This week, Cathy Statz, Education Director at Wisconsin Farmers Union talks with Vernon Oakes of Everything Co-op about WFU's history and the many programs and initiatives they run today
Then Kenzie Love writes about the promise of the "Fediverse" for creating human-scale social media that avoids the many pitfalls inherent in the monolithic corporate model.
Cathy Statz, Education Director at Wisconsin Farmer's Union
by Everything Co-op
In the role of education director, Cathy Statz facilitates cooperative education programs for Farmers Union members, youth and the general public, including Farmers Union's 80+ years old cooperative camp program. She has assisted with cooperative youth leadership development programs on a state, national and international level, and co-coordinates the National Farmers Union College Conference on Cooperatives.
Fediverse Model Offers Social Media a Second Chance
by Kenzie Love
The Fediverse, as Jakob Sitter Midttun writes, is an ensemble of interconnected – yet independent – free, open source social media platforms utilizing federated protocols to seamlessly integrate with one another. In the words of David Pierce, it’s “as if you took X, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook and made them all interoperable so you could post anything from anywhere, and all your followers would be guaranteed to see it.”
The National Worker Cooperative Development and Support Act shines a light on cooperative jobs with federal agencies
USFWC — Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA-17), Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY-16), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-12) on the introduction of the National Worker Cooperative Development and Support Act (HR 7721), which aims to promote and expand worker-owned cooperative businesses in the United States by endowing the Small Business Administration (SBA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Department of the Treasury, Department of Commerce, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and Department of Labor (DOL) with responsibilities and authorities to implement programs and initiatives to support worker co-ops...
Many small producers come together in the heart of Sardinia
Gambero Rosso — The story of the Olivicoltori di Oliena cooperative began in 2016 as a natural evolution of an earlier cooperative experience founded in the first half of the last century. A reality that today brings together many small producers from diverse social backgrounds who have decided to combine their know-how in a single productive and valuable context. The importance of coming together and producing quality oil in a context of small producers has led this beautiful Sardinian reality to be recognized as the "Cooperative of the Year," in partnership with Monte dei Paschi di Siena, receiving the award during the presentation of the Gambero Rosso's Oli d'Italia 2024 guide at Vinitaly - Sol Agrifood in Verona...
The Logic of Non-Reformist Reforms
Redneck Gone Green — A non-reformist reform is designed to [help people] in the context of a strategic orientation that’s designed to ultimately transform the entire system. On the other hand, a strategic plan is a formalized roadmap that outlines specific actions, initiatives, and objectives designed to realize a strategic orientation. It translates the broader strategic vision into actionable steps, detailing timelines, resources, and responsibilities to ensure alignment and coherence in execution. A strategic plan typically includes elements such as goal setting, implementation, performance metrics, resource allocation, and risk management strategies...
Piloting co-operative care in London: the final quarter
Equal Care Coop — As we enter the last quarter of our LOTI-funded pilot of a care commons in Clapton, our team is shifting focus from recruitment, team building and community mapping to producing a service specification, evaluation framework and playbook for Commons-based care...
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