Co-op News
Camp Teaches Teens About Co-ops
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Call it “Camp Co-op.” For a week in July, some 80 teenage consumer-members gathered near Steamboat Springs, Colo., for a camp experience that went beyond just hiking and volleyball.
Campers learn to work together during this team building exercise at the Colorado Electric Educational Institute Cooperative Youth Leadership Camp. (Photo By: Dixie Fagerlin)
“It’s very much a leadership camp. We do a lot of activities about student development and leadership positions,” said Shana Holsteen, director of communications at Kansas Electric Cooperatives.
She helped chaperone 26 Kansas students to the Colorado Electric Educational Institute Cooperative Youth Leadership Camp, as it’s formally known, joining campers from co-ops in Colorado, Wyoming and Oklahoma.
The camp, which has been around for some three decades, is designed to educate teens about the co-op business model.
To that end, the students—mostly rising high school seniors—formed a co-op based on candy and soda sold at a “canteen.”
“They pay membership dues. They’re pre-assigned to small groups and each small group elects a member to sit on the camp’s board,” Holsteen said. “Then the board will accept applications from among the other students and ‘hire’ a general manager,” whose responsibilities include overseeing the daily agenda and introducing guest speakers.
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