Submitted by Debbie Willis
Dear fellow members of Sunnyhill Co-op,
I've been thinking about our meeting on March 2nd, where we witnessed a lot of hurt and frustration within our membership. I believe that most of the membership (many of whom were not directly involved in this current constellation of conflicts and may not even be aware of the specifics) will soon be ready to formally close this chapter and move forward. I personally look forward to hearing the policy changes that the board will suggest to help the co-op deal with future, similar challenges. The co-op has spent a huge amount of money, and the board and those involved in the investigation have given enormous amounts of time to this conflict, and I hope we won't allow it to go on forever. It would be best if we could move towards healing these rifts, and though I'm not sure how that will be possible in this specific case, I am optimistic that we will move beyond our current situation.
To that end, I had one idea that could perhaps help us in the future: Sunnyhill could pay to train a small team of volunteer mediators among our membership, people who could be called upon to help deal with interpersonal issues. Many Indigenous cultures have traditions of healing circles, and perhaps a similar, small-scale initiative could help us deal with interpersonal conflicts as they come up. I think this group could respond based on our shared values, which I hope we’ll soon define, and could take as their mission to ensure fair, generous-hearted dialogue at the co-op.
We live in a complex time, dealing with the pandemic and a climate-crisis that will continue to get more and more severe. As a co-op, we are also looking towards the challenge of organizing and implementing an ambitious and exciting Deep-Green Retrofit. We must have strategies to work together and to remain cooperative in spirit.
Thank you,
Debbie Willis