CORDILLERA REGIONAL COOPERATIVE MONTH CELEBRATION
VENUE
The venue of the Cordillera Regional Cooperative Month Celebration was at the BENECO Complex, South Drive, Baguio City. It accommodated the participants of 505 coming from the six provinces and one chartered city composing the administrative region.
The regional cooperative month celebration in the Cordillera Region is in an alphabetical order round-robin hosting of six provinces and one chartered city of Baguio. This 2017 Cordillera Regional Cooperative month is the 21st celebration for Cordillera cooperatives that was spawned by careful planning. However, this year’s venue and host-province, Ifugao Province, had a different dynamics of hosting the regional coop month that does not fit well on a regional basis. Such underlying forces among cooperative leaders was only known to the personalities in Ifugao that the Leadership at the Regional Cooperative Development Council had finally to change and move the venue from Banaue, Ifugao to the City of Baguio.
Prior to the Cordillera regional cooperative month, Cordillera cooperative managers have attended a training entitled: EXECUTIVE DEVELOPMENT COURSE TRACK II. The training is part of the month-long celebration for cooperative manager to be entrepreneurs and become abreast of the new cooperative roles as a medium to optimize the use of resources towards a maximum economic benefit for member-owners.
ARTS AND CULTURE IN COOPERATIVES
Arts and Cultural presentation is part of the culminating month-long Cordillera Cooperative Celebration where the youth or laboratory cooperative member-owners are requested for an intermission. Injecting the arts and cultural performances, through the laboratory cooperatives enliven the participants to embrace the importance of young membership that creates a more vibrant and continuous source of younger members.
MANAGERS’ CLUB
Earlier activities that are part of the 21st Cordillera Regional Cooperative month celebration is the organization of a Managers’ club. The primary function of the Managers’ club is to institutionalize the Big brother to small brother concept of assisting and rehabilitating cooperative business operations that are lagging behind.
To strengthen the policing of ranks among cordillera cooperative managers, the Cooperative Development Council of Baguio City was instrumental and successful in organizing the elusive institutionalization of a mechanism to internally police cooperatives managers. This is the Baguio city Managers’ Club.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
The Regional Awardees in the Regional level of the CDA Gawad Parangal that were conferred their awards last September 27, 2017 were presented for recognition purpose only. However, as a matter of tradition, awarding of CDA Gawad Parangal awardees are done during the Cordillera Regional Cooperative month celebration. Conferment now is done earlier and only recognition is done during the GOVERNOR’S/MAYOR’S AND AWARDS NIGHT of a Regional Cooperative Month Celebration.
PROVINCIAL AND MUNICIPAL CELEBRATIONS
Each provinces of the Cordillera had their own Provincial Cooperative Month Celebration for the necessary updates and sharing of experiences besetting management of cooperative businesses and administration of cooperative affairs. The summit is the highest discourse in their own levels for discussing the issues and concerns for improvement and sharing of best practices. Only the municipality of La Trinidad had a two-month long Municipal Cooperative Month Celebration that included sports fest, indoor games, and weekly seminars to level up the operation of La Trinidad cooperatives.
BENGUET CMC
The Province of Benguet celebrated its CMC on October 19-20, 2017 focusing on the development of agricultural cooperatives and strengthening their networking and linkaging capability. The updates given by the different government agencies on their programs have provided wider insights and option for cooperatives to get technical assistance.
KALINGA CMC
Among the several activities lined during the Kalinga CMC is the outreach program. The well-coordinated outreach program before the culmination of the Provincial Cooperative Month celebration on November 5, 2017 has further fortified the cooperative image in Kalinga.
IFUGAO CMC
The province of Ifugao was the last to celebrate its Provincial CMC on October 27-28 at the Tam-an MPC Bayombong Baranch. While the venue is not within the province of Ifugao, it was lucky for those cooperatives sending their delegates because it was an opportunity to change from being close-mind to open-mind and an experiential learning that helps in cooperative management.
The keynote speaker, Congressman Teddy Baguilat, challenged the delegates to make-up since the weakest link towards the success of a cooperative is the lack of management skills. He further pointed out that the success of a cooperative is the management’s skill in business operation. It is because they use the same training; standards; systems; structures; values; and ethics, but others lag behind and others grow fast. Hence, he advised cooperative managers to hone their management skill by reading cooperative management books and being updated on what is new in management.
LA TRINIDAD CMC
The Municipality of La Trinidad – Cooperative Development Office spearheaded two-month CMC that included inter-sports fest among cooperatives with the aim to have a stronger camaraderie. Aside from the sport fest, pipelined trainings were conducted during the two-month duration. Research and paper presentation, as of this writing, is one of the highlights of the CMC for cooperatives to develop and appreciate the importance of research.
Recently, the La Trinidad Municipal Cooperative Development Office has won the National award as the 1st this 2017 CDA Gawad Parangal conferred at the Shangrila Hotel, Makati.
Indoor Games
Elders as players in the indoor games were not a forced but a matter of choice for them to navigate again their smart brains, if not to make again their well-being smarter. It was full of fund for even old players tried their best with humour and fun.
