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gordonzolaWell, I’m back.
The worker co-op conference was amazing in a lot of ways and annoying only in smaller less meaningful ones. I’ll give you the highlights below, but the actual, non-sarcastic, accomplishment of the conference was how much it’s grown. When I went for the first time six years ago, there were about 50 people there, a monocultural gathering of co-ops that came out of the new social movements of the ‘70s finally ready to poke their heads up again after surviving the Reagan ‘80s and the early ‘90s recession.
Even that conference was inspiring in it’s own way. Just the ability to compare personnel policies, orientation systems, and common problems was a really big deal. But the weaknesses were glaring. For the whole West Coast there were maybe 15 –20 co-ops represented. And of those people, maybe three or four people of color.** While on any real scale worker co-ops remain fairly insignificant, and still have a lot of problems, issues, etc, a lot has changed in the last 6 years.
At that time, Arizmendi* was just a concept and now there are three bakeries. We have the ability to do conflict resolution, facilitation and anti-oppression trainings by and for other co-ops. This conference was sold out at 116 people with about 55 different co-ops and a much larger cross section of humanity represented and involved. Our yearly conference has inspired East Coast and Midwest conferences and made possible a conference to plan a national federation planned for May 2004 in Minneapolis.
It’s just amazing staying with a political project long enough to see progress.
I know you all just really want to hear about naked hippies in hot tubs and bad vegan food. However, since we had so many people this year, we rented the entire place. That meant we didn’t have to endure another Watsu conference or the Hey-Sister-need-a-backrub-posse. And yeah, there were a lot of (no doubt organic) rocks in the food, but it wreaked much less havoc on my digestive system than in years past.
But here are a few memorable moments:
-A person on the panel I was moderating going into a Women who Dance with the Wolves monologue in her section of the workshop. My co-workers kept calling me "Mama Bear" afterwards.
-An ohmming hippie wanker in the sauna who must have hiked into the hot springs past the locked gate cuz he wasn’t with us and wasn’t with Breitenbush.
-When people started snapping non-violently to show their support for things said by others at the conference evaluation session I tried to hold back my look of horror but one co-worker caught and returned it. Hippie-bashing brings our generation together.
-On the car ride home we stopped for food. The waitress asked if we were in a band.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anarqueso replied that we were grocery store workers on our way back from a co-op conference and she gave us the Whatever look. She obviously thought we were making fun of her.
I’m sure there’s more but I got in at 4 AM and didn’t get enough sleep. And now I have to clean up the mess you left in my journal too. Sheeesh.
*Named for the priest who helped start the Spanish Mondragon Cooperative system, the largest cooperative system in the world. The Cheese Board in Berkeley provided start up money and training to the first Arizmendi bakery who then paid the money back into a revolving loan fund. This fund provides money to the next Arizmendi co-op and the first Arizmendi Bakery provides training. Hopefully this continues until we take over the world.
**at that conference my (Latina) friend from GV (Are you still out there R?) went up to someone who turned out to be Indonesian and said, "Are you Latino?". She got embarrassed when he wasn’t and said she felt like that children’s book character who goes around asking "Are you my mommy?"
The worker co-op conference was amazing in a lot of ways and annoying only in smaller less meaningful ones. I’ll give you the highlights below, but the actual, non-sarcastic, accomplishment of the conference was how much it’s grown. When I went for the first time six years ago, there were about 50 people there, a monocultural gathering of co-ops that came out of the new social movements of the ‘70s finally ready to poke their heads up again after surviving the Reagan ‘80s and the early ‘90s recession.
Even that conference was inspiring in it’s own way. Just the ability to compare personnel policies, orientation systems, and common problems was a really big deal. But the weaknesses were glaring. For the whole West Coast there were maybe 15 –20 co-ops represented. And of those people, maybe three or four people of color.** While on any real scale worker co-ops remain fairly insignificant, and still have a lot of problems, issues, etc, a lot has changed in the last 6 years.
At that time, Arizmendi* was just a concept and now there are three bakeries. We have the ability to do conflict resolution, facilitation and anti-oppression trainings by and for other co-ops. This conference was sold out at 116 people with about 55 different co-ops and a much larger cross section of humanity represented and involved. Our yearly conference has inspired East Coast and Midwest conferences and made possible a conference to plan a national federation planned for May 2004 in Minneapolis.
It’s just amazing staying with a political project long enough to see progress.
I know you all just really want to hear about naked hippies in hot tubs and bad vegan food. However, since we had so many people this year, we rented the entire place. That meant we didn’t have to endure another Watsu conference or the Hey-Sister-need-a-backrub-posse. And yeah, there were a lot of (no doubt organic) rocks in the food, but it wreaked much less havoc on my digestive system than in years past.
But here are a few memorable moments:
-A person on the panel I was moderating going into a Women who Dance with the Wolves monologue in her section of the workshop. My co-workers kept calling me "Mama Bear" afterwards.
-An ohmming hippie wanker in the sauna who must have hiked into the hot springs past the locked gate cuz he wasn’t with us and wasn’t with Breitenbush.
-When people started snapping non-violently to show their support for things said by others at the conference evaluation session I tried to hold back my look of horror but one co-worker caught and returned it. Hippie-bashing brings our generation together.
-On the car ride home we stopped for food. The waitress asked if we were in a band.
anarqueso replied that we were grocery store workers on our way back from a co-op conference and she gave us the Whatever look. She obviously thought we were making fun of her.I’m sure there’s more but I got in at 4 AM and didn’t get enough sleep. And now I have to clean up the mess you left in my journal too. Sheeesh.
*Named for the priest who helped start the Spanish Mondragon Cooperative system, the largest cooperative system in the world. The Cheese Board in Berkeley provided start up money and training to the first Arizmendi bakery who then paid the money back into a revolving loan fund. This fund provides money to the next Arizmendi co-op and the first Arizmendi Bakery provides training. Hopefully this continues until we take over the world.
**at that conference my (Latina) friend from GV (Are you still out there R?) went up to someone who turned out to be Indonesian and said, "Are you Latino?". She got embarrassed when he wasn’t and said she felt like that children’s book character who goes around asking "Are you my mommy?"
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 02:40 pm (UTC)why I could never be a hippie or an anarchist...
Date: 2003-10-23 01:19 pm (UTC)Is it me, or do a lot of anarchists really, really, enjoy making rules?
Uhm, I am so out of it... what does "snapping non violently" mean?
Re: why I could never be a hippie or an anarchist...
Date: 2003-10-23 02:47 pm (UTC)2. I think much "organizing" done in the name name of anarchism is as much of a wank as the person mentioned above. And I know what you mean. But I also think the idea of making explicit that a decision is being made and trying to come to agreements among people is an anarchist goal.
And this was a co-op conference not an anarchist conference. those two terms are not synonomous.
3. "snapping non-violently" was kind of a joke. Snapping is a hippie substitute for clapping which can be seen as "disruptive" and time consuming. I just followed that path of logic a little further.
Re: why I could never be a hippie or an anarchist...
Date: 2003-10-23 04:31 pm (UTC)Re: why I could never be a hippie or an anarchist...
Date: 2003-10-23 04:31 pm (UTC)Re: why I could never be a hippie or an anarchist...
Date: 2003-10-23 06:47 pm (UTC)Re: why I could never be a hippie or an anarchist...
Date: 2003-10-23 07:57 pm (UTC)Re: why I could never be a hippie or an anarchist...
Date: 2003-10-23 08:51 pm (UTC)At Cal State Northridge about ten years ago, I once accidentally stumbled into a big Deaf Student Union meeting that was apparently at the "thanks for coming, and a big round of applause for our speakers!" stage, and everyone was doing the hand-twinkling thing.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 04:53 pm (UTC)tee hee, sorry, I was totally stereotyping!
no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 04:55 pm (UTC)Well, did you shut him up? Because silence is complicity.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-24 08:29 am (UTC);-D
Maybe I wasn't clear enough
Date: 2003-10-23 07:10 pm (UTC)Re: Maybe I wasn't clear enough
Date: 2003-10-23 09:41 pm (UTC)Oh.
Date: 2003-10-24 08:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 01:36 pm (UTC)Also, as long as I'm feeling all head-explodey, why does anyone thing "people of color" is semantically any different than "non-white"?
no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 01:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 02:50 pm (UTC)the semantic difference between the two phrases is that "non-white" defacto defines "white" as the norm to which others must be compared.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-24 12:48 am (UTC)I sense that you are making a not-joke and it makes me un-want to not-hurt people. Chocolate rations miniplenty!
no subject
Date: 2003-10-24 08:21 am (UTC)warning - non-sarcastic comment ahead:
Date: 2003-10-23 01:46 pm (UTC)Re: warning - non-sarcastic comment ahead:
Date: 2003-10-23 02:51 pm (UTC)I've been wanting to do a food conspiracy book for quitesome time. Did we discuss this already? seeya Friday.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 03:28 pm (UTC)Wow!
Re: Wow!
Date: 2003-10-24 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 06:47 pm (UTC)I loved this and I plan on naming my next all-grrrl punk band The "Hey-Sister-need-a-backrub-posse"..
no subject
Date: 2003-10-23 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-24 05:54 pm (UTC)this sounds very stiff, but i'm really interested in the political aspects. (as well as the party we had while you were away.)
no subject
Date: 2003-10-26 01:30 pm (UTC)