Want to know more about the candidates? Mark your calendar for the Annual Meeting! October 27th, from 1-4 pm at the Olympia Ballroom. Great food, candidate speeches and the first round of member discussion on recent research into whether the Co-op should change our legal status (currently, we are a not-for-profit under RCW 24.03.) We look forward to seeing you there!
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Board Candidate: Micheal Snow
Why
do you want to be on the Co-op Board of Directors?
As a member and dedicated patron I
have an interest in knowing more about how our Co-op runs and I wish to
contribute my skills and knowledge in whatever ways I can to see it flourish. I
have visited? Learned about? food co-ops all over the country, and spoken with
representatives from many of them. I believe OFC is an amazing and unique place
that is always challenging itself and others to go past the confines of
perceived possibilities for food cooperatives. I want to become a more informed
member who takes on the responsibility of problem solving any organizational,
financial, and social quandaries the Co-op might confront.
What
general abilities would you bring to the Board?
What specific abilities and experiences would you offer to help provide
direction in dealing with the Co-op’s challenges?
For the last five years I have worked
in collectively managed businesses. As a
member of the Flaming Eggplant, a student-run, cooperatively managed restaurant
at the Evergreen State College, I developed experience in finance, conflict
resolution process, organizational structure and consensus decision-making.
Currently I am a worker-owner of the newly formed New Moon Cooperative and a
founding member of the Black Moon Collective. As a student I visited and worked
at the CECOSESOLA Cooperative in Venezuela, one of the largest and
longest-lived cooperatives in the world. I worked on a committee of Coop board
and staff members and community members to facilitate an exchange between
CECOSESOLA and the Olympia Food Co-op. We also organized a conference on
cooperatives in Olympia where CECOSESOLA members and others shared their
experience and knowledge. I would like to continue to pursue the lessons we all
learned from that process.
What
do you see as current strengths of the Co-op that you would like to see
maintained? What would you like to see
changed?
From my perspective, the strengths of
the Co-op lie in its commitment to the mission statement, and to providing
services with those strong values always present. The Co-op is committed to
avoiding the ever-so-prevalent green-washing tendency of the natural foods
world, and working hard to be an organization that makes real impacts with its
decisions and services.
I would like to see is the Co-op form
deeper relationships with other cooperatives and socially driven economic
enterprises, and support their development.
What
vision do you have for the Co-op for the next five years?
I would like to see the Coop
participate in the formation of a structured regional movement towards a larger
cooperative/social economy.
