While the world is facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis, co-operatives in industry and services are reorganizing themselves, finding strength in the people and communities they serve. It’s not surprising to social-economic strategists that COVID-19 spurred Canada’s co-operative sector to step up and respond to the needs of communities immediately. In many cases, co-ops … Continued
COVID-19 has led to dramatic shifts in consumer behaviour. To meet ever-evolving customer experience requirements, co-ops will have to remain flexible, relevant, and responsive. And as people-centred businesses, co-ops should be strategic and invested in sharing how they are there for their members and their communities. At the fall 2020 CIU Strategic Foresight Virtual Conference, … Continued
An active, engaged, and informed membership and staff community are critical to the success and sustainability of your co-op. The BCCA offers educational workshops, training, resources, and consultation services for our member co-ops that can help you build literacy around the co-operative model, cultivate a sense of co-operative identity, and boost participation among your membership. … Continued
When times are tough – we look for stories of heroes and impact. Now is the time for co-ops to step into the spotlight and start sharing their superpowers. The Co-operative Intelligence Unit (CIU) was developed to create resources and connect co-ops to experts to plan effectively in an uncertain future and this team of experts … Continued
Do you love telling stories? Short stories, 200 characters long that have an impact; visual stories that capture a moment or idea and shift perspectives; and longer stories about how individuals and organizations can improve their communities. All this within the context of a flowing narrative of how the co-operative business model can build a … Continued
To raise the profile of co-op issues in the BC election, BCCA sent a survey of seven questions to each of the main political parties to gauge their support of our policy priorities. Responses were received from all three parties, which presents us with good opportunities for follow up on important challenges. Of note, the … Continued
During our MEC Townhall on October 15th, we all watched this video about the story of La Siembra, a co-op that came very close to losing their co-operative identity to a sale, much like MEC. This video tells the story of how instead, the La Siembra community leaned into the co-operative principles and values and … Continued
As part of our Annual General Meeting on October 15th, BCCA hosted a public townhall dialogue around the sale of MEC and what BCCA and the co-operative community as a whole can do moving forward. We were joined by organizers Kevin Harding and Yuill Herbert from SaveMEC to speak about the valiant organizing work that … Continued
It’s been an exciting and challenging year for BCCA, and we have seen significant growth and development in a lot of our programs, services, and initiatives as we continue to push the pace to serve co-operatives in BC. We are excited to publish our annual report which captures a lot of this great work over … Continued
BC’s co-op and credit union sector is still reeling from the news that Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), a beloved retail brand in this country for nearly 50 years, is intended to be sold to a foreign private investor, U.S.-based Kingswood Capital Management. As has been widely reported, the members of MEC were not consulted and learned … Continued