Changemakers sharing their experiences

My Journey to Launch

Kate — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 11:42:54 -0700

I'm thrilled to have launched TheChange and to see my vision of advancing the sustainability movement locally coming to life with the help of a great team and community support. A couple months post launch, I thought I’d take the time to reflect on my journey to date.

I grew up on the West Coast of BC and was raised to be environmentally conscious and socially active. I’ve always been interested in getting involved with companies that are built to make the world better. They are why I wake up in the morning, and the inspiration for the kind of company I hope to create.

In late 2007, I came up with the concept for an online platform that connects people to companies that align with their values. It started as an extension of my personal interests, and then became a business opportunity when I noticed the demand increasing for corporate responsibility, green jobs and eco-friendly products/services.

I didn’t have a technical background, but I saw the web as the perfect medium to get people informed and inspired to participate in the green economy. Ultimately, I saw the web as a tool to power offline action.
With this business concept in mind, I enrolled in the Bachelor of Commerce program with a specialization in Entrepreneurship at Royal Roads University. The program allowed me to work on a business plan and participate in a start-up incubator. I graduated top of class and with $25,000 in awards. I used this money to incorporate Ethico Solutions Inc. in the fall of 2008.

I spent the next year researching, networking and understanding my customer’s needs. I managed the administration and marketing for the Victoria Values-Based Business Network and Organic Islands, Canada’s largest outdoor green expo. I attended the Social Venture Institute and Web of Change Conference. These experiences gave me to the opportunity to build relationships with many small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) in the local sustainability space.

I learned that SME's primary challenges were in marketing and recruitment. I was always motivated to get involved with a company as a customer or employee after learning about their mission and sustainability practices so this became the focus of how I would profile these businesses online. I recruited a technical partner in the Fall of 2009 and for the next six months we worked together, along with designers, branding and legal professionals to release the first version of the platform known as TheChange.

TheChange launched in Vancouver and Victoria May 15th, 2010 and aims to connect people with local sustainable companies in a relevant and engaging way. Since launching, TheChange has been featured on the front pages of local media, raised money and hired four employees! We currently have over 70 local organizations onboard, are growing daily, and are working diligently on version 2.0 of the platform based on our beta testing and customer feedback. We’ve also launched a new service called ethicalDeal – the latest way people can engage TheChange!
ethicaldeal helps people discover the best green stuff to do, see and buy in their city, at exclusive discounts, through the power of group buying. ethicalDeal gives people the chance, as well as the reason to go green. It provides newcomers an easy way to get introduced to a green lifestyle and the already-converted an excuse to try something new!

I’m very excited for what lies ahead and truly believe that together we can advance the sustainability movement on a city-by-city basis across North America.

Join us in TheChange!

Annalea

Try this on:

Nola — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:00:03 -0700

It’s late August. You’re sitting on the banks of a river in northwestern BC, tall spruce trees stand behind you and thickets of highbush cranberries cluster along the riverbanks. Then the steady sound of the river changes for a moment and a dark flicker in your right eye becomes a grizzly - a big female grizzly - busting her way up the riverbank about 20 feet away with a fat wriggling salmon in her mouth. You don’t move. You can’t take your eyes from her. She barely notices you or your awe as she eats. Then she rambles back down the bank into water that is shimmering, thick with the shadows of spawning salmon.

To an observer this moment has visibly moved you. Yes, at first you were a bit afraid, but now that it’s passed, you feel something else, something more edifying. You are amazed. You know you have had a once in a lifetime experience. In this time of climate change, declining wild salmon populations, and disappearing wilderness, you are aware that what just happened is unique – increasingly, terrifyingly unique. You also know that the future of that place, the river, is endangered.

What if you could change that? What if you had a chance to influence the way environmental decisions are made in British Columbia; to radically raise the bar on the role ecological and cultural values play in land use decisions – would you take it?

The Taku Watershed in northwestern BC has no roads, no sea lice, and no industrial development. It spans nearly two million hectares of intact wilderness ecosystems, ranging from deep cool rivers carving through broad fertile valleys to airy mountain peaks.

It is home to all five species of wild Pacific salmon, as well as grizzly and black bears, wolves, mountain sheep, caribou, moose, goats, wolverines, and countless more animal and plant species.

But the BC government is currently negotiating with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation in a land use planning process that could allow acid-generating mines to open in the watershed, destroying the character and quality of habitat in this watershed for wild salmon, and all that depend on them, for generations to come.

You can do nothing. Or, you can use this opportunity to influence the way we value wilderness, wild salmon, and grizzly bears; to act for those places that are intact, that are abundant with life, that are strongholds for wild salmon; to protect the future of places with the power to touch you at the edge of your being.

In the Taku there is an opportunity to protect salmon before they are imperilled. Let the BC government know what the Taku and places like this mean to you. Remind our representatives that wild salmon need wild rivers.

You have a chance to change everything.

Take the chance. Take action.

For more information:
www.takulegacy.org
www.riverswithoutborders.org

Nola Poirier is a freelance writer, living in Powell River, B.C.
She is the author of many wonderful stories, a campaigner, a leader and an inspiring presence.

Changing the world, one dance at a time...

hanspetermeyer — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:26:43 -0800

Hi. My name is hanspetermeyer, and I'm a dance-aholic.

That's a good thing. Dancing keeps me physically fit. It puts me in the arms of women of all ages, shapes, and sizes. It keeps my heart and mind opening to change.

I can't reduce all things in life to what happens in the dance space - but I try. Something happens when two people dance together. It speaks volumes about how we deal with change.

I'm not naturally graceful when it comes to making or accepting change. Just ask my ex's. Nevertheless, I think I'm making progress. Dance is a big part of this. It gives me a metaphor and a practice for being a little more open, a little more flexible.

It all comes down to trust.

I'm a little afraid to leap into the void that's what most "change" feels like to me: stepping into the unknown. There's no one to lead me, no guidelines, nada to hold onto. After a few of these leaps I've become a little more trusting, more willing to follow circumstance, my heart, or whatever is driving change. Sometimes I even get excited about change because I feel the juice of creativity, of really being alive!

It's the same with dance.

I've been dancing pretty seriously now for a few years. I've got a handful of dance styles that I'm pretty comfortable with. And I'm feeling the kind of confidence that translates into big smiles on the faces of my partners. Now, not only do I want to leap into that unknown juicy place where a dance may take me, but I'm attracting dance partners who are as excited about that leap as I am. Muy cool.

Here's how I think about what I do: every dance gives me an opportunity to lead a partner into uncharted territory. As much as we know about a dance, or each other, we are "making it up as we go along." We literally step into change change change.

The shorthand is something like this: if you've accepted my invitation to waltz, foxtrot, or shake your ass to salsa then you've agreed to experimentation and play. You're joining me as we step into the abyss. You're trusting me Ð at least a little Ð to get you back to your table safely.

Once you've signed on to trust me, we will do things that'll surprise, astonish, and amaze both of us. Too cool. I know. I get to do this several times a week. It's not because I'm a flash dancer. It's because we're coming together to make something new, the dialogue between our bodies, shaped by our knowledge of dance, our sympathy with the music.

Every time I ask someone to dance, I am asking them to trust me in this creative, juicy place. A place with lots of change, lots of unpredictability.

I dance with lots of the same great dancers every week. We've already got a high degree of trust established. But even so, when I ask Rachel or Karen or Loretta to dance - even for the 100th time - I'm still asking them to trust me to be creative, and to be be safe. To be trustworthy.

Dancing is about change. It's about initiating and maintaining relationships of trust so that change is both graceful and exciting. If my partner trusts me, if I trust myself - magic happens.

As a lead, I responsibilities. I'm saying to my partner - through my movements, my confidence - that she is safe as our two bodies step into the blank space of what our dance will be, as we begin to move to a particular song in a particular dance setting. I need to be careful: full of care for my partner. I can't run her into people, walls, or chairs. I can't put her in compromising or inelegant positions. All these things happen. Sometimes they happen to me. Some lessons aren't graceful, or easy.

Some dancers are quite willing to go wherever I lead them. They're confident. They know they'll be able to move through whatever challenge or abyss I dance us into.

Others are reluctant. Hesitant. Maybe they don't know me. Maybe they don't trust themselves (particularly if they're new dancers). Maybe they just don't trust me. I need to be careful. Our first steps, our first dances even Ð these are the proving grounds for their trust in me, their willingness to embrace the uncertain, changing places that are the heart of joyful, soulful dancing.

It's exciting: how quickly trust develops on the dance floor. Without words, with just a feeling of frame, rhythm, and the sense of respect and safety. 3-4 minutes of moving together can inspire warmth, connection, willingness to play, to take risks. Smiles appear spontaneously. Eyes sparkle.

It's a model for how to do other kinds of change.

Today, faced with touch choices and changes, I try to imagine them as a dance. Do I trust myself to lead here, to follow there? Am I willing to go with music of the universe and "make it up as I go along?" Just how much creativity and uncertainty can I tolerate, can I risk, for the sake of the kind of beauty I know flows from risk-taking and trusting on the dance floor?

It's not a perfect analogy. But on the dance space I learn to trust, to be trustworthy, to respect, to take care, to be willing to take risks.

There are few givens in the life I've lived. Many, many abrupt changes. What is my capacity to move through challenging circumstances and retain my equilibrium, my connection to what is true and beautiful about who I am? I am creating my life through these choices, these changes. I want it to be rich and beautiful.

The challenge is not so different from navigating a crowded dance floor, the music fast, passionate, and me with my beloved in my arms: I want to do this with integrity, with grace - and in away that inspires trust, loving, and the opening into a beautiful future. Even if that future is just the next dance.

Change change change. cha cha cha...

Creative Expression for Spontaneous Change

Kate — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:29:28 -0700

Imagine a world in which we are connected to the true power of our deep-rooted creativity...where we take the time and space to express ourselves in spontaneous ways, in areas of our lives that are important to us. What do you think might happen?

Would all of the inauthenticities and insecurities fall away to reveal the joy of simply being? Would the distractions that engulf our everyday lives retreat and allow for daily celebration? Would we buy less, spend less, work less, worry less?

I think so. When I express myself in creative, unrestricted ways, I feel more connected to my own self, my community and the energy of the universe as a whole. Life feels more streamlined and elegant. I truly think one of the most powerful tools for change is honoring our authentic selves and expressing the gifts we naturally bring to this world in creative, unique ways.

There are a thousand ways to joyfully express oneself in the world - it could be as simple as calling a friend in need, planting a tree, writing a letter to the editor, or attending a community meeting. It's so simple - when you open up to your creativity just for the sake of it and without expectation, you feel good! And when you feel good, you help to make the world a better place by inspiring others. It's infectious.

This practice of spontaneous expression is one that I subscribe to in my work as a social documentary photographer and multimedia producer. Being a photographer in the world today is exciting. Powerful images combined with the impact of social media is bringing a whole other level of access, understanding and immediacy to stories, campaigns and issues around the world. A dramatic image truly can change our perception and alter our understanding of a subject.

My life and business have grown in the most surprising ways when I'm in my creative flow - my most interesting opportunities such as leading a photography tour to Bhutan in the Eastern Himalayas, photographing the Dalai Lama, and travelling to Liberia to photograph birthing women have arisen without much orchestrating - they are a result of being true to myself. I had to practice trust, and honour my creativity to find my voice and rhythm in the world before these opportunities could arise.

I have a confession. I don't have a business plan. I never have and never will. I am simply open to opportunities that arise and honor my intuitive feelings, and my path continues to unfold before me in the most exciting ways. And business is booming.

I am continuing to uncover that I naturally love working with women, gathering and building community, experiencing other cultures and languages, and celebrating others through authentic storytelling and photography. I am finding that I really love to paint and dance. Engaging in the things I love is a cycle of nourishment that feeds my soul and keeps me energized and motivated.

I truly believe if we all practiced listening to our intuition and honoring our subtle inner voice and creativity, in spite of long hours at work, family obligations or other distractions, step by step we would start to naturally act in rhythm with the universe and create spontaneous, joyful change in the world.

In the hopes of building on this conversation of creative change and inspiration, I'd like to pose a question to this forum. What are the fun, unique, creative ways in which you express yourself - big or small? How has this created positive change in your life or community? I trust that by sharing these creative passions, others will be inspired as well.

Jaime Kowal is a social documentary photographer, author and multimedia producer specializing in social, environmental, health and women’s stories. Clients include Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic Adventure Magazine, The Globe and Mail, and The Vancouver Foundation. www.jaimekowal.com

September – Back to … Back to What?

Kate — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:19:08 -0700

For many children, back to school means back to homework and cramming, report cards and “How long is it until spring break?” For most children, school is a necessary evil; but does it have to be such a trial?

What if……

What if children couldn’t wait to go back to school? What if they were excited about their next steps in learning?

What if they knew they would be valued for who they are and what they know, and their guides listened to them and helped them follow their own interests?

What if each child had a unique learning path which they decided?

What if students helped each other and were never compared or labeled or graded?

What if they had the freedom to learn outside as well as in, and climbed trees and built hay forts, gathered eggs and ran in their natural playground with baby goats?

What if they grew their own vegetables and ran their own businesses and traveled around their community and their country?

What if they knew they could help the earth and really make a difference and really change the world?

Remarkably, there is a school which has provided these opportunities, for more than 20 years. Since 1985, one of the Lower Mainland’s well kept secrets, Roots and Wings Montessori has been preparing babies to young adults to make the changes we need in the world. How?

1. By nurturing independence. At every opportunity, they are given opportunities to do for themselves, from hanging their coats on child-height hooks, tying their shoes and pouring their own water to new readers researching their own projects and making their own learning goals, creating and selling their own products and banking the profits, choosing and caring for farm animals, planning trips and creating environmental projects in the community.

2. By ensuring daily connection with the natural world. In his book, Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv mourns children’s “nature deficit disorder” and notes how vital it is for them to roam freely in the natural world, exploring marshes and studying beetles and gazing at clouds without anyone teaching them the names to memorize their next test. At Roots and Wings, hay is a construction material and trees are climbing frames, animals are played with and cared for, vegetables they have grown are served in the 9 – 12 year olds’ weekly hot lunch business and teens may be seen sketching or having group discussions sitting on the swings, with Mt. Baker framed in the background.

3. By preparing the environment, rather than lessons. Each classroom provides an environment rich with appropriate learning materials which stimulate children to manipulate, experiment and take risks, in order to gain the knowledge and skills that will enable them to progress.

4. By allowing each to learn at his or her own rate. Following their own passions of interest, children are engaged and enthusiastic, working without interruption until they have satisfied their desires before choosing other work. Each progresses at his or her own level, sometimes teaching and sometimes learning from peers, delighting in each others’ progress and celebrating successes together.

5. By empowering students to make a difference. From the youngest preschoolers, children make decisions that affect their classrooms or the whole school, and create projects to make a difference in their community – such as the plastic bag project in March of 2008 which made a huge impact on reduction in grocery store plastic bag use in the community; or performance of their original “Come Join our Call to Action” at the Environmental Congress in Montreal in May.

6. By practicing stillness and peace. Starting each day with a minute of silence, children learn the value of stillness and mindfulness; they may also participate in yoga or tai chi; they resolve differences at the “peace table”, where they learn harmonious conflict resolution.

7. By valuing all people. Children experience holidays and customs from all cultures, visit houses of worship from a variety of religions and learn to respect and value the richness of our differences.

What is the result of this kind of education? Students emerge as grounded, thoughtful, contributing citizens, socially competent, eager to problem solve, earth stewards working for equality, empowered to give their gifts to the world.

What if all education were like this?

Kristin Cassie

Kristin Cassie has worked on improving education for 35 years, first in the public system, then founding Roots and Wings Montessori school in 1985. A finalist for the Governor-General's award for teaching excellence and a nominee for the YWCA Women of Distinction award, her real rewards come from preparing children, from babies to adolescents, as capable ambassadors for world change and peace.

Reflections on Bologna - it's all about the Social

wazaroff — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:16:56 -0700

I have sat down to write this post a bunch of times, and can't seem to nail it.

I have now been back from Bologna a few weeks, and parts of it are receding into memory, but other parts are still extremely fresh and current. I have been trying to make sense of it all, but am having trouble summing it up succinctly. If someone asks me about the trip, I can either smile and say it was amazingly interesting and inspiring and then stop, or I can go on for a good ten minutes fumbling to explain what I experienced (check out parts 1 and 2 of my journey, or all my blog posts about it).

So, writing this post - in which I want to sum it all up coherently - is proving a challenge.

What I know is, it was all about the social. The connections we developed among the group of participants are strong and deep, and will serve a great purpose as we all struggle to make full sense of, and take action on, what we learned. The personal social connections made the greatest impact on me; but I also come back with a greater sense of the social fabric of our society and how it can be both fragile and incredibly enduring and forceful.

So, it's led me to think a lot about what social is.

I have struggled for a while now with my definition of the word social in contrast to the way most of my colleagues at Vancity define it.

For me, terms like social finance and the social economy refer to emerging social tools that allow people to connect in new ways to collaborate and share information and opinions. To me, the social economy means that in today's world the water cooler is suddenly global as our purchasing decisions - decisions that drive our consumption-based economy - are increasingly driven by how people connect and influence each other on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. A brand can be glorified by and benefit from intense word-of-mouth marketing, or get beaten up and badly bruised because of the power of social media.

Social finance means the collaborative power of sites like wesabe.com or social lending sites like CommunityLend to harness the wisdom of crowds so people can better understand how they spend and save their money. In a capitalist society, where we spend our money is how we vote with our feet and social finance tools can help us be better citizens of that society.

At Vancity, the word social doesn’t imply connecting and collaborating, but refers to the social fabric of our society. The social economy refers to the segment of the economy driven by not-for-profits and social entrepreneurs working to make our society more just, equitable and sustainable. Social finance means leveraging the tools of the financial system - such as credit - to fund projects that improve our communities (an increasingly important part of the way we do business).

I felt caught in the middle, and decided a while back to just go with the flow and adopt the Vancity terminology. It is important to me that I speak the same language as my peers and colleagues, and don’t create confusion or a bunch of unnecessarily long explanations in meetings.

Recently the light finally came on for me: we are all talking about the same thing.

In Bologna, we saw the power of the network. People are connected by their shared history and culture, and have a strong degree of trust, which enables them to work together cooperatively.

We learned a lot about reciprocity. Everywhere we went - people at co-operatives, professors in economics lectures, leaders at labour unions, presidents at not-for-profit foundations - referred to it directly or obliquely as a way of doing business.

I would describe reciprocity as delaying some details of a transaction until a later date. For example, if I have something I want to sell, I would work out the details of the deal with the buyer up front. We would negotiate the good or service being sold and the price for that good or service simultaneously, and then exchange money for the product in one transaction.

In a reciprocal economy we can agree that you want the good or service I have to offer and I will give it to you, trusting that you will give me something of equal value at a later date. Of course we do this with close friends and family all the time. I invite you for dinner at no cost, trusting that somehow you will repay me in kind. That is the very act of friendship. We don't work out a contract; we don't work out the repayment. We have the trust to let the transaction occur over an extended period of time.

Time and time again in Bologna we saw this in action. People working together without creating a contract first, because they trusted it would work out. People behaving in a way that showed they had trust and reciprocity and a network that would keep them honest in their dealings. Those connections kept them honest, because their reputations were on the line.

It occurs to me that the two definitions of social I struggle with at Vancity are actually two parts of the same equation. For people to build a more equitable society, we need trust, and a way to increase trust is to connect people, and the way people connect today is through online social tools. Social media can help people find other like-minded people, place an emphasis on reputation, and make society a little less anonymous and a little more personal.

This very site where you are reading these words is proof positive of that relationship. Three years ago Vancity saw a reason to create a community focused on change. One piece of feedback we hear all the time is that ChangeEverything.ca enables people to connect and work face to face on events and projects that have a social context. That strengthening of our social fabric leads to people working together, investing in their reputations, and creating trust and reciprocity and - in some very small way - a society in which people work together more harmoniously.

As we at Vancity investigate our vision of Redefining Wealth, I believe we need both kinds of social in play. We need to create networks enabling people to connect, collaborate and cooperate to increase trust so that we can create a more reciprocal economy in which fewer people are left out or left behind.

It's nice to know we were talking about the same thing all along. I just had to go to Italy and immerse myself in a progressive, equitable, co-operative environment to finally realize it.

ps - I am a long time ChangeEverything member, and head up the WEB (Web Engagement & Banking) Team at Vancity, meaning that I get to work with all the amazing people who bring our members Online Banking, our employees our intranet and the community ChangeEverything.ca. I am a recovered filmmaker, soon to be living in Strathcona with my wife, son and cat. You can follow me @wazaroff or at azaroff.com.

Independent Collectivism

wazaroff — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:21:19 -0700

Okay, so the title is a bit of a joke. I’m not someone who makes up grand theories, but the past week and a bit in Bologna has really got me thinking about history, culture and the way we run businesses.

In part one, I wrote about why I, the Web Director at Vancity, am in Bologna. I’m here in the middle of a place full of cooperatives, working together to do business successfully and profitably, and with a strong social impact.

And it’s led me to invent something called Independent Collectivism. The history of Emilia Romagna, the area around Bologna in Northern Italy, is rich with different cultures taking over this region, and the people of this region fighting for independence. Fighting for freedom and liberation created a culture here where people’s rights are paramount. There is a strong sense of independence, of standing up for themselves, but also of recognizing the critical importance of thinking about each other, of reciprocity, of dignity. Of standing up for themselves while standing up for each other.

At home, we have to go out of our way to run ethical businesses. We have to explain why we need to focus on corporate social responsibility. It is seen as an add-on, something to be scaled back or perhaps cut in difficult economic times. It has nothing to do with the core operations of the company, which merely exists to make a profit.

But here in Bologna, the overall social fabric is woven into the business plan. People were attracted to starting cooperatives as the method of creating businesses, because people can have an ownership stake in the company and direct its future. They can ensure that the company retains and fully lives up to its values. And people here talk about values and business almost interchangeably, to the point where they sometimes don’t understand our questions around this fusion because it so fundamental they don’t see why we’d be asking such a basic, obvious question.

And so when I think about Vancity as a financial cooperative and our new vision of Redefining Wealth, this trip to Bologna has been critical to more fully appreciate that intersection where being a part of the community and making decisions that have a positive social and environmental impact also drive profitable business.

And some of these cooperatives are incredibly profitable. But because many of them are worker cooperatives, where the janitors own shares in the property management cooperative, for example, they can share in the profits, have an equal vote in the future of the company and increase their own income and dignity.

As we look to the future of British Columbia, I wonder if our history and culture is one where cooperatives can play a greater role to create businesses that are profitable and add strength to our civil society. It seems to me to be a model where business can play a role in generating wealth for more of our fellow citizens in a way that is equitable and sustainable.

My Bologna has a first name…

wazaroff — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:18:44 -0700

In a few short days, I head off to Bologna, Italy on behalf of Vancity staff and members. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited about it. But why is Vancity sending its Web Director to Italy?

Emilia Romagna, the area surrounding the city of Bologna, is a region whose economic growth and development has been driven in large part by co-operatives. Over the last 30 odd years this region has transformed itself from ranking near the bottom of Italy’s 20 regions in terms of economic performance to being at - or near - the top. It has remarkably low unemployment and poverty, as well as high voter turnout and GDP per capita. Thirty percent of the GDP in Emilia Romagna is driven directly by co-operatives. They have worker-owned co-operatives, consumer co-operatives, agricultural co-operatives and social co-operatives, meaning that many of the social services provided to residents of this area are delivered by co-operatives. At over four million residents, this area has some similarities to British Columbia, but our estimates are that only 2-3% of the GDP in BC is driven by co-operatives. Could co-operatives play a role in transforming our economy so it grows sustainably, equitably and innovatively?

Every year Vancity sends a small group of people, usually executives and some of our Board, to Bologna to learn more about successful co-operatives so we can bring that knowledge back to inform how we run our operations. As a credit union we are a financial co-operative, and the more we can learn about our co-operative roots - as well as what some of the world’s most progressive and strongest co-operatives are doing - the better we can serve our members, our staff and the community.

This year, any employee at Vancity and its subsidiaries could apply to go to Bologna, and a group of us were chosen who represent different areas of the organization and different levels of seniority. The goal is to bring what we learn back and embed it throughout the organization, so its impact can be more widespread.

For me, this trip will help align some of our new online initiatives with our co-operative principles. It is a way for me to be more conscious of our values while finding ways to innovate. I believe that this ChangeEverything.ca community is an excellent example of how the online world and co-operative ideals can come together in a compelling way.

In the coming months, we will be starting a discussion around Vancity’s new vision called Redefining Wealth, where we take our triple bottom line approach and go even farther with it, looking at everything we do through a lens of economic, social and environmental sustainability. This online community of changemakers will play a key role in refining what Redefining Wealth means.

In the meantime, I have gotten my Euros, renewed my passport, and made whatever preparations I can before I leave my family for two weeks to study wtih Stefano Zamagni, professor of co-operative economics, at the University of Bologna,.The University of Bologna is Europe’s oldest university, founded in 1088, and it is in this environment where I will be learning about how the co-operative model can help drive good business decisions, create innovation and be a pillar in a successful economy. Given our economy’s recent tailspin, this knowledge couldn’t come at a better time.

I look forward to sharing this journey with you in my next two columns. In the meantime, please leave comments with your thoughts.

William