Congratulations to Co-operatives

It is a fitting time for celebration. Cooperatives have finally been given recognition by the United Nations. 2012 is declared as the International Year of Co-operatives. This is the beginning for coops to shine further. In the Philippines hundreds of successful cooperatives have achieved so much over time that beginning with a few thousand pesos capital, when their members get their acts together they accomplish what many profit-centered corporations have not been able to do. In the realm of cooperatives, the money turning over in the year just passed is around One Thousand Three Hundred Billion, or P1.3 Trillion. That is just from what we can monitor. What about the gains and revenues of other cooperatives that are not easily reflected in public sites? Even the biggest banks in the country could be put to shame by the success of the cooperative movement. In proportion to their capital expenditure, coops generate higher incomes than many banks put together. The only caveat I learned while working with coops is that once you install the Board of Directors, many of them that were hitherto shy, withdrawn and could hardly even make a campaign speech on their election to officer's posts in their cooperative, become proud, to say the least. But there are ways to place the cooperative's officers properly in line and when that happens, if the General Assembly has vigilant and well-meaning members to its credit, the coop becomes a very successful money making machine. Congratulations to cooperatives all over the world! May your tribe increase!