CCA: Reflecting change, setting the pace
50 years of promoting innovative co-op communications
eteran cooperative communicator
Ann Mosby
says the decision to stop
publishing CCA News in
printed form was
“painful progress.”
The GROWMARK communications
director led the Cooperative
Communicators Association (CCA)
committee that recommended the
group move to an electronic newsletter
rather than the traditional black and white
paper version. The decision mirrors
those Mosby and her peers make
at cooperatives everyday. It also highlights
how changes within the business
world, in general, and cooperatives, in
particular, have a rippling effect.
“CCA provides a testing ground for
innovative communications strategies
and tactics,” says CCA President
Sheryl Doering Meshke, Associated
Milk Producers Inc. communications
director in New Ulm, Minn. “Our
peer network enables communicators
to speed the learning curve.”
Formed in 1954 after Minnesota
and Wisconsin editors of cooperative
publications got together to share ideas
and learn how to better perform their
jobs, the organization now counts
membership across the United States,
Canada and England. CCA is committed
to keeping pace or a few steps
ahead of the changing communications
needs of the cooperative community.
Members’ duties include writing,
editing, photography, videography,
design and all the other skills needed
to help cooperatives tell their story.
The steps CCA took to determine
what to do about its member newsletter
within the context of consolidating
cooperatives and skyrocketing printing
and postage costs provide insight for
cooperative communicators faced with
similar decisions at their own organizations.
The volunteer-driven CCA conducted
a readership survey, reviewed
the results by committee and acted on
a recommendation to change the way
the newsletter was delivered. “Given
all this, I had to admit that leveraging
available mechanisms to communicate
with members made real sense,”
Mosby says. “The change offered
interactivity, it would save expense, it
would provide more timely delivery
and it meant that technical issues could
be resolved without members having
to struggle with them.”
Mosby’s involvement exemplifies
how members learn new skills from
one another and exercise their knowhow
on behalf of the association, as
well as their cooperative employer.
“The association work gives CCA
members a forum for trying innovative
ideas where the stakes are not as high
as in their ‘real jobs’,” says CCA
Executive Director Susie Bullock from
the organization’s headquarters in
Lubbock, Texas. Once tried, the communicator
can adapt those skills or
knowledge to the particular challenges
faced in real-life cooperative settings.
CCA’s successful ideas and programs
are replicated in its members’ daily
work from the planning stages to
their implementation. Those stages, in
themselves, reflect how sophisticated
communication is today. One doesn’t
just speak and expect to be heard.
Rather, the messenger speaks in many
different venues and different ways,
depending on the audience, yet with
the same key messages.
Though communication
methods change, organizations
such as CCA still help
members hold true to the
cooperative principle on
education, training and
information.
“CCA operates much
like a growing and changing
cooperative, striving to
effectively manage and
deliver member resources,”
Meshke says. “We’re a
microcosm of the cooperative
community.”
Mosby agrees, saying
recommending an electronic
newsletter forced
her to leave the “comfort
zone” behind for CCA and
made her think about her
own cooperative’s communication
delivery systems. “With that, this laggard
became an adopter and an active
supporter of the process to improve
CCA communications,”
she says.
The change is indicative of the
group’s and their cooperative’s
changing needs. As CCA goes, so goes
cooperatives or maybe it’s the
reverse.
CCA members gather for an annual
Co-op Communications
Institute each June for
three days of seminars
and discussion designed
to improve the skills of
members in the full
spectrum of communications.
This year the
institute will be held Jun
12-15 in Louisville, Ky.
The 2005 institute will
be held in Denver.
Contact information:
website: www.communicators coop ;
phone: (806) 777-6489;
address: 5307 43rd St.,
Lubbock, Texas 79414-1315.
Executive Director: Susie Bullock;
President: Sheryl
Meshke (AMPI).
