MANCHESTER, N.H. -
"It was really a joint effort in terms of planning," said Tom Champagne, director of community outreach for St. Mary's Bank. "We were trying to get the message out about cooperatives, and expose people to think of creating their own cooperatives-people needing to understand what it is all about."
The keynote speaker of the conference was Howard Brodsky, the son of a New England carpet-store owner. Brodsky launched Carpet One with 13 member stores. Today there are 700 members of Carpet One, and it is one of 12 divisions of CCA Global Partners, an $8-billion company with more than 3,000 retail outlets and 10,000 stores. It recently celebrated its 74th consecutive quarter of profitability.
Another speaker at the conference was Ronald Rioux, CEO of St. Mary's Bank. Rioux spoke to conference attendees about the role that credit unions play in America as legally structured financial service cooperatives.
At the conference, Rioux said that credit unions are an ideal example of cooperative enterprise because they pull together the resources of the individuals in a community in order to support individual and commercial enterprises while at the same time promoting and sustaining the positive growth of the community as a whole.
Other speakers at the conference included experts in the development of group-based businesses. Jim Megson of the Boston-based ICA Group and Lois Parris, board chair of one of the 85 resident-owned communities assisted by NH Community Loan Fund, discussed resources for cooperative business and development in New Hampshire.
"My feeling was overall it was a very interactive day," Champagne said, "with breakout sessions and talking during lunch. I think people walked way thinking it was a day well spent. I learned a lot."
Sessions included: "The Cooperative Way of Business," "Using the Co-op Advantage," "Cooperative Business Development. Co-op basics were also discussed.
The conference attracted about 60 attendees. Champagne said.
"We had people from all different types of industries," he said, who found out about the conference from a mailer sent out by the Cooperative Development Institute.
Although this was the first conference of this kind, and most likely the first one in New Hampshire, Champagne said, he doubts it will be the last.
"I could see us doing another one," he said. "We had a great time, and great speakers. It was a real kind of different mix. We also had international students there who were talking about taking the information back to their communities."
Other co-sponsors of the conference included: SNHU, NHCLF, CCA Global Partners, Hanover Consumers Cooperative food stores, the NH Electric Cooperative, the Cooperative Fund of New England, Cabot Creamery, and National Coop Bank.
FOR MORE RESOURCES
For more info on this story:
* www.stmarysbank.com
* www.cdi.coop
