TERMINATION d'la semaine numéro 3 !!!!

Bonjours chers collègues, et surtout… chère collèguEs!

Well, even if I didn’t get to PEI this week to meet you guys, I did everything else… and A lot more !

• I met Jason Frenette, director of Jeunes Entrepreneurs Kent. There is not as much potencial in Kent County as in the peninsule Acadienne to have ‘’Développement Entrepreneurship Jeunnesse’’ about cooperatives
  
  
  
• I Contacted Marc Dugay and set up a meeting in the Péninsule Acadienne for July 15th. I am still waiting for Melvin to reply.
  
  
• Not only did I elaborate the first step to a marketing research that will be usefull to all my local Coops, since we didn’t get the chance to go on our reunion, I worked with Gab, the Manager on this study. This study will be very interesting because it is connexe in my concentration in university. It is the first step in a Marketing research. I also got an article going on the Coop’s info flash about my research, therefore leaving everyone in St-Paul conscience of me being a cooperative development agent.
  
  
  
• I am keeping the contact with Jacque Lapointe, me and him will probably be meeting again at the end of the month of July to discuss strategies.
  
  
• Started my ‘’Coop success story’’. I will be doing it on la Fédération des Caisses Populaires Ltée.
  
  When is it due for ????
  
  
• I also finished the 12 minute presentation of coops in my region. LoL… It’s funny cause I was in it for a while. I have a crash course of the whole Acadian cooperative story in N.-B. I have made a ppt presentation but most of the info is in my head, and I will be giving to you my knowledge in the Acadian Cooperative movement.
  

Well a big week for me ! And things are rolling, next week is gonna be a big one for me, meeting with many people that have been in the cooperative movement since they were born. I am doing great guys, And I can’t wait to meet y’ALL

Vive les Acadiens ! et vive l’été !
Bonne fin de semaine tout le monde !

Marc

Week 6: Office week

Hey folks. So I'm feeling pretty stoked about this week, even though I spent most of it in the office. Things seem to be either starting or coming together.

• Followed up with Solidarity Boots. They're pretty close to incorporating, just need to get their by-laws back from a member in Newfoundland. Could well be incorporation #3 for team MYDAS.
• With Matt, completed the success story write-up
• Did a fair amount of research on housing policy, housing co-ops for low-income folks. Yikes. (This is the part where I leap into a political diatribe. We should all be a lot angrier at our governments)
• HCAP presentation tomorrow. A tad intimidated about it, as I'm sure they'll know a lot more about housing policy than I will.
• Prepared a presentation for the orientation, now on Monday.
• Did research into a venue (have one booked, but pretty tentatively) for a Halifax Co-op Forum, and have been in touch with some folks from the Heartwood Centre about the whole idea. This will be turning into a fairly large project

So London bombings aside, this has been a good week, even though I spent most of it sitting down.

(Note: This is the week where all liberal minded, non-reactionary folk should phone into cross-country check-up on CBC radio. Seriously. All the G-8 leaders scared the h&** out of me. No hint of self-reflection at all. The posturing sounded so similar to the al-Qaeda pronouncement found by the BBC. Nobody even mentioned Iraq. But I digress.)

take care all,

-stu

wrap up of week 6

Hey everyone

This week has been at bit hectic for me, i worked on the presentation for orientation, finding the background information and what not was quite a struggle, but i enjoyed it, especially since now i can talk more professional about cooperatives, and im not as confused. I also begain to finally scratch the surface on highend housing cooperatives, which is really interesting. I also worked on two presentations i have coming up with Carole.
I look forward to seeing everyone whose coming to orientation, and i hope everyone enjoys the weekend

Wrap up of Week 6: Kristi Kelly

Busy week! As you may have heard, Neal and I had our first official incorporation this week! HURRAY!! Other than that we were preparing for the orientation... that didn't happen! We met with a really interesting group/family today interested in setting up a cooperative in regards to division of property - plus, good ol'payroll was due. Considering the busy day, I am leaving this short and sweet!

See those of you making it to the orientation on Monday!

Orientation is RESCHEDULED: July 11th and 12th

Okay folks... I know as confusing as this has been but the orientation is now rescheduled for the following dates :

JULY 11th (Monday) and JULY 12th (Tuesday) starting at noon. Same thing applies to meeting at David's.

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT IF YOU CAN COME.

Wrap up of Week 6: Matthew Petre

Hi Everyone,

Hope you all had a great week. I am happy to report that I accomplished all of my goals for the week.

• Completed success story in collaboration with Stu
• Worked on the Funeral Guide
• Did some research into aTruro Co-op Forum
• Created a presentation for the PEI training which should be taking place now on Monday and Tuesday

Happy Friday,

Matt

Wk6 wrap-up. Keep on Bloggin in the free world

The Newfoundland contingent has spent nearly the entirety of the week working with the Indian Head Consumer co-op. They had a successful AGM on Tuesday night, Stpeh and I were pleased to be a part of that. From that point on we spent our time analyzing some materials that had come from Co-op Atlantic regarding the distribution of dollars spend by family from within the community and drafting a proposal on how to target specific segments of these groups to increase sales; this kind of market segmentation work is right up my alley.

We have also been in close contact with the Ramea community co-op, they are requesting that steph and I make another trip down there, we are happy to do so, we are just waiting on the NLFC through David to approve funding.

Enjoy the weekend all,
Dan

Wrap up Wk 6

Goodmorning everyone,
This has been an excellent week for me. I was able to speak with Jeanne Geldart from Leadership Fredericton (throught the YMCA) and discuss including a insert on co-ops for her community leadership training program for the fall. She liked the idea and is looking forward to seeing what I come up with. I prepared my powerpoint and presentation for the training on worker co-ops and CWCF. I have just recieved Annie's notes on the funeral co-op and today I will be trying to write that article. I attended the financial meeting for the Vision Action Collective on Tuesday night and the policy meeting for them on Wednesday night. I met with Carol Ann Hanley who is running an enterprise development year-long course for low-income people. We discussed including some course work on co-ops. I gave her an information package on co-ops and she'll get back to me with further plans. I really like setting things up so in the fall there is still a trace of the MYDAS program continuing on. I am really into the education and awareness part of our goals for the program. Overall I feel great about the week and I will be writing the success story today, making a few calls and continuing research for the VAC.
Have a great weekend and I may see you soon,
Erin

MYDAS TRAINING CANCELLED

The training that was scheduled for July 7th and 8th is now cancelled as David is not feeling 100% - it is only fair that we allow him to recover!

A new tentative date is set for July 11th and 12th (Monday and Tuesday) if the newest of interns are available to come.

Sorry for the inconvience!

Important to Note:

Our poorest David has come down with a strange bug lately and is feeling a tad bit under the weather. This may explain and delays/or confusing emails - wish him the best of luck in getting well.

And yes... the orientation is still on.

MYDAS PEI incorporates it's first!

Kristi and I are proud to announce that we have helped incorporate our first co-op: the Afro-Canada Centre for Art and Culture Co-operative Limited. The papers have been signed and are being dropped off to the government as I type.

Oh Yeah!

Important Email

There was an important email recently sent out in regards to some data needed to be collected, please reply asap. Thank you.

WEEK 6: Diedre Smith

Hello everyone,

Hope everyone had a good long holiday, this week should be a very packed especially with the up coming orientation. For me, this week brings further research into housing co-ops in Canada and United States which is currently going great some people are very original with thier housing co-op development ideas. Also working on the presentation and making preparations for P.E.I. Then also prepararing another presentation for the Rexton High School credit union group later on in this month. That pretty much sums up most of my week. Hope everyone enjoys the rest of the week and I look forward to meeting all those coming to the Island this week.

WEEK 6: Kristi Kelly

Hello Orientation! Hey folks, I hope everyone had a great long weekend! Neal and I are definitely looking forward to the up and coming training here on the Island. I hope everyone got the agenda and it will be great to see you all (and to of course... meet the new interns). The agenda for this week:

• Finish our success story, we have chosen the Black Islander's Cooperative and it is coming along nicely.
• Work on our letter to Jamie Ballem in regards to our possible involvement in the alternative energy cooperative and its incorporation.
• Today we are meeting with a group that is very close to incorporation, so keep your fingers cross that it goes well.
• It is a bit of a short week, so I will be getting stuff ready for training and helping folks with their travel arrangements, etc.

The phone schedule is as follows for this evening:

7:00pm - Marc

7:15pm - Erin

7:30pm - Stu

7:45pm - Matt

8:00pm - Stephanie

8:15pm - Dan

8:30 - Diedre

8:45 - Katie

Look forward to talking to you all!! Have a wonderful week!

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for the late blog, the Canada day long weekend got me all excited and I got swept away in the celebration. I hope everyone had a great Canada Day and let us not for get Memorial Day.

Dan made sure the Site for ACYL was taken care of, the place is wonderful and much better then the initial place. I think Carol will be very happy with it.

We have the Second attempt at the Indian Head Co-op AGM tomorrow. We will be presenting what we have been working on in regards to the 5 year plan. In addition we will give a bit of information about MYDAS and the great things it has been doing. One of our other jobs for the AGM was to ensure that they meet quorum so they can elect a new board and continue with the meeting.

I have also been in touch with a man, David who is interested in starting to farm Hemlock, apparently used in cancer medication. David was trying to get a loan to start business; I thought it would be a good idea if Dan and I could talk to him about farming co-op and how they help people with the purchasing of equipment and other materials. I hope to get a meeting with him this week.

I also was in contact with the Long Range Regional Economic Development Board, to arrange a meeting to see what initiatives they have for the summer in regards to co-operatives. This meeting is on Thursday, I hope we get a lot out of it.

Week 6

Yikes. Time's a-flyin'
Week 6 Objectives:

• Secure a space for the Hfx Co-op Forum. Form a proposal for the whole deal, and starting phoning people like mad.
• Continue following up with Solidarity Boots/Blackstar
• Start to arrange co-op meetings for Richard Turner (PEI?) about governance research
• Continue research on Housing Co-ops, how-to's; Continue research on Open for Business, other small business programs in this region.
• Halifax Coalition Against Poverty Presentation on Saturday. Promote.
• Complete the success story write-up.
• Spend Thursday and Friday in PEI.

Anyone know who's at the Shoreline Festival this Friday on PEI??

-stu

Week 6: Matthew Petre

Hi All,

It's the start of another great week. I was supposed to be attending a meeting with Fred Pierce in Pugwash with a group interested in starting a marina/curling club co-op. Unfortunately the meeting has to be rescheduled to next week.
Goals for the week are:

• Complete success story
• Work on Funeral Guide
• Research into Truro Co-op Forum
• Create a presentation for the training session in PEI

See you in PEI,
Matt

Week 6: Neal G

Hello friends,

I hope you all had a safe and happy Canada Day weekend. Here's my goal for the week:

• Work with Kristi to get our success story done


• Work with Kristi on writing a letter to the Minister of Environment and Energy expressing intrest in the wind energy project/co-op that is forming near Souris


• Get my presentation down for orientation


• Spend the better part of Thursday and Friday at David's place for the orientation

I'm sure everyone is really looking forward to the orientation. We'll send you pictures of us having fun, Steph and Dan....
Take care and see/talk to you soon!

Goals for Week 6

Good morning,
It is a beautiful day in Fredericton. I have a lot of projects to work on this week:

• Return calls and follow up the follow-ups I did last week (YMCA, Enterprise Centres, etc).
• Figure out the travel arrangements to PEI
• Prepare my CWCF presentation for the training session
• Hopefully recieve notes from Annie on the funeral co-op success and complete the article
• Piece together more of the Co-operator article
• continue research and advising with the Vision Action Collective: attend finance and policy meetings this week
• Spend Thursday and Friday in PEI

Good luck to everyone this week and see some of you later on!

Cheers,

Erin

Week 3's objectives

• Hey guys, I'm already off to work this morning
  
  This week I couldn't plan too much because of our meeting this thursday. But I can say my preliminary work is done for creating an image. I am now working with people and hopefully All my political work of braguing the mouvement will be a spark to create a coop.
  
  As you are probably reading this, I am
  
  
  - Meeting Jason Frenette, director of Jeunes Entrepreneurs Kent
  
  then I will be going to the beach... working with my palm and the amazing technologies that god as givin us so that we can now work a the beach. haha !
  
  Other stuff I will try to do before we go to PEI :
  
  
  
• Contact Marc Dugay and set up a meeting in the Péninsule Acadienne ( I will also be working with him for my sucess story )
  
  
• Same thing for Melvin Doiron
  
  
  
• Start a Marketing Research for Gabriel LeBlanc, gérant de la cooperative de St-Paul Ltée

• ( This is all stuff that I can do with my technology... thank you god for lettin'me go to the beach and still contribute to my community ;) )
  
  
  
• Get a follow up on how cooperatives could benefit the immigrants in rural areas. Keeping the contact with Jacque Lapointe and trying to establish more with the Ministre des Relations Intergouvernemental et International ! There is potencial with this man, he as a lot more knowledge on Dévellopement Durable then me, but I have a lot more knowledge ''dans le mouvement coopératif'' que lui so it's a great match !

• Finish my succes story

• Go to P.E.I. and get to know you guys !!!

Maybe stay on the beautiful Island and meet some of my friends that would have great ideas for coops and that I could share if I get the chance to stay in PEI for the week-end !

Well it doesn't sound like much but I'll know I'll be putting a lot of work this week. Evreything that i will do in my local coop, I will be making reports and contacting the other coops in my regions to do afterwards....

Anyways enough jibby jabba... I want to help creat a coop myself... I am jealous of the interns who have already done so....

You guys are motiving me !!! don't stop lol....

Bonne semaine tout le monde, on se voit a l'Ile jeudi !!! pis d'an l'a piscine YEEEEHAAA

L'COWBOY ACADIEN s'en vien yeeeehaaaa !

Week-end numero cinq

Whoops. Late again.
Week five enders:

• Met with a group of women, mostly immigrants who are looking to start up a catering co-operative. Some great ideas, we'll see where they go.
• Tabled at the Marilyn Waring talk, talked to lots of very interested people (students mostly) but failed to get many to sign my tracking sheet. I did get to talk to Marilyn Waring though. Could I put her down as a "consultee?"
• Still working on the two articles on MYDAS
• Attended the Healthy Minds Task Team meeting. Looks very promising, and will most likely be the "success story" I will do up this coming week.
• Met with Jason Diceman of cooptools.ca . Got a lot of good ideas from him about how a forum of coops might shape up. Still don't quite have a venue, and a playing phone tag with a few people who've pulled something like this together before.
• Followed up with the Black Star/Solidarity Boots people.
• Did a bit more canvasing

Related News note: Something very big is happening in Chiapas, where the "solidarity" boots originate. The co-op factory was recently (temporarily) abandoned due to a "red alert" called by the entire Zapatista indigenous political organization. This is one of those news stories that has only spread to the rest of the world through a series of communiques and letters issued through the internet (chiapas.indymedia.org). The Mexican military seems to have put a lot of people on edge of late. Yikes. It does seem to be calming down...

-stu

Wk5 wrap up, week 6 intro. Happy Blogada day

Sorry for the late blog, I seem to have gotten a little carried away while celebrating late this week. Also welcome to all the new interns, I wish i could meet you all on PEI but I fear the swim would take too much out of me.

We are confident that our efforts will ensure the Indian Head co-op a substantial attendance at the second attempt of their AGM which will take place Tuesday of this week. At the AGM we will be presenting a portion of a five-year strategic plan for the future of the co-op. We feel good about the work we have been doing with this amazing group of people.

The location of this year’s ACLY seminar is all but finalized; I have looked at many camps and think that the silver birches camp is perhaps the best place to have it. I will be further conferring with Carole Findley on this in the upcoming weeks.

The Ramea Community Co-op is still in a period of flux as the chief members are currently vacationing far more than they are co-oping; we expect to become very very busy when they all return from their respective places of rest and relaxation.

The real amazing news is that Steph and I have been in contact with a individual that is starting a business in which he will be farming plants that are used in cancer medication, We have been prepping for a meeting we will be having with him this week, it sounds like our first solid lead towards the Newfoundland contingents first incorporation.

I have set up a home office in my appartment as the collage was getting a little busy for us to be hanging around there all day using two computers. The new MYDAS NL phone number is 709.6435192, there will be an answering machine on that number as soon as i can find one for sale at a yard sale for a few bucks.

I trust all is well with all of you and that you had a fun Canada day and a somber Memorial day all at once,
Dan