Networking & Collaboration
Our Blessed Unrest
A striking depiction of one million organizations working for a better world. By Chris Jordan
http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/we-are-many-chris-jordan-captures-our-blessed-unrest
Carl Davidson's report on US Social Forum 2010
Education Into Action: Reflections on the Eastern Workplace Democracy Conference
Permanent link to this article: http://geo.coop/node/440
By Aaron Dawson, Equal Exchange
In reflecting back to the 2009 Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy, what impresses me the most is how much more action it has generated since the meeting! This is exciting to me as I have been to five worker co-op conferences and this is the first time that I feel so much movement is happening on so many levels.
Regional Alliance of Worker Co-ops to Publish a Movement Book
Tuesday November 3 marked a milestone for the book project of the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives (VAWC). Food for Thought Books, a 33-year collective and member of VAWC, hosted an advance book sale for CO-OP VALLEY! THE WORKER COOPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN THE CONNECTICUT RIVER VALLEY. They organized the event to help finance the writing and publishing of the book.
Our purpose in publishing this book is three-fold: Worker Cooperative Replication: Editor's Introduction to Issue 2, Volume 3
The theme of this issue is worker cooperative replication. It addresses an issue which is central to the growth of the democratic worker cooperative movement. How do we reproduce the success stories we have already achieved? That is, how do we replicate successful worker cooperatives in different locations? Inherent in the challenge of replication is a long standing conundrum of worker cooperative development. Replication is analogous to "franchising" in a capitalist company. Capitalist companies have a compelling motive to replicate successful stores - maximizing profit. What motive does a successful worker cooperatives have for replicating itself?
The Replication of Arizmendi Bakery: A Model of the Democratic Worker Cooperative Movement
By Joe Marraffino, Arizmendi Development and Support Cooperative
Since the mid-1990s a group of worker cooperative organizers in the San Francisco Bay Area has been developing a new model for cooperative development. Our organization, the Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives, is a network, incubator, and technical assistance provider that is owned, governed, and funded by the member workplaces it creates and serves. Our primary activity is to replicate and offer continuing support to new retail bakeries based on a proven cooperative business model.
Cooperating Like We Mean It: The Co-operative Movement In Northern Italy
By Erbin Crowell
An Opportunity Missed? Reflections on a Workshop (Part I)
By Len Krimerman, GEO
I went to the Green Union Coop Development Initiative workshop at the "Democracy at Work" Conference in New Orleans (June, 2008) with very high hopes. Somehow, the Conference organizers had managed to bring together, in a large and over-filled room, committed and inventive practitioners from the labor union, cooperative, and green economy movements. The speakers spoke with clarity and passion about:
Plural Economies
Old GEO Yahoo Group
Submitted by WilliamCerf on July 19, 2008 - 9:49pm.Several years ago a group fo folks started a GEO group on Yahoo groups. Over the years different people acted as custodians/ownsers of the group. It was passed on to me a couple of years ago.
Since we have this forum, I'd like to delete that one. There has been no activity in a very long time. I will post one message to it suggesting that folks come to this website.
If I don't hear any objections, I'll delete the Yahoo group in about a month. Please post a reply if you have any thoughts.
Cheers,
William Cerf
Brooklyn, NY
