Dec 7, 2012

Congratulations to new CMC graduates!

Students of the third (CMC) Co-operative Management Certificate Program  graduated on Dec. 1st. Among the graduating class is GROWMARK procurement and distribution manager Steve Rongits and Paul Emerick, controller for AGRIS Co-operative.


This year, eighteen students, most of who are currently involved with the co-op sector, celebrated the end of their six-month course with a ceremony held at the Executive Learning Centre of the Schulich School of Business at York University. Rongits says this course gave him the opportunity to learn more about the diversity of the co-op sector. "I know that the knowledge I gained and the network of other co-operators that I met will help me in my career with GROWMARK and I have a broader perspective of the co-operative model and sector.”

  The Co-operative Management Certificate Program was designed to be an affordable, practical and accessible learning solution for those in Ontario’s diverse co-operative sectors. The Program was developed by the Ontario Co-operative Association in partnership with the Schulich School of Business. Students represented co-op sectors including renewable energy, housing, financial services, agriculture, organics, transportation and worker co-ops. Some students are from outside the co-op sector, but take the program to learn more about applying the co-op enterprise model to a future business. Almost 60 students have graduated from the program thus far.
 
Recent CMC graduate, Steve Rongits of GROWMARK with Mark Ventry, Ontario Co-operative Association Executive Director (L) and J.J. McMurtry Associate Professor, Business & Society, York University, and 
Program Director of the Co-operative Management Certificate Program.


Recent CMC graduate, Paul Emerick of AGRIS Co-operative with Mark Ventry and J.J. McMurtry.
The fourth cohort of the Co-operative Management Certificate Program begins March 2013. Visit the Ontario Co-operative Association website to learn more about the Co-operative Management Program or call On Co-op at 1.888.745.5521.

Dec 6, 2012

Leading employees to safety at GROWMARK's annual Health & Safety Day


What do pigs and health and safety have to do with each other?

In this case, Lester Zmolek, senior safety specialist of GROWMARK took a unique approach with an ice-breaker for more than 30 FS member co-operative employees who attended the annual GROWMARK Health and Safety Day on Dec. 4 at the Holiday Inn in Kitchener when he asked everyone to draw a picture of a pig!


Apparently, many factors of a person’s personality can be exposed by analyzing their individual pig portraits. These key personality traits may have an impact on how we conduct ourselves in regards to health and safety by our ability to respond quickly, focus attentively or whether we are more of a risk taker or approach things cautiously. These are just a few of the personality traits exposed by one's quick pig sketch.

Lester Zmolek of GROWMARK interacts with particpants
quizzing them on some Health and Safety statistics.
Zmolek says that once all safety measures are taken, then usually, the three main reasons accidents occur are that the employee is complacent and has done the task many times before, or he or she is not concentrating on the task or just simply not aware of proper actions.

MTO officer Bud Kneller
“We can follow all the health and safety regulations in the world, but if the correct state of mind and focus is absent at the scene, then a near-miss or accident is likely to occur,” says Zmolek. “You can lead a horse to water......and we must lead our employees to safety.”

Participants then broke off into groups to discuss several different incident scenarios and determine what measures they would take to avoid the same incident in the future. Next on the agenda was Ministry of Transportation Officer Bud Kneller, who covered a variety of topics such as cargo securement, and trip inspections. The group took part in a lively Q&A session and was able to pin-point specifics in regards to best practices in protecting themselves against MTO fines and transportation safety regulations.

The afternoon consisted of an update on Ontario’s health and safety legislations by Erin Aldred, GROWMARK Ontario Health & Safety specialist, and a session on life of an accident. Pete Trotter, legal council for GROWMARK and Ian Campbell, senior partner with Hicks Morley were joined by Bob Dobson, operator from FS PARTNERS Beeton location and Erin Aldred for a panel discussion on a true case accident that occurred in 2010.