[Crsd] Alumni and community organizing projects

[Monty Kroopkin]

  Dear UCSD Co-ops & Collectives Alumni and Friends, At C&C Alumni's fall quarter meeting we decided to build a program of community education events with interested faculty members, campus unions and organizations, and current student members of the UCSD Co-op Union (Che Cafe Collective, Food Co-op, General Store Co-op, and Groundwork Books Collective). C&C Alumni also decided to begin building a bank of workshop videos, on subjects of value for education/orientation of new co-op volunteers each year. The two themes are not mutually exclusive. C&C Alumni has decided to affiliate with NASCO (North American Students of Cooperation), with a special interest in collaboration with them on educational projects, which they are known for. We also discussed working more with the California Center for Cooperative Development (CCCD) and with the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, especially on joint educational projects.  Discussions have begun amongst KNSJ, New Indicator, Indian Voices, and IWW, about a possible pilot program for broadcast on KNSJ Social Justice Radio San Diego, on a topic of labor and community groups media needs. It may be going in the direction of inviting both academics who have expressed interest as well as local union people to participate in a forum at the Che Cafe. The forum would be recorded for both broadcast on KNSJ and posting by link at newindicator.org. I think the Che Cafe Collective will agree to host such an event.  Both the Che Cafe and Groundwork Books are venues available for similar events, and building these events will of course also further the organizing of lasting relationships and deepen the roots of the student/worker cooperatives on the campus and in the community. KNSJ and New Indicator are beginning a related conversation with students at KSDT Radio and their counterparts at SDSU at both KNSJ and KPBS. We hope to build the capacity of KNSJ Radio to do remote broadcasting of events in the community, both live and recorded for later broadcast and online posting. KNSJ is mainly volunteer run, and might land a grant or a large donation to pay internships. Future maybe. But unpaid joint projects between the student/campus radio people and KNSJ would be less trouble to get started. And if we find one or two faculty members at each campus willing to sponsor independent studies credit, then it would be easier to recruit student radio people to work with KNSJ. Finding faculty anchors for a future (funded) student internships program at KNSJ could eventually make such student recruitment even easier. The academic design for either independent studies or internships can include collaboration of campus career services as well as the faculty, alumni and community organizations. New Indicator and Indian Voices and KNSJ continue to look for ways to develop and share content and meet the media needs of the community. One aspect of this which may interest you is a new effort to conduct New Indicator interviews with organizers and thinkers. Simple interviews with a written set of interview questions and whatever amount of time the interviewee needs to write answers. Editing then done collectively with the interviewee. An example is http://newindicator.org/?p=1103  The possibilities for cross-over projects in all of the above, are broad. C&C Alumni has also begun working with the Alumni Association to do one of their online fundraising campaigns ("Crowdsurfing"), to buy a lot of new Che Cafe kitchen equipment. The collective is also applying for (and getting) grants for kitchen equipment. The Che Cafe kitchen is going to be reopening in stages, and the hope is for it to be fully operational sometime early spring quarter 2019. The first stage will be much sooner. All legal steps to open are now completed, with the exception of getting the "A" rating posted up on the wall again. That will be any day now, as soon as Environmental Health and Safety comes to do their final inspection. As soon as that is done, the cafe will resume serving food/drinks at shows, and staffing for daytime cafe open hours will begin. This first phase will have a limited menu, but will restore the availability of the cafe for study time and for TA's to hold office hours at the cafe. The second stage will involve a larger menu, and utilize an all-electric kitchen plan. This we hope will be up and running spring quarter.  The third stage will involve expanding kitchen operations to resume use of gas appliances. This can only happen after the obsolete kitchen hood system is replaced and official okay is obtained to connect the gas lines again. There is a separate fund raising campaign planned for that. If you would like to take part in any of these efforts, please let us know. Solidarity,Monty Kroopkin858-373-7018 
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