"If you want to be incrementally better: Be competitive. If you want to be exponentially better: Be cooperative" - Unknown Source

Some food for thought in what being part of a Cooperative means. I recently traveled to the Annual Meeting held in Washington DC this year, from April 24-26th. As always it was an excellent and enriching experience for those in attendance from across the USA and Canada.

We had a successful day of meetings at the National Cooperative Business Association offices. It is always nice to meet the important people behind the exponential work they do for all cooperatives across the nation.

We were very fortunate to visit 3 wonderful preschools. After the day of meetings we took a stroll on Capitol Hill to meet the amazing and much beloved Ms. Frances Slaughter who is the teacher for the Capitol Hill Cooperative Nursery School. We had a warm welcome from the families of her school and could see the love the children and parents alike had for this amazing teacher. We were treated to lovely snacks and had a look around at the little school full of love. One of the highlights was the turtle who delighted the children especially when it was feeding time. Yummy crickets! Their program involves regular neighborhood walks, a weekly music program and a dynamic, free-to-explore world with Ms. Frances by their side. A great quote from their website which helps to instill the true nature of being part of a cooperative school:

 "It turns out that an important hallmark of a good school is one where parents are active and engaged, not just in bake sales and candy drives, but in substantively supporting the school and encouraging it to be its best." The Good School: How Smart Parents Get Their Kids the Education They Deserve by Peg Tyre

Our second preschool visit was to Arlington Unitarian Cooperative Preschool in Virginia. We were able to fit in some meeting time here and tour their fantastic and expansive preschool space. This school had a program from 4 months to 5 years. What a great way for the entire family to get involved. A young sibling could play or take a nap in the Panda room while their older sibling played like a Koala, or a Penguin, a Dolphin or a Cheetah. Each room was very bright and full of art and love. The "look how tall we are" wall measuring the kids' growth throughout the year was a neat addition to one of the classrooms. I have to say that one of the best treasures of this preschool was their amazing outdoor space and playground. Our group had lots of fun playing on the giant play structure fully equipped with slides, steeples, tunnels and lots of hiding places. A short stroll beyond the fence we met some of the parents tending the preschool community garden growing vegetables with the kids. What a beautiful scene this was.

After a tasty awards luncheon in the quaint Alexandria, where the very deserving honorees, Leta Mach, Francis Slaughter and Jennifer DeBernardis received awards, we travelled to Fort Hunt Preschool. This was a gem of a preschool tucked into a historic carriage house on the grounds of an historic homestead. They had a combined indoor/outdoor program taking advantage of the natural surroundings they shared. The outdoor area including hidden tunnels in the tall grass, musical stations, and life sized boats to steer, a story telling area and even a place dedicated to digging worms. Don't forget the gardens, stage and bridges in the sand. They also had even bigger plans for their outdoor space in the future. Inside, the classrooms were full of nature too, with tree stumps to paint, recycled art on the walls, homemade sand contraptions and caterpillars waiting to change into butterflies, both real and imagined. After our tour we were able to finish up our meetings in the historic main house ending with many things accomplished as we move into the future of PCPI.

A special thanks to Leta Mach, VP Resources, and 2014 Honorary Life Member recipient, and Nancy Renner, Fort Hunt Director, for helping to make this year's Annual PCPI meetings such a great success. They were instrumental for the logistics of the meeting along with the help of Lynann Derrick. We accomplished so many great things this year and look forward to the continued success of PCPI.

Back home again, I find myself thinking of the great meetings we shared, networking with the larger cooperative community and learning many new and wonderful ideas that can be shared with the greater Coop community. These meetings are such a valuable place to network, meet, teach, learn and grow the cooperative spirit within all of us to build strong communities and happiness all around! I encourage everyone to join us next year in Vancouver, BC!!