The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund on August 19, 2010 honored Alice Walker in Birmingham, AL at its annual dinner attended by more than 400 people.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and self-proclaimed "daughter of the rural peasantry" was presented the Estelle Witherspoon Lifetime Achievement award by FSC Executive Director Ralph Paige. The largely black organization of farmer cooperatives works to save and preserve black-owned farmlands. 

 There was so many rich quotes from the national worker cooperative conference that took place in Berkeley last weekend.  Many got lost in my unreadable handwriting.

Here are only a few that I was able to capture: 

"This isn't for everyone.  Co-ops are awesome."

--Hilary Abell, WAGES Executive Director.

"They say that young people are the future, but they don't treat us like that.  It's like we're a burden. ...We're the leaders of today, not just tomorrow."

The Evergreen cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio was the story everyone wanted to hear at the opening session on Saturday Aug. 7, 2010 of the U.S. Federation for Worker Cooperatives conference in Berkeley. 

Several video cameras - including PBS -- were rolling at the front of Krutch Theater as Ted Howard, executive director of The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland, which helped to organize the cooperatives and the strategy along with the late John Logue founder of the Ohio Employee Ownership Center, spoke to an inspired audience of 270 worker cooperators from all over the U.S. and part of Canada.  Also speaking was Medrick Addison, operations manager at Evergreen Cooperative Laundry.

At the opening gathering of the 4th bi-ennial conference of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, it was clear that the movement has reached a significant milestone. 

First, Executive Director Melissa Hoover announced that PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service) is "following the conference" (note that Twitter reference!) I believe because of the interest in the Evergreen Cooperatives. 

Jim Hightower is a man of very colorful language. 

"We have to get the hogs out of the creek" was Hightower's parting message in his keynote address at the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives on Friday, Aug. 6 at the San Francisco Women's Building. 

I think the hogs was the metaphor for cleaning out those muddying up what democracy is supposed to be. We need a grassroots movement to make change, to clean the creek.

David Roach is doing incredibly important work in Oakland with Mo' Better Food, schools, intergenerational learning, farmer's markets, and other things.  He was our incredible improvisational tour guide of Oakland.

Call it the Oakland Improvizational Tour.  Or Oakland's Special Synchroncity Tour.  Or the Divine Flow of Oakland Tour.  Whatever you call it, you have got to call it Amazing!!

 On Friday, about 25 of us attending the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives conference were part of an economic development tour of Oakland.  Cooperatives are an economic development tool because they often create services and jobs in areas neglected by traditional so-called development that is done by businesses to make money.  Cooperatives generally fulfills neglected by traditional businesses whose aim is to make profits. 

One of the things that I loved at the ACE conference was the invocation that ACE administrator Bill Patrie opened the proceedings with.  It really impressed me because I had recently decided that I am going to bring more of my spiritual self forward in everything I do, especially on the cooperative front where I spend more of my time.  I am not religious, but I am greatly spiritual, and it truly informs what I do.

So during a conference break on Sunday, I decided to ask Bill if he had a copy of his invocation because I want to blog about it.  I am certainly glad that I did.  I got further illumination on the relationship between cooperation and spirituality--things that I hadn't put together.

Today was another amazing day of presentations at the ACE conference!....

Unlike other conferences that I'm used to attending, you don't have to choose from workshops at the Association of Cooperative Educators. There is only one track, and everyone is on the same one.

I actually ended up being very glad that it was arranged this way, else I might have missed out some very important information and stories.

One of the great things about the Association of Cooperative Educators conference is that I have been able to meet and talk with many people that I've known "online" for the very first time. 

 At Tuesday evening's reception, I met Anne Reynolds of the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives.  What a treasure! 

 Of course, I have been hearing about Anne since I first learned about what co-ops were in my 2001 Cooperatives class at the Southern New Hampshire University's Communication Economic Development Program.  I continued to hear her name in co-op circles.  I've been to their website many times. 

Presentation to Association of Cooperatives Educators

Cleveland, Ohio

July 28, 2010

I've been greatly looking forward to being with you here in Cleveland to be part of this redirection of ACE. Cleveland is a city with a national reputation for being both a symbol of the failures of the Old Economy and a beacon of hope and possibility for the just, sustainable cooperative New Economy we seek to create.

The future of humans and Planet Earth depend on replacing the "greed-driven" economic system of Wall Street with the "life-serving" system of Main Street.

That was the message that David Korten, author Agenda for a New Economy, and co-founder of Yes! magazine, brought to the 58th annual conference of the Association of Cooperative Educators in Cleveland on Wednesday.

Korten was one of the reasons that I wanted to come to this conference. The other was to tour the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry. Thanks to the Ralph Morris Foundation, I was able to attend my first ACE conference.

John Curl's history of the Bay Area Cooperative movement is eye-opening.  It leaves you amazed that this country is so rich in cooperativism yet we only learn of it through John's heroic efforts.  It brings to mind the saying: You need to know where you've been to know where you're going.  My hope is that this history further opens up and extends our vision and our work.  Many thanks to John Curl for his work.   

Download Curl's History of the Bay Area Cooperative Movement here. 

GEO will also post his fabulous history of the Pittsburgh area and the Pennsylvania history written for the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy in a booklet in 2009.

 The U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives is offering an intensive training session for organizations who want to make their internal processes more democratic and participatory. 

Melissa Hoover's description follows:

 Intensive Training: Developing Democratic Capacity
Monday 8/9/2010