Eadha Worker Co-op

TL;DR (Keep scrolling for the full story)

Eadha’s not a one-person show anymore. This little queer bakery in the yellow building on the corner feeds the community while putting people over profits. We make sure our work practices reflect our values, our social ethics, and our politics, and when we mess up, we own it. 

 

So. We’re turning Eadha into a worker-owned co-op. Yup. A co-op. And guess what. This process is expensive. Like $10k in lawyer-business-admin-start-up-costs expensive. As bakers, we just don’t have that kind of money kicking around.

 

We need your help. Help us raise $10k to finish converting Eadha to the little worker co-op of our dreams. Help us boost this GoFundMe campaign. Like, share, and amplify us. Donate some money to us if you can.

 

We’ve been working with SEED Winnipeg, a co-op developer, and we need to hire a lawyer to help us with all the paperwork and agreements and transition stuff. It’s a lot. It’s so much, we didn’t know if you’d read all of it, so we’re giving you the ‘too long; didn’t read’ version here. But if a little business development speak is the jam to your sourdough, keep on scrolling.

 

EADHA SOURDOUGH BAKERY

 

Eadha means endurance and, like sourdough starter that survives generations if you take care of it right, like queers who carve out spaces for ourselves in a world that is not always kind, Eadha bakery has grown from a one person show selling bread at community centres, to a cozy yellow storefront with a mutual aid ethos. A little bakery with *opinions*. 

 

Eadha is a queer bakery that has always valued and worked towards a decolonizing and anti-racist business model that prioritizes people (staff, customers, neighbours, suppliers, and extended communities) over profits while it works to be both financially sustainable, and socially ethical. We aren’t perfect and we don’t always get it right, but we care deeply about aligning our work practices with our values and politics. And that is why recently we have been up to a little something more than bright and early baking.

 

WE’RE NOT JUST FERMENTING DOUGH OVER HERE.

 

Over the last six months the folks at Eadha have been working together to shift the current, existing management structure to a worker-owned co-operative. We are very excited and proud of the process we have worked through together. A worker co-op basically means we all own it, we all agree on how we want to be accountable (to one another and to our communities), we all bake the bread, and we all do the dishes. We want this bakery to be a place to work together, raise each other up, and bake the most delicious, most sour of the doughs for you. To do that we know that we need to be constantly working to equitably share power, responsibility, and reward. The new co-op structure lets us build a bakery that is aligned with our politics and values.

 

Like everything under capitalism, this process is EXPENSIVE and there are costs associated with this transition that the bakery just can’t pay on its own.

 

BUT, what we do have is a community that has supported us since the beginning, and we are leaning into that community again now.

 

Since we opened in 2018, we have learned that our capacity to keep the lights on and the bread rising through a pandemic (and generally apocalyptic conditions) is because of the support and actionable love we receive from our communities, partners, colleagues, friends, lovers, families, and the people that we serve every day. None of us has ten thousand dollars, but we do have each other. And we are hoping that we can activate the community phone tree (for the young ones out there we mean the internet) and donate a little to collectively raise a lot!

 

WE ARE HOT QUEERS HERE TO BAKE BREAD AND BUILD A BUSINESS

 

Here is a quick overview on what we have been up to and the costs of converting Eadha to a worker owned co-op:

 

We are working with SEED Winnipeg, Certified Co-op Developer Billy Granger, and will soon be working with co-op law specialist and partner at Taylor McCaffrey LLP Kristen Wittman. Here is a list of tasks that we are working through:

 

• drafting articles – incorporating and registering for payroll/GST

• file for new permits with the City of Winnipeg

• drafting by-laws for EADHA and ensuring compliance with the Act that governs co-ops

• negotiating a new lease with the landlord

• writing up a “purchase agreement” for the co-op to “buy” the business (this is a paperwork formality—no money is exchanging hands with this transition).

• this includes drafting the agreement and completing a limited amount of due diligence (basically, searches to make sure there are no consents/approvals required to complete the sale)

• drafting an employment contract (for non-member or probationary workers)

• strategic planning for the co-op team

• co-op development training (e.g. intro to co-ops, co-op readiness assessment and discussion, decision-making processes, how to hold meetings, recordkeeping, etc.)

• business planning and strategy development

• process improvement planning

• contingency planning

• marketing strategy development

 

HERE IS WHERE YOU FINE FOLKS COME IN:

 

• LIKE everything you see about this campaign

• SHARE posts and links to our GoFundMe page

• AMPLIFY our plans for the bakery. Tell your friends, tell your lovers, tell your families, coworkers, random dates, and neighbours about the co-op and what it takes to make it happen.

• DONATE some cash if you have the means. No donation is too small or too big.

o Can’t donate online but still want to contribute? No problem. Come by the bakery and make your donation in person!

 

With the money, the time, or the campaign ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ that you donate, we will be able to:

1. Complete the official legal transition of the business into a worker co-op, and

2. Ensure that the co-op has the necessary training and planning in place to succeed.

 

When we reach our goal, we will celebrate with a good old fashioned Eadha pizza party. You are totally invited.

At Eadha, we believe in people. And we really believe in queers and our ability to create something out of nothing, be accountable to one another, walk through the muck together, and always remember to celebrate the things we get right, preferably with trashy gay sourdough goings on.

 

This is us, in a bakery. This is our hope and our intention for Eadha’s future as a queer-owned worker co-op. You know Eadha, right? It’s the little bakery in the yellow building on the corner. You know, the gay one. It’s owned by all of us. It means Endurance.