DISOP-CLAD FAMILY DAY

One important event that CLAD has conducted was to gather if not all but the majority of the members of the DISOP/CLAD Family. The DISOP/CLAD Family day was conducted first last December 2006 and was conducted again two years after which was held last December 13, 2008 at Lotus Beach in Brgy Abanilla. CLAD management has tried to hold this event once in every two years so that the direct family members of the project beneficiaries will feel that they are also involved with the project by giving them importance during the said event.

The primary objective of the activity was to evaluate the different cooperatives and BECs about the status of the DISOP programs which were implemented by them. The strategy of the evaluation was by way of comparing their respective cooperatives to the different plants in the surroundings. The self-evaluation was presented by their respective chairmen. Majority of the cooperatives compared their group with Euphorbia ornamental plants. According to them, their cooperatives were just so similar with this plant in the sense that the plant has many thorns. They felt that cooperative organization in its early phase has many obstacles and hardship especially that these cooperatives are in the rural areas. Many elected officers lack the capability and learnings on how to properly manage their coops. One of the most pressing problem they encountered is on the proper records keeping and bookkeeping.

The euphorbia plant also bears beautiful flowers of different colors and sizes. They said that these flowers represent the gains of organizing their cooperatives; the learnings on coop management and development, the capital and savings generated and the different livelihood projects that the coop members had established. The different sizes of the flowers represent the different degree of progress and development that these different coops had undertaken. The celebration ended with games and dancing and awarding of prizes to the winners.

CHEERS TO COOPS SUCCESS. . . .

Starting from February to March CLAD Management and Staff are very much busy attending General Assembly meetings of the different assisted and partner cooperatives and associations. This happened since CLAD wanted that all its coop partners should comply to the basic requirements set by the CDA as stipulated in its CDA Rules and Regulations that all cooperatives should conduct at least once in every year a General Assembly Meeting which will be held within the period of 90 days at the end of coop fiscal year.

This year, Mr Agustin Dignos, CLAD Chief Operations Officer and Operation Coordinator of DISOP assisted projects served as guest speaker whose role is to always encourage the member-cooperators to be always participative and vigilant to whatever activities the cooperative is doing. Members' active involvement in every coop affairs is one important key ingredient for the coop to succeed. According to him, there could be no Legacy Case and there should never have a similar case in cooperative if an only if members will always find time in attending Coop General Assembly Meetings. General Assembly Meeting, although cooperatives are required to conduct once a year only, is one of the most important activity that coop members should not miss since this activity would highlight the cooperative performance for the past year.

The results of the different cooperative operations are very much satisfying since cooperatives are giving their members a return on their investment ranging from 20 to 90 percent. This happened since most small cooperatives operate in a very low expenditure budget since majority of the members of the management staff are in voluntary basis which is good for starting coops.