At its origin, says Mark Goehring, “we saw an opportunity to provide facilitated conversations on topics that matter, at the local, regional and national levels. “We wanted to make something extraordinary and highly engaging.” Rather than a format of presenters and receivers of information, Columinate adopted the World Cafe participatory model and acknowledged as much in the Cafe presentations. Co-op Cafe is a registered trademark by Columinate.
Within our organizations, we spend much time trying to do more and add on to things, in an effort to feel like we’re making progress. We have more money, let’s hire more staff! Not enough people from the neighborhood are shopping, let’s offer a new benefit. We got in trouble for not carrying an East African staple in our grocery store, now we have so many that we are a new competitor to the East African market on the other side of town. We add, add, and add.
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?
We had a great day of conversation focused on the theme Expand the Vision of “We” in Philadelphia, PA! 16 people including staff, managers and directors from 7 co-ops participated Thank you for contributing during the day – adding your insights, perspectives and quilt squares! If you’d like a full size, 31×80 Co-op Cafe Quilt from this event (it looks great!) please contact Mark Goehring. Here are the videos shown [...]
We had a great day of conversation focused on the theme Expand the Vision of “We” in Greenfield, MA! 39 people including staff, managers and directors from 13 co-ops participated Thank you for contributing during the day – adding your insights, perspectives and quilt squares! If you’d like a full size, 31×80 Co-op Cafe Quilt from this event (it looks great!) please contact Mark Goehring. Here are the videos shown [...]
We had a great day of conversation focused on the theme Expand the Vision of “We” in Madison! 12 people including staff, managers and directors from 7 co-ops participated Thank you for contributing during the day – adding your insights, perspectives and quilt squares! If you’d like a full size, 31×80 Co-op Cafe Quilt from this event (it looks great!) please contact Mark Goehring. Here are the videos shown at the [...]
We had a great day of conversation focused on the theme Expand the Vision of “We” in Portland, OR! 19 people including staff, managers and directors from 6 co-ops participated Thank you for contributing during the day – adding your insights, perspectives and quilt squares! If you’d like a full size, 31×80 Co-op Cafe Quilt from this event (it looks great!) please contact Mark Goehring. Here are the videos shown at [...]
In this latest installment from Dave Olson, Development Director for National Co+op Grocers, he lays out the overarching mission for NCG for the next couple years. On the operations side Olson delves into the Customer Experience (CX) that co-ops offer, and how to really start thinking about all customers, not just member-owners, as the "heart of the co-op".
Cindee Lolick, General Manager at First Alternative in Corvallis, OR shares several exciting tales of opportunities that First Alt has been given because of their deep and lasting involvement in the Corvallis community.
Bonnie Hudspeth, in her role as Programs Manager for the Neighboring Food Co-ops Association, is here to bring you the tales of New England food co-ops SUCCESSFULLY working together to tackle the thorny issues of food insecurity, implicit bias, and the barriers we unknowingly put up around many of our food co-ops. Bonnie has several stories to share that highlight the great work being [...]
