Setting standards high has always been the motto of the St James Government Secondary School. The launch of the very first school-based multi-purpose co-operative society is proof of that. Members of the newly formed co-operative society visited the T&T Guardian's St Vincent Street office this week for an interview. The idea of a co-operative society came from president of the St James Secondary Multipurpose Co-operative Society (SJCS) Ronald Huggins and former student, Karanjabari Williams. "We are part of the school's alumni association and every year they would plan a reunion and these activities and we would notice that the alumni had a major generation gap," said Huggins. So "major" was the generation gap, Huggins said, that one of the alumni members had been in the very first class when the school opened in 1961. "So we wanted to do something different, we wanted to make a contribution to the school but we wanted to do something based on our skill set, which was business," said Huggins. He said he and Williams took the idea to some other alumni members who had graduated with them in 1995 and 1996 and everybody came on board. "When we went with the idea, we said 'hey, we want to do a co-operative society and everybody said yes. When we asked if they knew what a cooperative society was, they all said no," Huggins laughed.
So what exactly is a multi-purpose co-operative society? "When people hear co-operative society they usually think credit union," said Huggins. "There are many other types of cooperative societies though. You can have one for real estate and other businesses as well." Huggins explained that a cooperative society consisted of a group of people that shared a common bond to meet their economic and social needs through a jointly-owned enterprise. "In our group, we all went to the same school so that is our common bond," Huggins said. He explained that a multipurpose society allowed the group to be able to pursue several different business ventures as opposed to one single focus. The idea for the society was conceptualised in 2010, with the idea of launching for the school's 50th anniversary celebrations last year. However, setting up the society took longer than expected so it wasn't until January that the legal aspect of setting up a business venture was complete.
Moving forward
Now that it is complete the board has plans, not only for members but for students as well. They will begin with a membership drive, scheduled to take place on June 2 and are targeting past students, staff and other people who share an affiliation with the school. From there, the first business venture being planned is a stationery store to be located on the school compound. While the focus on any business is to make money, Huggins said SJSCS's other focus is to contribute to the school through a variety of activities and programmes. "We are planning to have a graduation fund, where on entering the school parents can have students start an account that they would be able to access on graduation," said Huggins. Huggins said the society also wanted to offer low-cost lessons for students, assist with the school's annual career day and help revitalise the school's football team. "We feel if we invest that time into the students we would see better results academically as well as grow our membership," Huggins said.