Co-Op Association Seeking Funds for New Magazine

Members of the University Students’ Cooperative Association are soliciting contributions for the organization’s new magazine, expected to come out with its pilot issue by the end of the semester.

The Berkeley Student Co-Operative Magazine, as the publication is tentatively named, will likely include a wide range of content including art, editorials, creative writing, personal ads and comics, said USCA communications coordinator Jennifer Heller.

“We’re just trying to have co-opers submit anything that they’re interested in submitting, we’re not putting up any limits,” said Willa Dong, vice president of the Member Services and Member Education committee in charge of putting the magazine together.

“We’re still in the planning stages and we’ve not completely gotten all the details together,” said Rochdale Village board representative John Henry, who is organizing several aspects of the magazine’s creation.

Henry said the new magazine will pick up where an older co-op publication, “The Scoop,” left off years ago. “The Scoop” ran for six years and was cut from the budget in 2003 to save the association $11,000 a year.

In contrast to the old publication, it is unlikely that the new magazine will hold any paid positions, Heller said.

The funding for the magazine will come primarily from the Member Services and Member Education committee, Dong said.

“We want it to be freely available to as many people who want it. We might try to distribute it online as downloadable pdf and we might also try to get local businesses to advertise,” Henry said.

Henry said they have not yet received many contributions but that people have expressed interest in submitting material ranging from poetry to recipes.

Though the magazine will be aimed at representing the co-ops, Henry said it will not exclude non-members and may eventually advertise more widely for contributions.

“Inherently there will be some things about co-ops in it, but it will not necessarily be all about the co-ops because we don’t want to alienate the rest of the community,” he said.

Members at one of the smaller co-ops, Wolf House, said they were mostly unaware of the proposed project.

“It sounds interesting … it might help to show co-ops in a different light,” said sophomore KT Molinaro. “We haven’t really talked about it much.”

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