Minutes, Cooperative Maine Phone Mtg, 4/16

[James Murphy]

 

 

 

MINUTES, COOPERATIVE MAINE PHONE MEETING, APRIL 16, 2013

 

 

PRESENT:  Paul, Gloria, Deborah (facilitator), Larry, Brad, Jim (note-taker).

 

TREAS. REPORT:  CU Balance: $703.65.  Recent minor expenses on agenda.  Upcoming:

        $105 for CGCF booth (includes $20 for a corner spot).

 

HOPE FESTIVAL:  Coverage OK.  Paul from 11am.  Brad 11-12.  Jim 1-4.  Deb & Gloria 12-3.

        Good idea to bring some food.  Festival food vendors & Food Court may be closed by end of

        tabling.  Deborah to check on closing times and send out email. 

        For our CM meeting, Larry suggested a organizational visioning exercise on future/direction

        for CM, What we could/should be doing.  1 or 2 well-worded questions should suffice.  (Send 

        ideas to Larry.)  Then a go-around for brief responses.  Should generate good discussion and

        suggestions.  Brad can take notes on I-Pad.  Option open for formal business as well.  [See

        New Business (below) for later Vision ideas.]

 

ME WORC:  Maine Worker-Owned Rural Cooperatives.  Jane is working on the idea of young

        people getting into farming via a collectively developed org to work with various farmers, esp.

        in central & eastern ME.   June-July-August.  Jane in process of determining need, pay, housing,

        other issues.  Concern re minimum wage or even $10/hr. not enticing.  Also, may be hard for 

        members get out their equity (e.g., $25?) in one year.  But could be good chance to develop 

        relationships with retiring/downsizing farmers willing to transition to paid help or co-op mgmt.

        Brad voiced unease with top-down models;  Deborah said that does work sometimes, esp.

        business incubators, noting that this can be a divisive issue in Co-op circles. 

 

HEALTH CARE CO-OP:      Will not be member-owned, nor democratically run.  Betsy plans to 

        attend Waldo Organic Growers mtg @ MOFGA (4/24, 6pm) where reps of health "co-op" 

        will discuss their project.

 

CG FAIR:  Our application got in.  Paul, Deborah, Jim offered their names as place-holders for

        speakers.  Discussion re tee-shirts.  An order costs ~$290.  Little enthusiasm for ordering

        more at this time.  Suggestions for other CM 'gear' were baseball caps, buttons, bandanas.  

        Larry:  There are more important things to work on right now.  Consensus:  We'll pass on ordering

        more shirts or other things right now.  Jim to email this to Paul, who had to leave meeting early.

 

OLD BUSINESS:  MECEP paper idea reared its graying head.  Idea was for a dedicated MECEP                         issue (info rather than policy paper), a sharp-looking, well-written description of cooperatives and

        their merits.  We already have some articles, CDI has more.  It will need some filling-in of gaps and

        further writing for a finished product that focuses on Maine, esp. worker co-ops.  Must be well-edited. 

        Brad & Jim offered to consider jointly finishing it.  Deborah to bring what we already have for content

        to HOPE. 

        Also, Jim got update on Barrells Market in Waterville which is transitioning to a co-op.  Separating

        from their parent org, Waterville Maine Street, involves vetting the arrangement with the State Attorney         General.  Non-profit legalisms involved and question of transferring WMS assets to a new entity                     (eventually the new co-op) may be a taxable event for WMS unless structured just right.  But both

        groups are optimistic and, once the AG OK is received, the name & assets can be transferred, which

        Asst. Mgr. Melissa Hackett thinks will happen around July 1.  She added that they are working with

        Lynda Brushett at CDI.  

 

NEW BUSINESS:  Brad read a list of ME organizations that he felt were working on the same thing,

        ranging from Maine farmland trust to Sustain MidMaine Coalition to Finance Authority of Maine.  

        All wish to improve the world, yet they compete for scarce resources.  Echoing a person from

        Valley Alliance, he asked  "Why aren't there more Co-ps?"  Esp lower-income brackets, why aren't

        they flocking to cooperatives?  Deborah cited the good motion currently felt and is excited by 

        the visioning we'll try at HOPE.  Larry:  How do people change their mindsets and views of the

        world.  Perhaps we could add visioning about that at our Annual Meeting?  Economics are bad and

        undemocratic because vested interests with power, money, and influence want it that way.  How to

        undo or overcome that?  

 

NEXT CALL:  Tuesday  May 21, 4-5 pm. 

 

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Murphy

 

   

 

 

  

[HB Garrold]

Jim, Thanks for the prompt minutes sorry I missed the call.   I would be willing to write an article about Fedco as a worker/consumer hybrid co op for the MECEP white paper if that is the kind of thing you are looking for.

 

Betsy Garrold
The Populist Farmer
http://thepopulistfarmer.wordpress.com/

---

From: James Murphy <jmu...@gwi.net>
To: COOP MAINE Work Group Maine Work Group <co-op...@googlegroups.com>; cooperat...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 9:31 PM
Subject: [Cooperative Maine] Minutes, Cooperative Maine Phone Mtg, 4/16

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
Groups "Cooperative Maine" group * the general "news & announce" listserv of Cooperative Maine ( http://www.cooperativemaine.org ) *
 
To post to this group, send email to cooperat...@googlegroups.com
 
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
cooperativemai...@googlegroups.com
 
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/cooperativemaine?hl=en
 
========================
 
To subscribe to the Cooperative Maine detailed nuts & bolts working group listserv, visit:
 
http://groups.google.com/group/co-op-work?hl=en
 
========================
FMI on Cooperative Maine:
 
http://www.cooperativemaine.org
 
in...@cooperativemaine.org
 
========================
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Cooperative Maine" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cooperativemai...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to cooperat...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cooperativemaine?hl=en-US.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
 
 

[James Murphy]

Hi Betsy,    Thanks!  I'm brand-new to this project but I suspect that's just what we may need.  Let you know more after HOPE.

-Jim