December 18, 2019
New CWCF Look and Website Coming in 2020 / Connecting with Members / Vancouver Region WC Business Succession Project / WC Start-up Training Program – Parcours COOP (Toronto) / Reconfirming Fall 2020 Conference Dates, & more!
CWCF is excited to be working with the Montreal-based, bilingual team of social justice-focused LOKI Design and Fair Trade Media on our new logo, visual identity and website. This is a critical, creative part of CWCF’s Strategic Plan and we are keen to share these elements with all of you in the new year. Given the challenge for our board and staff to reach consensus on the new look, the project launch has had some delays – but we believe you will find it was worth the wait!
In early 2020, we will again start to reach out to Worker Co-op members and Regional Federation members to check in via phone calls and in some cases, in-person meetings. This is in addition to a planned worker co-op survey with quantitative questions.
As part of the Lower Mainland, BC Worker Co-op Business Succession project that CWCF has initiated (along with Vancity, BC Co-operatives Association, Co-operatives First, and CoopConvert project of the University of Toronto and l’Université de Sherbrooke), Vancity will launch a survey of many of its business members in January, based on the CoopConvert survey. The plan is to identify a number of businesses with interest in considering succession to a worker co-op, and then supporting the conversion(s). Learnings from this region will then be shared with and applied to other regions. Note that the national CoopConvert project now has a website, here.
CWCF and the Quebec Réseau COOP have nearly completed negotiations on the terms for having the Réseau COOP share its very successful training program for worker co-op start-ups, le Parcours COOP, with CWCF. In early 2020, we will begin the translation and then adaptation of this program for use outside Quebec. CWCF’s intention is to begin to offer this program in the Toronto region. This will also give the Réseau COOP better capacity to offer the program to anglophones in Quebec.
The CWCF 2020 Conference in Vancouver will be held on November 12-14, which is a change from the dates first announced. There is already a full Conference Planning Committee in place, but if anyone else is interested in joining, please let Communications Manager Kaye Grant know.
We’re very pleased to be working with several new board members. Our Communications Assistant Kenzie Love starts a series profiling board members in this newsletter, with Evan Proven of Sun Certified Builders Co-op of Winnipeg. He continues his series of profiling members, with Just Us! Coffee Roasters Co-op. If your worker co-op has not yet been profiled and would like to be, please let Kenzie know.
There is a lot going on at CWCF, with CWCF members, in the world of platform coops, in the international worker co-op movement, etc. – much of which is reported in our December newsletter.
As we approach the end of the year, on behalf of the CWCF staff team I wish you a great holiday season, and a 2020 filled with peace and solidarity!
All the best,
Hazel Corcoran