PRINCIPLE SIX Cooperative Conference Viles Arboretum Conference Center

153 Hospital St, Augusta, Maine Saturday, April 30, 2016, 8:30 am – 5 pm

Hosted by:

Cooperative Maine

Cooperative Development Institute

Cooperative Fund of New England

Democracy at Work Initiative

8:30 am - Arrival, register, get ready for prompt beginning at...

9 am - Opening and Open Space Orientation* - Main Room - 20 min.

Using the “Open Space”* meeting philosophy....

Framing Question: "How Can We Grow a Cooperative Ecosystem?"

POSSIBLE topics we might discuss could include:

Young and startup co-ops; Support group: member-workers; Lessons from cooperative crises/closures; Support group: general managers; Staff on a co-op board, good or bad idea?; How can co-ops in Maine work together more effectively? And more...bring your ideas:

9:30 am - Open Space - Session A each space will have a convener. 50 min. +/-

10:30 am - Open Space - Session B each space will have a convener. 50 min. +/-

11:30 am - Open Space 'Harvest' – Main Room – reports from Open Space sessions. 30 min.

12:00 noon - Speaker (in Main Room) – Keynote address, Joe Marrafino, DAWI 30 min.

12:30 pm - Lunch, Main Room, w/networking and informal announcements at end of lunch 75 min.

1:45 pm - Workshop C – please choose from one of four, to help with room allocation. 75 min.

C1 Financing for Co-ops: Gloria LeBrecque, CFNE

C2 Meeting Facilitation: Lori Roming, Unity Foundation

C3 Next steps: Maine Cooperative Business Association; Rob Brown, Kate Harris, CDI

C4 Participatory Management & Leadership Development: Marcel Gagne, CDI

3:10 pm - Workshop D – please choose from one of four, to help with room allocation. 75 min.

D1 Open Book Financial Management: Joe Marrafino, DAWI

D2 Meeting Facilitation: Rachel Lyn Rumson, Cooperative Design Lab

D3 Marketing Co-ops: Marada Cook, Crown o' Maine

D4 Growing a Cooperative Food System: Betsy Garrold, Mark Sprackland. IRSSC

4:15 pm - Closing – Main room - “One word/One sentence” comment/reflection from each person; collect paper evaluations. 15-20? min.

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*Open Space, The Four Principles:

Whoever comes are the right people

Whatever happens is the only thing that could have

Whenever it starts is the right time

When it’s over, it’s over

Open Space, The Two Engines:

Passion for the issue, bounded by the

Responsibility to search for and find solutions

Open Space, The One Law (or the ‘Law of Two Feet’)

During the course of the meeting, any person who finds him or herself in a situation where they are neither learning nor contributing, must use their two feet and go to some more productive place.

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Principle Six 2016 Presenter bios

C Workshops start at 1:45 PM, 75 minutes

# C1 Workshop Financing for Co-ops, Gloria LaBrecque, Cooperative Fund of New England (CFNE).

Gloria manages the marketing and social media systems for the Fund and visits current and potential borrowers, providing technical assistance, administration of the loan portfolio, and marketing the Fund in northeastern part of New England. Prior to joining CFNE, Gloria worked with credit unions as a performance consultant for the Northeast region of CUNA Mutual Group and CUNA’s Center for Professional Development. She has a BA in Mathematics from Boston University, has been certified by the State of Connecticut in Elementary Education and has taken graduate courses in Educational Technology Integration at Penn State University and Human Performance Improvement at Marymount University in Virginia. She is a member of the Board of Trustees at Williston- Immanuel United Church in Portland, ME where she currently serves as Vice-Moderator. She also serves on the board of the Portland Food Co-op and is a member of the Gardiner Food Co-op.

# C2 Meeting Facilitation; Lori Roming, the Unity Foundation.

Lori Roming has been with the Unity Foundation since January 2001 and is currently the Research & Program Officer. Youth and education are two of the Foundation’s areas of interest. Her major responsibilities include day-to-day operations, grant management; Jumpstart Our Youth™ (JOY) ~ a collaborative youth philanthropy project and a capacity building program (CQ®). She carries out the Foundation’s work of strengthening Maine’s nonprofit organizations through strategic board development, collaborative projects and nonprofit education. Lori’s background includes extensive administrative and management experience in government, for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Roming graduated from the first Midcoast Leadership Academy class and been a co-coordinator of MLA since the second year. She is a graduate of the Hutchinson Center’s Certificate Program in Nonprofit Management. Lori spent two years co-facilitating the Level II Strengthening Your Facilitation Skills program through the University of Maine’s Waldo County Cooperative Extension.

# C3 Next steps: Maine Cooperative Business Association; Rob Brown, Cooperative Development Institute (CDI) and Kate Harris, Cooperative Development Institute (CDI).

Rob Brown is a Cooperative Development Specialist and the Director of CDI’s Business Ownership Solutions (BOS) program. BOS works with business owners to help them consider whether conversion to a co-op would meet their needs, and with employees and community members to facilitate conversions to worker and/or community-owned cooperatives. Formerly, he was the Maine Housing Program Specialist in CDI’s NEROC program. He has a background in community organizing, communications, non-profit and for-profit business development, and public policy development and advocacy. Rob studied economics and public policy at the University of Maine and College of the Atlantic, specializing in rural and community economic development, and has completed the Maine Association of Nonprofits’ Executive Leadership Institute. He has founded several non-profit and for-profit business organizations in Maine, and, nationally, was a William Jefferson Clinton Distinguished Lecturer at the Clinton Presidential Library and School of Public Service, a founding member and Steering Committee member of United for a Fair Economy’s Tax Fairness Organizing Collaborative, and a member of the National Skills Coalition’s Leadership Council. Most recently, Rob was the founding Executive Director of Opportunity Maine, a statewide organizing, research, and advocacy nonprofit focused on education and workforce development, energy policy, and economic development.

Kate Harris has three decades of involvement with food buying clubs and food co-ops, primarily as a working member-owner. Currently, she coordinates education and outreach for the Belfast Co-op, where she's served as a worker-owner for nearly ten years. She also now works part-time with the Cooperative Development Institute, assessing interest in launching a cooperative business association among Maine's co-ops. Prior to this work, Kate spent a dozen years as an environmental educator and helped lead a successful grassroots campaign to close an aging commercial nuclear reactor in Rowe, MA. After participating in the Seattle protests of the World Trade Organization, her focus expanded to global justice and pro-democracy activism, which included coordinating the 2000 Nader/LaDuke presidential campaign in Western MA, serving as MA Green Party co-chair, and travelling to Colombia with three Witness for Peace delegations. She earned a BS in Environmental Science from UMass Amherst and an MS in Environmental Communications from Antioch New England.

# C4 Participatory Management & Leadership Development, Marcel Gagne, CDI.

Marcel Gagne is a Cooperative Development Specialist in the Business Ownership Solutions (BOS) program. BOS works with business owners to help them consider whether conversion to a co-op would meet their needs, and with employees and community members to facilitate conversions to worker and/or community-owned cooperatives. Formerly, he was with Western Maine Community Action doing workforce and business development under the Jobs Driven National Emergency Grant (JD-NEG) in Androscoggin, Oxford, Franklin, Kennebec, and Somerset counties of Maine. He has an extensive background in workforce development (WMCA/CareerCenter/DHHS), community and economic development (a decade with CEI), training and talent development for non-profit and for-profit business, and as an advocate for education and life-long learning in Androscoggin County. Marcel studies leadership and organizational development at the University of Southern Maine at Lewiston/Auburn College, and is currently involved in the creation and implementation of the Institute for Continuous Improvement (ICI), a community/economic development process, in partnership with the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, which is focusing on bringing the principles of LEAN to eliminate waste and foster productivity through the development and empowerment of the current workforce and to promote LEAN leadership. He serves as a board member on the Lewiston-Auburn (LA) Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, is a board member and treasurer of Community Credit Union, and is Chair of USM’s LA College Community Advisory Board.

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D Workshops, start at 3:10 PM, 75 minutes

# D1 Open Book Financial Management: Joe Marrafino, Democracy At Work Institute (DAWI).

Joe Marraffino joined the Democracy at Work Institute in 2015 as a cooperative developer, focusing on tool-building and training. He coordinates the Development Fundamentals program for new developers and runs a monthly startup workshop for worker cooperative entrepreneurs. He lives in Ithaca, New York. Joe was the Finance Manager for GreenStar Cooperative Market in Ithaca for three years. Previous to that he was a worker-owner of Arizmendi Bakery in San Francisco for seven years, and worked as a bookkeeper and business developer for the Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives to help launch two bakeries. Joe was a founding member of the of the New York Cooperative Network and the Democracy at Work Network.

# D2 Meeting Facilitation: Rachel Lyn Rumson, Cooperative Design Lab.

Rachel Lyn gets process. She supports clients in creating participatory processes for greater capacity to make change and collaborate. She consults teams and leaders that want a all the voices to be heard, need to find innovative solutions to complex problems and have conversations that matter.

As Activator and Arranger at Royal River Collaborative, Rachel Lyn lends her skills at design of process to effectively reach goals in collaboration and creative ways. She helps people connect and weave networks to work well together and learn together.

Rachel Lyn brings to this work a career in designing board retreats, conferences and unconferences, loads of training workshops and facilitated gatherings and business meetings. She is a dynamic speaker and skilled facilitator. She values high engagement and participatory ways to create regenerative systems in land and food, habitat, economics, philanthropy, and wellbeing.

# D3 Marketing Co-ops: Marada Cook, Crown o' Maine Organic Co-op (COMOC).

Marada is an entrepreneur, building businesses that support Maine farmers and food producers. She looks for opportunities to leverage a region, whether that's Aroostook County or the entire state of Maine, to feed the growing appetite for foods with a sense of HERE. She has too much on her to-do list at all times, but tries to keep an eye out for the 100 year vision for our farms and businesses. She has the privilege of working for a fast-growing local foods distribution business, steering it's course towards building a broad and diverse market for foods grown and produced in Maine by over 200 farmers and food producers. Along with her sister Leah Cook and General Manager Chris Hallweaver, she has launched Northern Girl, LLC - a local food processing company in Aroostook County, Maine. Their goal is to process fresh-cut and frozen locally grown root vegetables for a rapidly growing market in New England. They've recently purchased a 3rd business, Fiddler's Green, which mills organic grains and runs a thriving mail order business. Leah and Marada look at their business activities as sort of an investment portfolio of their own making - investments in a thriving local agriculture and food economy for Maine, for ourselves, and our children! Hampshire College runs a stylin' veggie CSA for their students and faculty. She helped write a grant for and build a greenhouse under the direction of farm manager Nancy Hansen. She grew up on a family farm in Grand Isle, Maine, as far north in the state as you can go. Her siblings and she (5 total) picked potatoes, pulled weeds, fed animals, and enjoyed paradise on earth thanks to our hardworking parents working us hard, too!

# D4 Growing a Cooperative Food System: Betsy Garrold, Belfast Co-op, and Mark Sprackland, Independent Retailers Shared Services Cooperative (IRSSC).

Betsy Garrold, Board member Belfast Co-op, worker owner Fedco Seeds, former general manager Marsh River Co-op, Belfast Co-op representative to Cooperative Maine, Board member Cooperative Development Institute.

Mark Sprackland, is the Executive Director & Founder of the Independent Retailers Shared Services Cooperative (IRSSC). A veteran of the grocery retail and wholesale business with a 37-year track record of growing sales and profits, Mark is a proven leader who has focused on customer and quality relations and on bottom-line results. He has also served as Chairman of the Board of Northeast Wholesale Food Distribution Association (NEWFDA), the nation’s oldest food association which provides a forum for industry research, education, professional development and exchange of best practices among all levels of the food industry. A long-time champion of smaller businesses and independent retailers, Mark’s vision for the Independent Retailers Shared Services Cooperative includes creating a worker/consumer owed cooperative marketplace that will also serve as learning center focused on developing comprehensive technical assistance programs for Maine worker-owned, consumer-owned, hybrid cooperatives, and smaller independent retailers. As these training services are widely delivered, the ultimate outcomes will be to support the unique character and lasting integrity of Maine’s small rural communities by fostering a greater prevalence of vibrant, high-performing local grocery businesses that generate a “multiplier effect” of social and economic benefits.

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Additional Sponsorship from:

CFNE, Equal Exchange, and Independent Retailers Shared Services Cooperative.