Not long after I became board president of my local food co-op, I began a more focused study of racism. I say “more focused” because, like many of us, I started learning about racism the day I was born. When I stepped into the board presidency, right away I noticed that I was being treated with less respect by some of my colleagues than I had been before I changed roles.
More and more often, it seems like I am the messy person in the meeting: you know, the one who has something (or more often some feeling) that feels so important to express that I can’t read the room. I especially can’t see that the discussion is winding to a close, or that others in the meeting are beyond tired; or, worst of all, that my point was actually made by someone else fifteen minutes ago. This is where good facilitation comes in. I have always been aware that excellent facilitation requires a degree of intuition and compassion, and I realized recently that it also requires love. Messy contributions can be made valuable with the help of skilled and, yes, loving facilitation.
Board work can sometimes seem like a big challenge. I often open a workshop with a newly forming group with an activity in which the goal is to set a tent pole on the ground together, while the participants have also been told to keep their fingers in contact with the pole. It sounds simple, but in practice it can be very difficult. What’s more important? The goal of the individual or the goal of the group? If the group doesn’t focus on its shared objective, it will not be able to set the tent pole on the ground.
The 2022 series kicked off in May with invigorating conversations around how the cooperative principles could advance our commitment to a more equitable future. Co-op members from across the country joined these discussions and grappled with questions such as: Do we need an 8th cooperative principle aimed at equity and inclusion?
Columinate Intercultural Facilitator Darin Short has worked with a range of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) committees, task forces, and teams across many sectors. Darin recently led a workshop, “Why Some Diversity Teams Succeed While Others Do Not” at the Thought Leadership conference in Elkhart, Indiana, in May. “No matter what setting you’re in, DEI is an emotional topic,” says Short. “We need to create safe spaces where people can express their emotions and can say exactly what they need to say with respect for the collective goal.”
In February 2021, Columinate launched its Gender Equity Project in response to findings that grocery co-op general managers (GMs) who identify as female are paid significantly less than their male counterparts. We talked with project lead and Columinate consultant Carolee Colter to learn how the Gender Equity Project is going, one year after its inception.
For nearly a decade, the Columinate Co-op Cafe has been a way for workers, directors, consumer-owners, and leaders in the cooperative movement to gather, connect, learn, and tackle relevant issues. Although the Co-op Cafe looked a bit different in 2021, the event survived and, in some ways, even thrived in the face of adversity.
Carolee Colter and Mark Mulcahy previously presented a series of webinars for Canadian Health Food Association on “The Rewards of a Burnout-free Workplace.” They recommended that store owners and managers hold “Care Interviews” built on five questions, with each of their staff members. Here’s how a Care Interview might go.
Now more than ever communities are aware that racism is an issue that needs to be addressed. In this conversation, Columinate Consultant Darin Short speaks with Columinate's own Amaha Sellasie and Amaha's fellow professor and colleague Christa Agiro.
Baked into the being of every co-op are the Seven Cooperative Principles. These are ideals and actionables. Democracy, community, learning, and economic justice form our decisions as cooperators. Independence too is central to what roots these enterprises, yet shared interest in building an economy beneficial to all is central to measuring success. Your wine department is a place where you can honor this principle.
