CCMA Dialogue Studio

The CCMA Dialogue Studio is a dedicated space designed as a participatory and ongoing hub of scheduled dialogues throughout the conference. Each of the four facilitated dialogues is open to all attendees with space limited.

WHY A DIALOGUE STUDIO?

Food co-ops have long been laboratories of cooperation — places where diverse stakeholders come together to meet shared needs. Yet even within organizations grounded in cooperative values, difficult conversations about power, identity, and internal dynamics are often postponed or avoided. As a unique convergence of food cooperators, how can we use CCMA to practice being in dialogue with one another — while generating insight, collective learning, and cohesion across the movement?

Grounded in principles of transformative dialogue — deep listening, mutual curiosity, relational awareness, and collective thought — this offering will help co-op leaders expand their capacity to engage difference without defensiveness, navigate complexity without oversimplification, and make space for voices often marginalized in routine decision-making. Together, we will build the capacity to think across roles, experiences, and assumptions — listening for the underlying beliefs and lived realities shaping our cooperative culture.

THE PROMPTS

Each dialogue will be framed by a prompt connected to the conference theme and tracks. In advance of the conference, attendees will be invited to review and vote on a selection of topics, ensuring that at least one session reflects shared priorities and emerging concerns.

BEYOND THE SCHEDULE

The studio may also serve as a space for continued engagement on topics that emerge during the conference, with the space remaining open outside of scheduled dialogues for impromptu one-on-one or small group conversations

By embedding this studio throughout the conference, we’re co-creating a space to practice collaboration in ways that reflect cooperative values and democratic principles.