Hummingbird Bottled Water Co-operative

Date of Incorporation: April 2000

Membership: 5 members

Area Served: Cowichan Valley

Activity: Workers' Co-operative

Background

The Hummingbird Bottled Water Co-operative formed out of concern about the increasing commodification of fresh water resources. The co-op model was chosen because it allowed members to work collectively and creatively to raise awareness of water conservation issues and to take action to protect local resources.

Forming the Co-operative

The Hummingbird Bottled Water Co-op incorporated in April 2000. The group received a funding grant from the Ministry of Community Development, Co-operatives and Volunteers. The co-op was initially formed by a number of people who had various levels of commitment and interest, but who collectively had a desire to find out how the co-op model might allow them to explore some business ideas. Over time the group has evolved and members have come and gone; the current membership is a nice fit of like-minded individuals with similar lifestyle and community development goals, and a shared desire to make a difference.  Recruitment of new members involved looking for individuals in the community with similar philosophies, politics and sensibilities.

There are two things that I like about the, the co-op that we're doing here: firstly it is an aspect of self-determination, i.e. we're having a say over our own employment and physical and social activities, and it's a great think tank that we've developed here which spins off in other ways too. (Vern, Hummingbird Co-op Member).

Co-operative Principles

The co-operative model is consistent with the members' personal attitudes toward working together in a socially responsible manner. The principles of co-operatives and the co-operative movement are important to the members, who have expressed the sentiment that people collectively can have an impact in a larger context: the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.

Some of the members had ideological reasons for joining the co-operative.

Mainly, I guess because I really don't believe in the capitalist system that we have and I think that we have to look at the future of doing things in a different way, and I think the co-operative model is the way to do that...I think that to overcome the way the world is run now I think we have to start looking at different ways of doing things. That's sort of why I got into it. (Don, Hummingbird Co-op Member)

The Importance of Process

In sorting out its goals and values the co-op used a collective approach, which meant the process was lengthy. Relationships are an important element of building the co-operative. The members feel that finding the right group of people was the most important stage in the group's development. Once the members were able to establish trust and determine skill sets and working styles, they developed a shared confidence in their ability to create and sustain a successful business.

The present membership has since spent a lot of time going through an interesting process of talking about the coop model and how it would best work for them.

The group of people has a particular complementary set of social and political values which seem to give the co-operative its own character.

They did not enter into the co-op thinking that they were going to spend a year on process, but is what transpired. They sorted through various options to determine the best activity for the group, and in the process learned more about one another.

I think if there's meant to be a formula it's finding the people that you can and want to work with and engage in a process...of figuring out that we want to work together, that we have similar values and so forth, and then getting some clarity on what we want to work on. (Jenny, Hummingbird Coop member).

Activities of the Co-op

The objective of the coop is to bottle Cowichan Valley water and sell it in the watershed.  The group is presently engaged in the process of articulating the goals and setting the benchmarks necessary to effectively launch their business concept.  The overall purpose of this activity is to have an impact on current management practices of freshwater resources, and to create employment for the membership.

There is a purpose behind this which is to generate income and hopefully enable us to create the kinds of work environments, work schedules that we would want and we'd be comfortable with...So our goal would be...that we all want to work in a different way from what we are right now. (Hummingbird Co-op member)

Changing the Community

The group hopes to have an impact on the community with the activities that they are carrying out.

I think that the change is a large motivation for us; it's complementary to employing ourselves in a way that's somewhat different...If you don't do it yourself in this community, it ain't gonna happen and you'd better move. But really you have to make things happen in this community for yourself or it ain't happening. (Jean, Hummingbird Co-op member)

There are a number of different ways that the group sees this impact happening. They talked about doing public education, with the hope of possibly influencing policy. Other possibilities include contracting out their services to corporations to identify water issues and how model to manage them, or how to incorporate policies that reflect sound ecological principles.

Resources and Skills Development

The group did try to have a blend of people with technical skills and people with writing, communication and graphic skills. The members that came together at the end of the formation process all had a comparable level of intelligence and ability; the combination, which developed in an organic way, has worked out well.

The group has also identified some areas where it would be useful to have resources for people interested in co-op development.

What would be nice is an easy compilation of literature that's available about what's worked well and what hasn't in co-operative organisations. Information on different options around establishing bylaws and structures including what worked and what hasn't, pitfalls, etc. Because you can't take a cookie cutter approach to these things. You can't say that one size fits all and this will work for all co-ops. What we need to do is be able to access materials around different kinds of things that would work on different situations. Then we can make some of our own decisions about it. 'Cause I think that you really have to dig around to try and find anything about co-ops. Information like for example, the Mondragon co-operative, doesn't translate easily over here because they were large and they were industrial. It has been a bit of a struggle about getting access to information. It would be nice if it were available on an Internet site. (Jean, Hummingbird Co-op member).

The group has identified an interest in the existence of a co-operative directory. This would help facilitate co-operative network development, and would reduce a reliance on high-priced consultants. It would also provide a potential business and client list for preferential co-operative buying.

As mentioned above, the group is wary of the type of consulting services currently available for co­-operatives. During one of their first meetings they hired a co-op consultant. It cost them about six hundred dollars per day for this person to and try and give them a sense of how a worker co-op works, and they left the meeting feeling that they were more confused than when they started.

I'm extremely skeptical of consultants by and large and haven't had the best experience even with some of the so-called co-op development experts. Some times they're feeling their way around in the dark just as much as we are and yet we're paying them five hundred dollars a day to do that. In a sort of entrepreneurial spirit where they're trying to make a living and they're just sort of flying by the seat of their pants. You know the information is never concrete enough that you can actually understand how you apply it. (Hummingbird Coop member)

Their concerns are linked to restrictions on funding grants provided by the Ministry of Community Development, Co-operatives and Volunteers.

That's a problem with the way these grants are set up. We can pay for the consultants' fee out of these grants, but the benefits of this are not long term. The consultant flies in, gives their talk and leaves. You don't get any skill transfer to the members. What would be more beneficial from these grants is actually allowing the co-op members to receive some payment while they're on a learning curve themselves. (Hummingbird Co-op members)

The members of the co-op feel that it would be a much more worthwhile endeavor for them to use the funding for educating themselves. Already members spend much of their time sorting through the various tasks of developing the co-op, which is an important part of creating a sense of ownership.

"Hiring a business consultant to help us develop a business plan is a useless exercise. Beyond useless. What we need to do is develop some skills ourselves in developing a business plan, because it's something that we need to be able to continuously do. But the consultant comes in and writes out the business plan. First of all we don't own it, we really don't have any responsibility around it, even though we say we do, and we haven't developed the skills to continue to revise a business plan." (Hummingbird Co-op members).

One of the lessons that the experience of Hummingbird Bottled Water Co-op is has shown is the importance of process in the development of the co-op. Finding the right group of people and working together to develop the best business plan has been one of the greatest contributions to the sustainability of the co­-op.

The co-op continues to move towards its goals at its desired pace and is excited about the opportunities ahead - working together has already taught each member a great deal about themselves, their work styles and preferred life styles, and we can only imagine that even greater learning possibilities lie ahead. (Jenny, Hummingbird Co-op member)

Case Study Information

This case study was developed for a report entitled Situating Co-operatives in British Columbia - 2000 - 2001, which was prepared for the Province of B.C. (Ministry of Community Development, Co-operatives and Volunteers) by the British Columbia Institute for Co-operative Studies, University of Victoria.  To obtain the information for the study BCICS and the co-operative entered into a partnership agreement. BCICS is grateful to the co-op members for their contributions and time. The case study is published with the approval of the co-operative.

Researcher: Lloy Wylie

Date of research: 2000-2001

Author:  Lloy Wylie

Date of writing: 2001

Editing: BCICS editorial group

Supervision: Kathleen Gabelmann, BCICS Research Co-ordinator

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