in Rochdale England on 31 toad Lane
there is a lamp it is a lamp that
represents the start of a revolution you
see in 1853 a group of labourers
Weaver’s shoemakers cabinet joiners they
got together to solve a problem in
England at that time the society was
heavily separated into a small minority
of the very very wealthy who controlled
virtually everything they owned the land
they owned the factories they owned the
businesses and because only landowners
could vote they owned the government too
and then you had everybody else which
basically they lived in poverty matters
worse the poor wages that they received
oftentimes included company chits which
were vouchers that were only able to be
used at the company owned stores and now
products in these stores were
deliberately inflated prices and often
poor quality so the very act of buying
the necessities for your family meant
that you were returning the money back
to the factory owners and it was a
vicious cycle and it appeared that there
was no chance for solving it but this of
28 men had come together and they had a
vision for a more equitable society and
they were going to do it themselves they
came together and they decided to pool
their resources and for over a year they
scrimped and saved what they could and
they were determined to open their own
store so on December 21st 1844 they
pulled the boards off the windows of
their storefront they lit the lantern in
the front window and they basically
announced the world we are open for
business
at thirty-one totaling it was not a
particularly impressive showing that
night
they only had four items in their
inventory it was a collection of butter
sugar flour and oatmeal as all there was
but they had done it they were open and
they survived that night and the next
night and the night after that and they
grew and eventually they were able to
hire a shopkeeper and they paid him a
fair wage and farmers brought them
produce and received fair pay for it and
women came and they lent their money
management skills because they’d been
managed households on virtually no money
their entire lives this was easy and
they brought their fierce determination
because for the first in their lives
they had a vote in something that they
owned this was unheard of
and by doing what they did these people
shaped a new future for their families
and their communities the Rosedale new
pioneers were born and the co-operative
movement was born now to be clear this
was not the first time that people had
come together for something like this
had actually been cooperatives that had
begun and failed many times but the
Rosedale folks were determined to
succeed where others had not and they
set out a series of operating principles
and these principles were going to guide
their decisions and they dealt with
things like democracy autonomy honesty
equality and they became the foundation
for the modern cooperative movement and
they are the basis for every cooperative
operating today the powerful cooperative
story is one that presents members not
as passive consumers but as active
citizens improving a community that’s
what the Rochdale pioneers really were
they were active citizens working for
improvement what are we going to be
now I would like to tell you that I
heard that story and it like lit this
passion and I you know join the
co-operative movement and you know but
that’s not actually the case I didn’t
hear the story for quite a while after
that my journey is a little less
dramatic a little less altruistic
actually I had a need that was not being
met
it was the age-old story of what’s in it
for me you see in 2006 I had a
six-month-old baby and I had a brand-new
diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and I
was looking at this baby and what I had
thought was my vision for the future
suddenly had no idea what is the future
hope was I going to be in a tear in his
vision was I going to be there at all I
had no idea so I did what you do your
research and there’s not there’s a lot
of unknowns about MS actually but one
thing that was sort of a recurring theme
was food the power of food to heal or to
hinder needing more whole food fewer
chemicals okay this is something I can
do I can do this for myself and that was
empowering I didn’t have to be passive
with this disease but my food mattered
so I started shopping at our local
farmers market and I got to know our
local farmers and these people are crazy
passionate about the food they’re
growing they’re choosing heirloom
varieties because they taste better and
they’re amending and composting to make
this perfect soil to grow these
nutrient-dense foods
this was living and breathing something
that I honestly had only considered when
I’d said well well I don’t know what’s
on sale and what am I in the mood for
for supper tonight so so this was
entirely new
then sometimes there is no farmers
market going on sometimes it’s winter so
what do you do well you you go to a
grocery store right and now though armed
with this this knowledge that I had
about food shopping in a regular grocery
store was actually kind of tough it’s
kind of kind of depressing or
frustrating because there’s a lot of
marketing and messaging around our food
but there’s not a lot of truth and
transparency but I mean that’s what we
got right nothing to do well in 2011 I
got a call from a friend of mine and
this friend had actually been running
the local farmers market for the past
like 13 or so years a long time and she
had repeating stories of where’s the
farmers market she had repeating stories
of new farmers showing up to the market
and they’re fresh faced and they’re
eager and they’re and they’re selling
their stuff and they do that for the
first year and sometimes they’d be there
for the next year and then they’d be
gone they couldn’t survive they couldn’t
make their mortgage and pay their bills
and pay their health insurance while
growing our food so when she called that
day she said I have an idea and she
pulled four of us into the room at the
Public Library and she said I think our
community and our farmers need a food
co-op what do you think about starting
one to which I replied what the heck is
a food co-op I had no idea
fast forward five years of blood sweat
tears and waiting neck-deep through the
co-operative movement and my
breakthrough moment happened when I
realized that we were not starting a
grocery store what we were doing was
actually an engine for social justice
consider this what residents of
communities truly owned the economic
base and infrastructure of
their communities what if what if the
economy isn’t something that just
happens to us what if the economy isn’t
purely driven by for-profit corporations
or Wall Street or our legislators we
don’t actually have to imagine because
there are communities who are already
building cooperative economies and for
the people involved it really is
revolutionary Springfield Massachusetts
there’s a third largest city in the
state it is home to multiple colleges
universities and hospitals these anchor
institutions on average spend one and a
half billion dollars every year just
buying the goods and services they need
and less than 10 percent of that is from
local businesses so the wellspring
cooperative has started putting together
a network of cooperatives and it is
providing good jobs to the people in
their community and it is providing
vital services to these institutions and
the residents so they’ve got this
network and for instance you’ve got a
window restoration business its
women-owned and it’s allowing these
women to have good jobs with flexible
time schedules so they can care for
their family kids manage schooling there
is a furniture upholstery business which
actually largely employs ex-inmates from
the nearby prison who have gone through
their multi-year apprenticeship program
and now they’ve got this gateway back
into society with not only a good job
but something that they own within a
community but they’re going to care a
lot more about because they’re invested
and most recently they just raised over
a million dollars and broke ground on a
commercial green house that is going to
supply lettuce and greens and herbs to
the community schools hospitals
restaurants and
yes the residents and it’s a network of
these businesses working together that
is keeping that economy and vital and
just like in Rochdale word spreads 50
miles down the road in Worchester
Massachusetts there are building about a
dozen cooperatives and a network to
provide good jobs and value training to
their local residents they are fitting
resident skills with the needs of the
community they’ve brought other
businesses such as a land keeping
company honey pure bin’ farming a soil
remediation company and with all of this
increased activism within the community
new social endeavors have picked up and
these movement organizations they also
need support services so they have come
up with cooperative solutions such as
translation services videography
bookkeeping see how this is rolling one
more example Jackson Mississippi the
population there 48% struggle with
poverty Jackson cooperative Jackson
started just in April of 2017 they
haven’t even been around a year yet but
they are dedicated to bringing
worker-owned cooperative as a solution
to the marginalized residents of their
community to help build community wealth
and ownership within within that
community so they’ve already just in the
course of a year they have an urban
farming collective called freedom farms
they have a cafe with an outside
catering arm they’ve built a community
center they’ve got a business incubator
and even a fabrication Center for small
business manufacturing this is changing
the entire landscape of this community
that until now had felt largely
forgotten by legislators by the
government and by the West their
community
they’ve taken up power and when you see
they
like this where people support the
cooperative’s
and the cooperatives are supporting the
people and supporting the community and
you see how this networking of economy
just keeps growing and building it has a
measurable effect on poverty rates on
quality of life and on social engagement
cooperatives exist in every sector of
our economy in every stand nearly every
country in the world over 1 billion
people worldwide are members of a
cooperative in the United States alone
there are an estimated thirty thousand
cooperatives right now at this minute
there are over a hundred food co-ops in
some stage of organizing and that adds
to the two hundred plus food
cooperatives that are already up and
running right here in this community we
have a food co-op that has been open for
less than a year but they have already
contributed close to eleven thousand
dollars back to local charities and they
are supporting 67 local farmers right
now with more being added every day this
is just the tip of the iceberg these
examples of what the co-operative
movement can do from an economic
standpoint remember that each one of
those examples is owned by the residents
of that community it was developed to
fit a community need the structure for
change exists with all of those
cooperatives around the world the
opportunity is there we just have to
change our mindset about how we
contribute to it we as consumers have to
stop being passive about how we consume
because the money we spend is actually
us voting every single day and if you
value democracy and social justice then
by all means shop those values because
the foundation of a cooperative
is social and economic justice but it’s
also food security it’s racial equality
it is so many things to so many people
but the one thing that a cooperative is
not it is not a spectator sport it takes
all of us and I know that sometimes
change is inconvenient it is
inconvenient to change our habits but
sometimes we have to do it’s hard in
order to do what is right and as I see
it there are three particular mindsets
that we need to change for ourselves
first is that the dominant economy is
the only economy cooperatives can exist
as a parallel economy with the
for-profit world cooperatives can
provide economic stability to a
community while protecting jobs from or
outsourcing and corporate downsizing the
second is that your money is voting
power shop your values we have to start
being willing to pay a fair wage for the
things that we consume the for-profit
model pretty much determines that if
they’re going to sell us cheap goods and
they are still going to keep
shareholders happy by making a profit
then someone somewhere along that
production line is being exploited we
have to seriously consider our consuming
habits and understand the true value of
what we’re buying the co-operative model
expands the landscape for what we know
is possible it gives us the opportunity
to create valuable social change it is
not enough to uncover injustice and
protest it we the people
have to take control democratically of
our own resources because when we do we
can support people and the planet the
lantern that was lit at thirty-one toad
Lane was happened over a hundred and
seventy years ago but the co-operative
values that it stands for are still
alive and well today the Rosedale new
pioneers proved that we have the power
to make crude change happen but it has
to start with us thank you
[Applause]
there is a lamp it is a lamp that
represents the start of a revolution you
see in 1853 a group of labourers
Weaver’s shoemakers cabinet joiners they
got together to solve a problem in
England at that time the society was
heavily separated into a small minority
of the very very wealthy who controlled
virtually everything they owned the land
they owned the factories they owned the
businesses and because only landowners
could vote they owned the government too
and then you had everybody else which
basically they lived in poverty matters
worse the poor wages that they received
oftentimes included company chits which
were vouchers that were only able to be
used at the company owned stores and now
products in these stores were
deliberately inflated prices and often
poor quality so the very act of buying
the necessities for your family meant
that you were returning the money back
to the factory owners and it was a
vicious cycle and it appeared that there
was no chance for solving it but this of
28 men had come together and they had a
vision for a more equitable society and
they were going to do it themselves they
came together and they decided to pool
their resources and for over a year they
scrimped and saved what they could and
they were determined to open their own
store so on December 21st 1844 they
pulled the boards off the windows of
their storefront they lit the lantern in
the front window and they basically
announced the world we are open for
business
at thirty-one totaling it was not a
particularly impressive showing that
night
they only had four items in their
inventory it was a collection of butter
sugar flour and oatmeal as all there was
but they had done it they were open and
they survived that night and the next
night and the night after that and they
grew and eventually they were able to
hire a shopkeeper and they paid him a
fair wage and farmers brought them
produce and received fair pay for it and
women came and they lent their money
management skills because they’d been
managed households on virtually no money
their entire lives this was easy and
they brought their fierce determination
because for the first in their lives
they had a vote in something that they
owned this was unheard of
and by doing what they did these people
shaped a new future for their families
and their communities the Rosedale new
pioneers were born and the co-operative
movement was born now to be clear this
was not the first time that people had
come together for something like this
had actually been cooperatives that had
begun and failed many times but the
Rosedale folks were determined to
succeed where others had not and they
set out a series of operating principles
and these principles were going to guide
their decisions and they dealt with
things like democracy autonomy honesty
equality and they became the foundation
for the modern cooperative movement and
they are the basis for every cooperative
operating today the powerful cooperative
story is one that presents members not
as passive consumers but as active
citizens improving a community that’s
what the Rochdale pioneers really were
they were active citizens working for
improvement what are we going to be
now I would like to tell you that I
heard that story and it like lit this
passion and I you know join the
co-operative movement and you know but
that’s not actually the case I didn’t
hear the story for quite a while after
that my journey is a little less
dramatic a little less altruistic
actually I had a need that was not being
met
it was the age-old story of what’s in it
for me you see in 2006 I had a
six-month-old baby and I had a brand-new
diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and I
was looking at this baby and what I had
thought was my vision for the future
suddenly had no idea what is the future
hope was I going to be in a tear in his
vision was I going to be there at all I
had no idea so I did what you do your
research and there’s not there’s a lot
of unknowns about MS actually but one
thing that was sort of a recurring theme
was food the power of food to heal or to
hinder needing more whole food fewer
chemicals okay this is something I can
do I can do this for myself and that was
empowering I didn’t have to be passive
with this disease but my food mattered
so I started shopping at our local
farmers market and I got to know our
local farmers and these people are crazy
passionate about the food they’re
growing they’re choosing heirloom
varieties because they taste better and
they’re amending and composting to make
this perfect soil to grow these
nutrient-dense foods
this was living and breathing something
that I honestly had only considered when
I’d said well well I don’t know what’s
on sale and what am I in the mood for
for supper tonight so so this was
entirely new
then sometimes there is no farmers
market going on sometimes it’s winter so
what do you do well you you go to a
grocery store right and now though armed
with this this knowledge that I had
about food shopping in a regular grocery
store was actually kind of tough it’s
kind of kind of depressing or
frustrating because there’s a lot of
marketing and messaging around our food
but there’s not a lot of truth and
transparency but I mean that’s what we
got right nothing to do well in 2011 I
got a call from a friend of mine and
this friend had actually been running
the local farmers market for the past
like 13 or so years a long time and she
had repeating stories of where’s the
farmers market she had repeating stories
of new farmers showing up to the market
and they’re fresh faced and they’re
eager and they’re and they’re selling
their stuff and they do that for the
first year and sometimes they’d be there
for the next year and then they’d be
gone they couldn’t survive they couldn’t
make their mortgage and pay their bills
and pay their health insurance while
growing our food so when she called that
day she said I have an idea and she
pulled four of us into the room at the
Public Library and she said I think our
community and our farmers need a food
co-op what do you think about starting
one to which I replied what the heck is
a food co-op I had no idea
fast forward five years of blood sweat
tears and waiting neck-deep through the
co-operative movement and my
breakthrough moment happened when I
realized that we were not starting a
grocery store what we were doing was
actually an engine for social justice
consider this what residents of
communities truly owned the economic
base and infrastructure of
their communities what if what if the
economy isn’t something that just
happens to us what if the economy isn’t
purely driven by for-profit corporations
or Wall Street or our legislators we
don’t actually have to imagine because
there are communities who are already
building cooperative economies and for
the people involved it really is
revolutionary Springfield Massachusetts
there’s a third largest city in the
state it is home to multiple colleges
universities and hospitals these anchor
institutions on average spend one and a
half billion dollars every year just
buying the goods and services they need
and less than 10 percent of that is from
local businesses so the wellspring
cooperative has started putting together
a network of cooperatives and it is
providing good jobs to the people in
their community and it is providing
vital services to these institutions and
the residents so they’ve got this
network and for instance you’ve got a
window restoration business its
women-owned and it’s allowing these
women to have good jobs with flexible
time schedules so they can care for
their family kids manage schooling there
is a furniture upholstery business which
actually largely employs ex-inmates from
the nearby prison who have gone through
their multi-year apprenticeship program
and now they’ve got this gateway back
into society with not only a good job
but something that they own within a
community but they’re going to care a
lot more about because they’re invested
and most recently they just raised over
a million dollars and broke ground on a
commercial green house that is going to
supply lettuce and greens and herbs to
the community schools hospitals
restaurants and
yes the residents and it’s a network of
these businesses working together that
is keeping that economy and vital and
just like in Rochdale word spreads 50
miles down the road in Worchester
Massachusetts there are building about a
dozen cooperatives and a network to
provide good jobs and value training to
their local residents they are fitting
resident skills with the needs of the
community they’ve brought other
businesses such as a land keeping
company honey pure bin’ farming a soil
remediation company and with all of this
increased activism within the community
new social endeavors have picked up and
these movement organizations they also
need support services so they have come
up with cooperative solutions such as
translation services videography
bookkeeping see how this is rolling one
more example Jackson Mississippi the
population there 48% struggle with
poverty Jackson cooperative Jackson
started just in April of 2017 they
haven’t even been around a year yet but
they are dedicated to bringing
worker-owned cooperative as a solution
to the marginalized residents of their
community to help build community wealth
and ownership within within that
community so they’ve already just in the
course of a year they have an urban
farming collective called freedom farms
they have a cafe with an outside
catering arm they’ve built a community
center they’ve got a business incubator
and even a fabrication Center for small
business manufacturing this is changing
the entire landscape of this community
that until now had felt largely
forgotten by legislators by the
government and by the West their
community
they’ve taken up power and when you see
they
like this where people support the
cooperative’s
and the cooperatives are supporting the
people and supporting the community and
you see how this networking of economy
just keeps growing and building it has a
measurable effect on poverty rates on
quality of life and on social engagement
cooperatives exist in every sector of
our economy in every stand nearly every
country in the world over 1 billion
people worldwide are members of a
cooperative in the United States alone
there are an estimated thirty thousand
cooperatives right now at this minute
there are over a hundred food co-ops in
some stage of organizing and that adds
to the two hundred plus food
cooperatives that are already up and
running right here in this community we
have a food co-op that has been open for
less than a year but they have already
contributed close to eleven thousand
dollars back to local charities and they
are supporting 67 local farmers right
now with more being added every day this
is just the tip of the iceberg these
examples of what the co-operative
movement can do from an economic
standpoint remember that each one of
those examples is owned by the residents
of that community it was developed to
fit a community need the structure for
change exists with all of those
cooperatives around the world the
opportunity is there we just have to
change our mindset about how we
contribute to it we as consumers have to
stop being passive about how we consume
because the money we spend is actually
us voting every single day and if you
value democracy and social justice then
by all means shop those values because
the foundation of a cooperative
is social and economic justice but it’s
also food security it’s racial equality
it is so many things to so many people
but the one thing that a cooperative is
not it is not a spectator sport it takes
all of us and I know that sometimes
change is inconvenient it is
inconvenient to change our habits but
sometimes we have to do it’s hard in
order to do what is right and as I see
it there are three particular mindsets
that we need to change for ourselves
first is that the dominant economy is
the only economy cooperatives can exist
as a parallel economy with the
for-profit world cooperatives can
provide economic stability to a
community while protecting jobs from or
outsourcing and corporate downsizing the
second is that your money is voting
power shop your values we have to start
being willing to pay a fair wage for the
things that we consume the for-profit
model pretty much determines that if
they’re going to sell us cheap goods and
they are still going to keep
shareholders happy by making a profit
then someone somewhere along that
production line is being exploited we
have to seriously consider our consuming
habits and understand the true value of
what we’re buying the co-operative model
expands the landscape for what we know
is possible it gives us the opportunity
to create valuable social change it is
not enough to uncover injustice and
protest it we the people
have to take control democratically of
our own resources because when we do we
can support people and the planet the
lantern that was lit at thirty-one toad
Lane was happened over a hundred and
seventy years ago but the co-operative
values that it stands for are still
alive and well today the Rosedale new
pioneers proved that we have the power
to make crude change happen but it has
to start with us thank you
[Applause]
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