Hi, I'm Emily. Hi I'm Alessandra and this is Smooth Cooperators, a Belfast Community
Co-op program. We are here to talk to you about cooperatives and particularly the Belfast
Community Co-op. Today we're going to tell you a little bit about ourselves. We're going
to discuss the cooperative business model. Give you an overview of cooperatives principles
and values as well as a little history of our co-op and a little bit about our current affairs.
All Sandra, why don't you tell me about how you came to the co-op and what it means to you?
Well, we're back in 2011 and I moved to Belfast and immediately started to shop at the co-op
because I was looking for local food, organic food and whole foods and I could buy and bulk
there which was really attractive to me. I had a bunch of kids to feed and I wanted to be able
to feed them a simple but wholesome diet. I met a couple of people and realized that if you
worked at the co-op that there were some perks including getting some discounts on your
food and I thought for a young family that would be a really good choice. So I applied to work
there and they ended up hiring somebody else and I was disappointed but I was like, well,
but it just wasn't meant to be kind of continued on with my life but the longer that I lived
here and the longer that I shopped there I realized that I was really drawn to the cooperative
business model, to the community mindedness and so in 2011 I applied again, same year, same year.
Oh, did I move here in 2010? I think so.
I moved here in 2010, audience, people?
I applied in 2010 and applied in 2010 and applied again in 2011 and I remember going to the
front desk and asking for an application and going home and photocopying at 10 times.
And when I brought it back I brought it to the customer service manager and I was like,
hey, just so you know, I'm going to drop this off once a week for 10 weeks until you hire
me and I was indeed hired later than month. And I was a cashier. I worked a closing shift
which was so fun, called ourselves the A team and we just love talking to our customers,
loved counting our drawers and keeping the store clean and it was a really excellent time
to be introduced to the community. I got to talk to people who were community members
and get to know them and I got to know the people who I worked with really well.
I'm in the person who trained me to be a cashier is the one and only Doug Johnson,
who is now the general manager of the Belfass Community Co-op. So I do feel like I got
some pretty good training in. So then I worked at the co-op pretty consistently until 2014.
And then in 2014 I ran for the board of directors and I was elected. And at some point
in time the workload became a lot, being a full-time mom, being a part-time cashier
and a part-time board member and I chose being a board member. So I left you or also
pregnant at the time. Well, Walter was born in 2012. So I took a break.
Yep, sorry, my time left off. But I had a tiny baby.
During all those things. So I decided that the work on the board of directors was really
formative for the store and really interesting. I was really drawn to just all the concepts
of governance. That was the time when the board was considering adopting policy governance.
Yeah, we had not got to be on the ground floor of that. Yeah. And it was explained in a really
interesting way. And seeing how the board meetings worked at that time, I could see the change.
I could see the updates from changing to a governance model that wasn't really named and didn't
really have a structure. To a governance model that was defined. And we had our meetings in the
basement of the Waterfall Arts Building, which is where we're recording this program, now,
which is exciting for me. So then I was on the board for six years. And during that time,
I helped hire a new general manager. I was the board president for a little while. And I was
able to take advantage of a lot of training opportunities through what is now called
illuminate, which is a cooperative consulting business. Then I left the board in February of 2020
after serving two full terms. And I didn't know at the time that what would be happening was COVID.
My last board meeting was a virtual board meeting. And then I left. And I didn't have anything
to do with the co-op for a couple of months. And finally it was clear that I needed to stop going
to school and start working again. And the only place that I wanted to work in town was the
Belfast Community Co-op because of the cooperative business model because it gives back to the community.
And I started back as a cashier and then became a floor manager. And now I'm the outreach coordinator.
Congratulations. And I work in the marketing department. And the great fit. This is a little
bit of outreach that we're doing here on this program. I'm really enjoying it. Emily, what's your
history with the co-op? Oh, my history with the co-op actually goes back a little bit further,
mostly because when I graduated college, I wanted to do something that, well, I was young and
idealistic. So I wanted to save the world. And how do you do that? But local foods. I just thought
that was the key. And I thought farming was going to be my life. My spine told me it wasn't
an actual literal spine. My actual little back said, I don't think that was going to happen for you.
But I ended up moving to Colorado for about a year and a half where I worked at a natural food store,
not a cooperative. But I gained a lot of knowledge about health food and food systems. And I came back
here to the Belfast area in 2008. And I actually applied at the co-op and did not get a job.
I could see both of them coming. So then I tried to do other things like I worked at Johnny's
for a little bit. And I loved, again, local food systems. I was very into it, had a baby,
needed a job that wasn't particularly farm-based in many regards. And my dear friend had just recently
moved into the area. And I kept visiting her and loved the co-op. It fit with my
ideals for shopping local and keeping my money local, which was incredibly important to me.
Actually, I did not understand the cooperative business model. But I knew that I wanted to
support local economy. And that was my driving force behind applying at the co-op again,
as well as the fact that I had a really good friend. It was you who was in Belfast. So I actually
got hired in 2011 in the fall. And I have literally been at the co-op ever since. I started as a
cashier. I moved on to a floor manager. I started working in what was called the membership
department. Now it's owner services. And I also, and I still do that. And I also, in the
administrative assistant for the board of directors. And I have been since 2015. So I have seen
the board evolve with policy governance, which has been really, really lovely. I got to be part of the
GM search team. So I got to see that whole process. And I've been in almost every board meeting since
then. And really learning how a cooperative works. And really the inner workings of our cooperative.
And I find it very exciting. And as a fun fact, our lovely general manager dug also changed me
to be a cashier. I just did some quick math. And I think that's 90 or so board meetings. Yeah.
At three hours each. I did miss one for bronchitis. But I have been there pretty steadily.
It's really dedicated. Yeah. And I end the whole COVID period where we were only virtual.
Was really interesting. And we got some really fun technology out of that. And we adapted. And I
thought that was very well-difficult. I was really proud of everybody for sticking with it. And
figuring out how to make it happen. And still making really important decisions for the co-op in the
community. Well, not being able to really relate on a face-to-face basis. It's pretty impressive.
So it's pretty safe to say that we have a lot to talk about when it comes to the co-op because we've
been around for a long time. It's become like some part of our really solid and rooted relationships
kind of revolve around the co-op. Absolutely. And so we've had these important conversations
in and around the store, in and around the boardroom. And so many people have said, oh, that's so
amazing that you know that. You know, you should talk about that or you should give this presentation
or you, you know, have to share this knowledge in some way. And here we are, finally, actually doing that.
It's really exciting. Recording it and sending it out into the world to share it because
from my perspective, the cooperative business structure isn't talked about enough.
There are people who believe that the cooperative business structure is really a radical
economic model. And part of me feels like that's too lofty of a phrase. And the other part of me
knows that the cooperative business model isn't taught in business schools in the United States.
It's not taught in high schools. It's not taught in colleges. You cannot get a master's
in cooperative business. And so that does make me think that there is something about it
that the great institutions of capitalism don't want people to know about cooperative business.
They will teach sole proprietorship businesses, partnership businesses, corporations,
S corporations, but they don't teach about cooperative business. So to me, that means that
it's the people's job to talk about cooperative business. If we see that it's a good thing for
our communities and for ourselves as workers. And so I think that we're going to take this opportunity
on this program to talk about cooperatives as individual businesses, to talk about cooperatives,
how they share the same values and the same principles. But also to talk about our local
co-op, which is the Belfast Community Co-op as we go through big transitions, which include
renovating the entire store and opening up new parts of our store next year. The cooperative
statement of identity says that a co-op is an autonomous association of persons, united voluntarily
to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly
owned, democratically controlled enterprise. Basically the first cooperative business was recognized
in 1752 in the United States. It was a mutual fire insurance corporation started by Benjamin
Franklin. I did not know that. Co-operation though is not new. Humans have been cooperating together
since we decided to live in groups, not everybody can hunt, not everybody can cook. So we all need
each other in some way or another. Over the next several decades from 1752 on, there were a lot of
agricultural cooperative businesses, but they really started to take hold in the late 1800s. The
raw-style pioneers are known as the first cooperative, the first consumer cooperative business.
Co-operatives really began to take shape in the late 18th century as people moved from
farms to cities. They were no longer able to grow their own food and they relied on privately owned
stores. I have a quick question to provide their nourishment. What's a consumer cooperative? A consumer
cooperative is a group of people who come together to amplify their buying power in the economy.
Are there cooperatives that are not consumer cooperatives? There are cooperatives that are not
consumer cooperatives. So there are agricultural cooperatives. There are worker cooperatives. And
we certainly will take other programs to dive into all of those different models because there are
also cooperatives where they're housing cooperatives, where people collectively own the land and
own the buildings. I'd love to give a shout out to my credit union. It's a cooperative. Hey, so when
people came together to support each other in the newly industrialized times, they also came up with
some cooperative principles to align themselves for what makes them different. How do they all work
together? And those cooperative principles which we will dive into individually and other programs
are open and voluntary membership, democratic member control, member economic participation,
autonomy and independence, education, training and information, cooperation among cooperatives
and concern for community. I love it. The last thing that I was going to talk about today are all
of the different businesses that particularly folks from the United States will be familiar with
that maybe they didn't know were co-ops. So Ace Hardware is a co-op? The Associated Press
is a cooperative business? Credit unions, like you said before, are cooperative businesses? Ocean spray
is a grower cooperative? Land of Lake's dairy is also a grower cooperative. RRI which is recreational
equipment, equipment incorporated is a co-op. Sun kissed growers is a agricultural co-op and
tillmook is an agricultural co-op. And while electric co-ops are not as common as they were
during the depression, a lot of states still have co-ops that you can buy into that will distribute
your electricity. And that is a brief overview of cooperative business. Now Emily is going to give
us specific overview of our cooperative business? Well, our cooperative was actually started.
Its origins are in a buying club or actually many buying clubs depending on who you speak to.
The primary buying club that you hear about is one that was started out in Liberty, Liberty or
Montville, again, depending on who you talk to. The folks who were doing that at the time got
very excited about putting the goods that they were getting and distributing into a storefront,
which made it work really well because if you are ordering bulk items, which is what these orders
would be, you are getting 50 pounds, 25 pounds, entire wheels of cheese, etc. Of all of these goods
that you want. But that doesn't necessarily mean that one you have the place to store it or that
you want to spend all of your money on 50 pounds of flour. So being able to break it up and
distribute it throughout the community worked really well for a while, but putting it in a storefront
meant that whatever wasn't claimed of each part of what was being purchased wholesale could
them be sold to people who were not actually part of the buying club. So it was a very loose business
at the beginning. Nobody was really named as a manager, everybody volunteered and people would drive
to Boston to pick up the food and people learned how to cut wheels of cheese and bagged up bulk.
And I think it's very sweet and easy to romanticize what that was like and I do enjoy thinking about
it a simpler time indeed, indeed, with a lot of work. But it became popular and so when they had
you know the original storefront was very small. It is still very small, it's still there on
upper main street. But it was a very exciting time in 1987 when they moved from the original storefront
down to what is currently the green store. Once they started operating out of that business or business
location the cooperative was able to grow a little bit more, they could bring in more products,
they got their infamous crock pots which started the Delhi, they would have daily soups.
Of course they got their cat, Krasby which is kind of a major historical figure in the
bell-fest community co-op history. Again it was growing in popularity and in size and so in the early
90s they opted to move into the location that we have now. Looking at pictures it was also really
exciting. There was an entire florist section where they sold cut flowers in the new, when they moved
into their new store. Yes, because they had so much space. Because they had so much space, which is
very funny to think about now because I feel like when you walk into our store now it is very tight
which is because we've grown because we've grown because people do want to shop there. So there's
a lot of things that have happened to our store between when we moved in 1993 and 30 years later in
2000, 23 which I know a lot of people listening will remember the various changes and there's a
lot more changes to come in July 2022. So this was just last summer the board did approve the renovation
project and so we're gonna get a face lift, an entire store face. How many years had the board been
trying to come up with a project to improve the store? Since before you and I worked at the co-op
and that's just from talking to former general managers and owners talking about oh yeah well
they were gonna renovate this or they were gonna renovate that but then they put it off or the
plans fell through for whatever reason and so in our time being at the co-op really I think plans
started in 2016. That's when I remember we were having owner forums and discussing what we wanted
the future of the co-op to be. I know the board was taking a very serious look at what they wanted
the future of the co-op to be doing a lot of visioning and there was some pretty grand plans in that.
I remember it was a four story brand new building with affordable housing and community space,
a teaching kitchen, perhaps even a rooftop brewery. Oh yes all of that. But as the years went on
and like structural analysis was done financial analysis was done
really that that grand plan wasn't feasible which I think it made a lot of people very sad.
I might be looking at one of them. So what we've come up with what has been approved and what
will be done is not the ideal but it is what is feasible and is also what is rational and
reasonable and needed. We are doing renovations to the store, a store that was built in the 60s
and has not had any major upgrades since then. These are safety issues. They're common sense issues.
Yes absolutely. Everybody wants to have safer electrical. You just don't think about it but you
don't really do want it. Yeah. Better plumbing. We love a roof not to leak and I think really
everybody who works at the co-op has a really soft spot in their hearts for the new hydraulic lift
that will be located at the back of the store. It sure beats hauling boxes up and down the stairs.
Yeah or using a fork lift to lift a pallet to the second floor. It's all doable and has been done
for decades now and yet we don't have to continue doing that. We can make this upgrade and improve
the safety and efficiency and lives of our workers and that's really exciting. And it's one of those
things that I remind myself that one of the reasons why the store wants to be a great employer and a
great place to shop is because the better run we are, the more that we can provide space for farmers
and producers to sell their goods but the better we can do for our community. Absolutely. The more
resources that we have, the more resources we can put back out there to the people who need them.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm very excited. And so I should also tell you, hand in hand with
planning the renovation the board had also planned a capital campaign and as I'm sure everybody is
aware because everybody was contacted and by everybody I mean all of our owners that campaign ran
from January 16th through April 16th. It is now concluded. We were asking for $1.5 million in
owner loans and donations and we have hit our target and exceeded it and exceeded it. I feel a
little giddy about it because you and I were both on the capital campaign team doing the work.
Yeah, hi I'm Alessandro I probably emailed you. Hi I'm Emily I was your loan closer.
It's so much money but I think more than the you know the money is helpful. That helps us
spend less with the bank. It helps us feel more secure when we have to pre-order
refrigeration that won't be here for you know many many months. But I think the community support
that we felt with people who said like absolutely I want to loan you money. I cannot wait to invest
in this community anchor of downtown. That is really the part that helped me feel like my job and
my commitment to the co-op were really meaningful and really wonderful. There are so many stories
from owners who are just excited that what this means is that the co-op is committed to continuing
to be here. Yes, it's true. And makes me feel a warm and fuzzy. As some maybe our
Bengorgalli news readers read we will have a ground breaking ceremony on May 15th. It won't be
super visible on May 15th that we are starting construction because construction is starting
in the back of the building and in the basement of the building. But we will slowly be working our
way up to the sales floor. We do intend to stay open the whole time that we're working on the store.
At the end of it the cafe will reopen and shop for me which is our online shopping program where you
can pick your groceries up curbside will be expanded and improved because that's a service
that a lot of folks in town like to take advantage of. I don't know if you guys know this but we're
very excited. We love the co-op. We do. It's crazy that we love it so much but we just do.
Well we've talked a lot about the history and the cooperative model but realistically a lot of the
draw of the co-op is the community. Most of my friends in this area I have met because of being
at the co-op. People recognize me. They'll be like I know you but where from and I'll look at
them and say the co-op and they say oh yeah. My favorite joke is that my last name is from the co-op.
It's not an ideal place. In the sense that nothing is ideal but it is a good place.
If you go there it becomes your place and I think that I could wax poetic about the co-op
but realistically that's not what we're here for 100%. We also want to give you information. So
as Alessandra just said we have a groundbreaking on May 15th. It's at 1 pm. We do plan on using
our time here on the radio to give you updates about what is happening in the store as the
renovation moves forward. This will be a monthly program. We'll have more information next month
about how the episodes will get laid out. The next board meeting is May 24th. It will be held at 6pm.
We are doing both. It's a hybrid meeting so you can join either in person or via Zoom.
I'm not sure where it is going to be held at this point but you can find that information on our
website. And social media. Look up BellFast Community Co-op. You can find our website. You can find
us on Facebook. You can find us on Instagram. We do have a newsletter that goes out every two weeks
so you can go on to our website and sign up for that and all of the information about how to get
involved or updates on the renovation or questions that you have can go through the website. I'm
going through our E-News. How handy. Yeah. It's like someone put that together. It's been a pleasure
being with you today. We hope that you will join us next month. Thank you so much. Bye. Bye.