In a day and age when "leadership" so often gets confused with being big, brash, and beguiling, how fabulous it is to recognize people who are living the alternative. On Oct. 14, the Saskatchewan Co-operative Association awarded two co-operators for their Co-operative Contribution and two more for Lifetime Co-operative Achievement.
These four are outstanding leaders because they both build and sustain what's been built. They are outstanding because they are such good followers. They are outstanding because, for all their accomplishments, they strive to make themselves dispensable.
Try and fit some well-known newsmakers into that cardigan.
Consider the two recipients of the 2014 Co-operative Contribution Award, Harold Chapman and Lori Winnitowy.
Over the past 70 years, Harold has contributed immeasurably to the understanding and practice of co-operatives, in Saskatchewan and around the world. He's been a co-operative organizer, thinker, policy maker, educator, and activist. So he can explain not just why you want a co-op, but how you put it together, make it go, and show the next generation how to do it. Without adequate education, says Harold, a people's organization will last a generation and a half, if that.
In 1955 he began an 18-year career as the Director of the Co-operative Institute, later the Co-operative College of Canada, a research centre for the country's co-operative movement. He was also a founder of the Association of Co-operative Educators and the Co-operative Management Association.
Now 97 years of age, Harold is still on the go. He helped get Station 20 West off the ground in downtown Saskatoon. He talks co-operation as a public speaker and as a writer. His book, Sharing My Life, brings alive the co-operative experience in the West.
Lori is a spring chicken next to Harold. But since she started her career at the Co-operators Life Insurance Company in 1990, "the days are just packed."
Lori has represented CLIC on several SCA committees and, since 2002, on the Regina Co-op Council. In that capacity she coordinates educational luncheons. She hosts the annual Co-op Week festivities. She has volunteered at the Co-operators' Cuddling Program, for the United Way Day of Caring, and the Wiserider bicycle safety program. Five years back she even spent three weeks in Nepal, assisting a non-governmental organization with information technology.
Tired yet? Lori's not. Her enthusiasm and commitment are inspirational and infectious - literally. That's because she can get up and talk about this stuff. She's been a Toastmaster for years. Typically, she devotes herself to training up the next generation of communicators at public speaking contests and for United Way Campaigns.
Then there's the Lifetime Co-operative Achievement Award. This year's recipients are Herb Carlson and Ronald Breadner.
God bless the Herbs and Ronalds of this world. It is guys like these who put flesh on the bones of that mysterious term, "organizational capacity" - the ability of organizations to get things done and done well, consistently. Is it "sexy"? No. It is essential to livelihoods by the hundred or thousand? Yes.
No big organization functions without a good board of directors, and Herb has made that his passion. He joined the board of Federated Co-operatives Limited in 1990, and kept at it until 2014. In that time he served on all its many committees and as Vice-Chair twice. He mentored many new directors and helped to craft a highly-rated program to orient new directors to their responsibilities and roles.
Yet FCL is just one of the co-ops Herb serves or has served as a board member, delegate, committee member, or advisor. Gateway Co-operative Limited is one. Herb was elected to the board in 1976. He helped the Co-op survive the turbulent 1980s. Today Gateway is doing very well, thank you - and Herb is its Vice-chair.
Ronald, by contrast, has made a life commitment to one co-op: Pineland, starting in 1976. Since 2000 he has been secretary to the board, part of the know-how and can-do which seen Pineland venture into the fertilizer business, lease two plants, and build a state of the art facility. Sales at Pineland Co-op have increased from $25 million to $70 million over the last 14 years.
Ron's knowledge of farming and farmers are a real strength. (His greatest joy for over 40 years was to work the family farm.) He plays a role in every function Pineland sponsors. He works tirelessly to build and decorate those elaborate floats that Pineland enters in the Parade of Lights. When Nipawin hosted the Wounded Warriors Weekend, Ron was part of the kitchen gang that made, packed, and delivered over 420 lunches.
Ron, like Harold, Lori, and Harold, leads by example. They all personify the importance of working together to create a community, build it, and sustain it. They know how to step forward, step back, or sideways to fill the slot that needs filling. And when a "youngster" is ready and willing to fill it, that makes their day.
Congratulations you four. You make our day.
