Italian project partner Cooperazione Trentina (FTC) arranged project meeting in Trento July 26th to 28th. This meeting was crucial for the development of the learning system for co-operatives. We had also opportunity to have contribution from the target group, co-operatives and organisations promoting co-operatives. The broad variety of co-operation was represented by the partner countries: consumer and social coops, service and culture. These co-operatives and education organisations help us to develop methods and tools for the learning system by testing and commenting as pilot groups. It is essential to get feedback and practical solution proposals from the users to make the learning system user-friendly and attractive. And we got feedback, thanks Anna, Pavel and Zdzizlaw from Poland, Mikaela, Dan-Inge and Petra from Sweden, Michele, Silvia, Mattia, Marina, Matteo, Gabriele, Alberto and Federico from Italy, Einar and Karl from Iceland, and Outi, Päivi and Jukka from Finland!
To help us clarify the use of different channels for dissemination activities, Gabrielle Francescotto from Coop OpenContent gave us presentation and ideas how to exploit especially social media. He gave us professional advise which message to spread through which channels, and how to build up target group strategy for our purposes. Very interesting and useful! Thanks Elena and Giovanna for this idea.
And of course we discussed also other project activities, e.g. evaluation and exploitation. As a summary, Trento meeting “connected the wires” in the project and now we are ready to start building the learning system for co-operatives.
In addition to the project activities, we had great opportunity to hear presentation about the co-operative system in Trentino by the director of the Federation of Cooperatives in Trento Carlo Dallasega, and about EURICSE European Research Institute on Co-operatives and Social Enterprises by Riccardo Bodini. Both presentations pointed out co-operatives’ proven potential to survive through times of economic crisis, but also stressed the need for develop them as businesses. Visits to local co-operatives underlined the long history of co-operation and local economy in Trento area. This was seen also in our meeting room: co-operative principles on the walls!
Jarmo Hänninen/COOP
Coop Finland Association
