're starting

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to put up the walls in the shop for me bump out. Very soon you will get an incredible behind the

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scenes view of what's going on in the store because one of the entrances will be through the cafe

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bump out. We are going to be re-grading, redesigning and repouring a curb concrete slab in the front

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of the store. This will serve as the entrance to the store. This will also serve as our outdoor

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patio space. We will have a curb for the first time folks, which means that when you're driving a car

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you cannot drive it just right up to the glass, which I feel so great about. You'll be stopped

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by a huge improvement. By a big chunk of granite and concrete. So just follow the signs. We're

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going to work really, really, really hard to make sure that everything is well labeled,

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to make sure every worker in the store is well informed. And if you just take a deep breath

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and go slow to find your parking spot, we promise we will help you get inside the store

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and find what you need. And hopefully you will enjoy the behind the scenes views. And as you may

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be experiencing, there's going to be the parking lot disruption. It means that going in through

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the Pendleton Street entrance is going to be your best bet. That's that one-way street in between

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our parking lot and the parking lot of the Masonic building. And again, there will be a sign there.

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It does mean that deliveries on Fridays will impact the parking lot. Again, we work with a

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really great team who they all know this is coming. They're all making plans to make sure that

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everybody is as safe as possible, that the parking lot is as clear as possible. But we just ask

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you to be patient. We're really thankful for your patience. Once the concrete is poured, it's going

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to look, it's going to be pretty exciting, I think. Yeah. All of these little things, the bump out and

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the concrete, there are all these sort of little visions of what the store is going to feel like

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when we're done with it. That's awesome. If you are interested in watching our renovation videos

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that Doug and Alessandra put up, please check out our YouTube page. You can go to YouTube and search

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Belfast Community Co-op and they're there generally in the shorts section and they are just lovely.

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I've created a whole playlist that's called like renovation weekly updates or something

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and it starts with week two. So you can just watch, maybe it's 15 minutes at this time.

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Yeah, that's so fun. And just watch the whole progression of the store change. Yeah. So something

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else that's happening. Unfortunately, this event will have passed by the time you're hearing it,

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but the board is putting on owner forums again. It's something that we are that they had done in

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the past, but because of the pandemic that got disrupted. They're really excited about doing

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in-person events again. So if you have questions about the renovation, unfortunately, again,

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you'll be hearing this too late. But hopefully you've seen it in the store and through our E news

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that there is an owner forum happening that is going to focus on that. And I only bring it up

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because I want everyone to be aware that this is just the beginning. The board is excited about

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having these in-person things. There should be more forum events coming in the future. So stay

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tuned. Well, thanks Emily. I guess we're going to wrap it up here. Yeah. Thanks everybody. I hope you

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enjoyed learning about principle six. Again, one of our favorites. Yeah. Goodbye, cooperation nation.

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Bye. Thank you. You have been listening to episode number seven of smooth cooperators

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

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Radio.