WestCo

Location

Davis, California

When

April 2-4 2010 (Friday through Sunday)!

Web

http://www.nasco.coop/node/21989

Cost

WestCo is an annual, weekend-long gathering of cooperatives and co-opers on the West Coast. Local co-opers host and organize the conference each year, with support from national North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) staff members. The conference mostly revolves around housing co-ops, but can be expanded to other forms of co-ops as well. Co-opers from up and down the West Coast get together (last year from Santa Barbara to Portland!), providing an opportunity to strengthen the cooperative community through skill share, communication, and fun. WestCo 2009 was hosted by the coops in Eugene, OR and the year before the event took place in Santa Cruz, CA. To get a sense of what it's all about, check out the awesome events, workshops, and photos from Westco '09:

http://sites.google.com/site/scawiki/Home/westco-2009

WestCo 2010 will be a weekend of sharing knowledge, resources, skill workshops, and experience pertaining to cooperative living. Highlights of this year's conference include workshops on topics as varied as consensus decision making, bee-keeping, creating new co-ops, and budget fluency. Also, we're fortunate to have two national NASCO staff-members joining us - Daniel Miller and Mingwei Huang. Mingwei will be facilitating an in-depth, all day workshop on Saturday on anti-oppression for cooperative community. Workshops and co-opers will be hosted by the Tri-Cooperatives and the Domes on the UC campus, as well as Pacifico Co-op and Solar Community Housing Association (Sunwise & J St. Co-ops). Please join us for an amazing, cross-cooperative learning experience!

Check out this map of coop-related locations in Davis for those of you coming in from out of town:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=101186416718591109260.000463464d7bb8df4ef94&z=14

We still have several time-slots available for new workshops. If you are knowledgeable or experienced in a particular topic or trade—everything ranging from beekeeping to knitting to bike-fixing to breadmaking—please share your knowledge and offer a workshop! Please call Renata @ (310) 404-1082 to jump on the schedule.

Presenter: Mingwei Huang (NASCO Staff) Time: Saturday 10am-6pm Place: Yurt @ The Domes

Cooperative leaders will have the opportunity to build an analysis of power, privilege, and oppression as it operates in their co-ops and communities. Take away popular education training tools and techniques, and share ideas for creating inclusive and accessible spaces in co-ops.

* Due to the nature of the workshop, Mingwei has asked that we cap attendance to this workshop at 25 people. Each co-op house is encouraged to select 1-2 representatives to attend, who are willing to bring knowledge/tools back to their group.

Presenter: Justin Ellerby(CA Center for Co-op Development) Place: Ag Effort Co-op

Practices of consensus-based meetings can vary widely across co-ops. This session will aim to be a place for participants to share their ideas and experiences around procedures, rules, and roles that make this decision-making process unique.

Presenter: Kat Meler (UCD Tri-Coops) Place: Davis Student Co-op

Using recycled covers, we’ll learn traditional Coptic binding and create personalized books that can be used for sketching, note-taking, pressing flowers and plants, and whatever your biblio-needs may be.

Presenter: Clinton Gibson (UCD Tri-Coops) Place: Pierce Co-op

Learn to make bread! Join Clinton for a lesson in bread-making, wow friends and family with healthful baking skills, and learn how to throw down for those community meals. Experienced bakers welcome to share their skills.

Presenter: Daniel Miller (NASCO Staff) Place: Ag Effort Co-op

This is a workshop on how you can use some simple tools to start to understand budgets for your coop. During this short workshop, participants will learn a few simple tips on how to start digging into budgets, and how to start asking the right questions to tell you what you need to know.

Presenter: November Newman & Kas Ocasio-Pare (Santa Cruz SHC) Place: Pierce Co-op

What kind of events could lead toward community trauma? How would your coop respond or react to a death in the community? How can we heal from the community trauma produced from hard times? What can we do to make our coop strong before a potentially traumatic event occurs? We will be discussing causes of and responses to trauma, as well as how to manage before, during, and after potentially traumatic events.

Presenter: Derek Downey (Sunwise Coop) Place: Sunwise Co-op

Derek Downey (Sunwise Co-op) - Learn the basics of bee-keeping while getting a chance to look into a real hive! From swarm-catching to honey harvesting, this will introduce you to the world of bee-keeping. Folks may want to stick around Sunwise for the afternoon - Derek’s workshop on compost & chickens will round out the garden experience!


*NOTE: Co-opers who’ve made the trip out to Sunwise may wish to take a walk during the break in the amazing community-maintained gardens of Village Homes, and join Derek for his afternoon Compost Happens! Workshop.

Presenter: Daniel Miller (NASCO Staff) Place: Ag Effort Co-op

Everyone takes a different route to get from scheming to moving into a new coop! There will be special emphasis put on the steps that need to happen which are not obvious, or which can be more intimidating, such as budgeting and incorporation.

Presenter: Maia Kazaks (Santa Barbara SHC) Place: Davis Student Co-op

Join Santa Barbara Co-opers and alumni for crafting of all types - an all-inclusive artsy event of collaging, knitting, bookbinding, drawing (multi-media), magnet work and even some low-key jewelry, too. Expect the productivity and encouragement of a quilting bee, the conversation of a pea-shelling afternoon, and results of co-operation and collaboration- it is what we make it! Feel free to bring personal accoutrement for your projects!

Presenter: Derek Downey (Sunwise Coop) Place: Sunwise Co-op

Learn all the whats, wheres, hows, whens, and whys of composting! From backyard heap composting (cold and hot methods) to vermicomposting (with red worms), you’ll get a chance to learn how you can take responsibility for your organic resources. The chickens of Sunwise Co-op may even demonstrate for you their own method of composting.

Presenters: Ava Churchill (CA Center for Co-op Development) & Yoni Landua (Berkeley Student Food Collective) Place: Ag Effort Co-op

Come learn about the CoFed, which is laying plans for the future of the student-run food cooperative movement. This summer, CoFed will be hosting a week-long retreat that will bring together students from all around the West Coast to create a plan for their campus food co-op, build their project teams and meet with farmers, producers and mentors. Learn more and bring cooperative values and real food to your campus and to every campus on North America. Lets build the vision!

Presenters: Jessy Schmidt (J St. Co-op), Molly Reagh (Domes) Place: Pierce Co-op

Sharing and discussing information that we have gathered about how folks can work towards consent on a personal and community level, and away from using their power to perpetrate intimate and sexual violence. This workshop is not based on expertise, but rather we feel that discussions about consent should be an integral part of any community. This workshop is heavily based the work of the amazingly awesome C.L.I.T. Collective in Santa Cruz, follow the link if you'd like to check them out!

Presenter: Clinton, Janaki & Darach (UCD Tri-Coops) Place: Tri-Coops Commons (Outside)

Get your bike tuned up and ready to ride for spring! Learn to get all the winter grit out of your gears, re-grease your hubs, and tune up your brakes. Lots of sunny bike-riding days are around the corner, and you’ll be ready to smoke everyone on the Sunday afternoon co-op bike tour.

Presenter: Daniel Miller (NASCO Staff) Place: The Domes Yurt

Learn about housing discrimination law and how to make sure your coop stays on the up and up! The workshop will talk a bit about the origins of the Fair Housing Act, how coops are (and are not) different from other types of housing, and how your membership policies might fit into housing discrimination law. There will also be time to have a Q&A session on FHA compliance.


Coops and Housing Discrimination handout.pdf

Presenter: Kurt Vaughn (The Domes) Place: The Domes Gardens

Tour the grounds and gardens of Baggins’ End - familiarly known as ‘The Domes’ - on the UCD campus. The Domes community will be hosting an outdoor workday from 9:00 am to 1:00. Learn by helping hands-on with current projects and experience first-hand why this innovative, “experimental” community from the 1970’s is still going strong today, nearly 40 years after its founding.

Presenters: MANY! Place: All Over

Davis is a land of bicycles! For those of you who don’t have to get on the road home, please join us for a tour of cooperative housing by bike! Solar Community Housing Co-ops (including the site of their new co-op-to-be), the Pacifico Student Co-op in South Davis, the Davis Food Co-op, and the Davis Bicycle Collective. A great time to get out for a bit of exercise and discussion on different manifestations of the cooperative model!

2010-04-04 17:41:39   awesome event! thanks to everyone for making it happen! —WanderBee