Leaders of three of New Hampshire’s biggest players in the cooperative sector headline a panel discussion this month focused on how co-ops can change the entire economic landscape of the state.
One of them will be a familiar face to leaders of the 131 resident-owned communities in New Hampshire.
Tara Reardon, Director of ROC-NH (a program of the NH Community Loan Fund) will join Howard Brodsky, Chairman and CEO of CCA Global Partners, and Roberta MacDonald, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Cabot Creamery Co-op, at the NH Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College in Manchester. Called “Is Shared Ownership a Better Model?”, the roundtable discussion will be moderated by Max Latona, Executive Director of the Center for Ethics in Business and Governance at St. Anselm.
Reardon, who served seven terms in the New Hampshire Legislature including two as Chair of the Commerce Committee, said she’s happy to represent the more than 8,000 ROC households and 650 ROC leaders across the state.
“The power of cooperatives to transform people’s lives is a tangible thing, and it’s happening in more ways than some people realize,” Reardon said. “Housing, groceries, banking, employment, even car repairs – you name it. The opportunity for co-op Members to save in everyday life is pretty impressive here.”
ROC USA® President Paul Bradley successfully ran for the National Cooperative Business Association Board of Directors earlier this year in part on a platform of not just developing cooperatives, but doing so with an eye toward scalability and sustainability.
“If we’re going to step up with solutions in targeted communities, co-op developers and leaders need to think about scale from business planning through on to execution and growth,” Bradley wrote in his February candidate statement. “Too few of us co-op developers are sufficiently prepared to tackle community issues with scalable solutions and yet our co-op brethren – fellow Members – know about scale. We all need to up our game because the wealth gap challenge is enormous.”
Bradley said this month’s roundtable at St. Anselm is a perfect opportunity for ROC leaders to learn more about what’s going on in the area’s co-op sector.
“During ROC USA’s strategic planing process, we asked ROC Leaders what they were looking for and one of the most frequent responses was more education and exposure to the greater cooperative movement,” Bradley said. “This panel features some of the biggest hitters and I’d really encourage any ROC leaders who are able to attend to come to Manchester for the morning.”
A description of the event includes the following: “Cooperatives make billions of dollars in annual revenue in the United States every year. Is the cooperative’s shared-ownership model more impactful or ethical than alternative corporate forms? Leaders in the cooperative sector join a moderated panel discussion about the reasons why, or why not, to adopt the cooperative model, and how cooperatives could change the face of the New Hampshire economy.”
The roundtable is free and takes place Oct. 22 at the NH Institute of Politics Auditorium, Saint Anselm College, Manchester, NH 03102 from 8:30 to 10:45 a.m. For more information or to register, visit http://bit.ly/2nkjANn or call (603) 641-7230.