Future Goals and Community Impact

Black coffee . This is the Kavoya Coffee podcasting network, coffee people talking to coffee people about coffee and things coffee adjacent. This episode of another cup is brought to you by Kavoya Specialty Coffee , where coffee is always a collaborative voyage. And let's have another pizza . Welcome to another cup, a blog where we talk to customers, suppliers, and all the relationships in between. This is Episode twenty two. Britt Amel and Mark Emman stopped at the US Women and Coffee Booth at the World of Coffee in San Diego to talk with Kim Cosgrove, fellow board member and community manager for the US chapter of women and coffee . Mark . All right everybody, welcome to the live at the World of Coffee in San Diego. Mark from the Exchange and Brittany here is with me as well . In addition to our podcasting duties, we also happen to be members of board members of the US Women in Coffee and we have Kim Gosgrove as well with us today. Hi there. How's it going? Very good. How are you? I'm well. What was your impressions of the IWC A breakfast this morning. Oh, I loved it. Obviously Helen's truly and deeply inspiring. It was it was amazing to see in here updates from Blanca and obviously witness the signing of the MOU between the U. S. Women and Coffee , the Canadian chapter as well as the Colombian chapter. Now I've been to a lot of these IWCA breakfasts. This had to have been the most attended one. It just seemed huge this year. It was it was huge. And I think I agree, Helen's speech was phenomenal. And she brought such great energy. Yeah. So she definitely helped me wake up a little bit in addition to the coffee obviously, but it was great. Britt, give us an update on what's going on latest in US Limiting Coffee . Absolutely . Just a little background info for anyone that doesn't know. Mark and myself are new members of the board as of last year . And last year Kavoya and the U. S. chapter U. S. Women and Coffee signed an MOU which basically formalizing our shared commitment of empowering women , you know, advancing education throughout the industry , and also networking and pulling together resources from both networks . In addition to also expanding our Cafe Delas program from Kuboya OFI and hopefully long term introducing women that come through the US chapter channels or IWCA in general and introducing those women to our OBI Origin teams in Latin America. So that's kind of what brought us all together and then we joined the board and then Kim joined us this year . But Kim and I have some history as well . You have history as well . Yes. We go away. Rivalries or rivalries serve Mark is China serve drama. I know Kim and I are former CQI bestie's. So we worked very close together. I did know that. Okay . Yes, we did. Absolutely. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Probably not. But I'd like to segue. I mean, while I joined after the MOU was signed between US Women and Coffee in Caboya , actually this is my me rejoining the board. I sat on the bo ard back in , I believe end of or mid twenty twenty, so pandemic years and was there for about almost two years and coming back now I, will att est and I was telling Brit a little bit earlier how great this partnership has been and how it's really added a lot of value to not only the existing members but the people are just interested in this top ic. As everything that's going on around us is happening, it's really important that we stay connected and have platforms that we feel that we can share knowledge and ideas . Absolutely. So I want to say it's been pretty amazing. Well said. We're happy to have you back. Now for people out there who have heard about US women and coffee or IWCA, but don't really I know how to get involved. How would somebody get involved with this group? That's a great question do you want to take? I'll be taking away time to take it because I am wearing the hat of the community manager at the US Women and Coffee as a board member. And what that means is my main job is to answer questions about people who are interested in becoming members , as well as people who are existing members, but they're not quite sure what to do with that membership. So I have started to burch the conversation and email some people and I'll probably get a little bit more front and center after the ex after the world of coffee San Diego. But I want to hear from people and how people join is it's we want this to be mutually beneficial. There's obviously a clear entry point that costs for individual members who just, you know, either have their own business or just want to get started. It's one hundred and twenty dollars annually . We also have a corporate membership and that one's three hundred and twenty dollars annually, but it excepts up to three people under a corporate umbrella. The main point of my role though is this is like an organic being want to make the membership valuable to the people . Right. And that was case in point. The survey that we did last year and the results of the survey this year . We've heard from everyone. We want to build platforms for mentorship . We want to create directories that help connect businesses and people together. And it just reinforces the need that everyone wants to be a part of it , but they want to show up with their own expertise. I see there's a lot of opportunity for that and that is really exciting to me. I think we're going to make some really cool stuff happen. Aside from the webinars, which already webinars . Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's I mean, there's for most roasters out there in coffee shops, you know, every dollar is very precious to them and the benefits far outweigh the cost of this. And what I like about obviously is why I'm a part of this is that it's a collaborative effort. It's not an association talking to members It's a two way communication channel and it is about building up people together rather than being a part of an association and taking whatever products they're handing to you. Yeah, I mean, if I can step into and since we're talking about how to get involved , you know, the synergy what brought us together originally with US Women and Coffee was talking about the Cafe Delas program at Cavoya OFI . And basically what that is if you haven't tuned in to previous podcasts, it is an internal certification and there's a premium added on to the cost per pound for these coffees that you're purchasing from women in Latin America. And that's given back to the women through training, equipment, education, and then obviously direct income . And what we want to do long term is, you know, like I mentioned earlier, is connect women from the international chapters and bring them in to that program , but to get involved right now, you basically just have to check out our website. Learn a little bit more , you know, familiarize yourself with if you're a producer, just understanding how to become a part of it and what the requirements are so that you can kind of set yourself up so that you can join. And if you're a roaster, obviously purchase these coffees and support these women and build a relationship with them. Right. So we don't want it to just be a situation where you purchase their coffee one year and kind of forget about it. Like we want to build these long term relationships so that it's meaningful. These are invest ments that you're making in someone's future . And yeah, it's just it's a really important cause for us. And that's that's what brought us all together. And you mentioned them going to the website, what's the website address? Kaboya coffee dot com. Yeah , perfect . And for interest in the U. S. women in coffee, you go to U IC. org. Excellent. Yes. we can't put this forward enough how important it is to be a part of this you. If can do it, if you have interest in it, you're tied into a network of how many chapters internationally now are there. There's oh gosh, a lot. A lot. A lot. So you're connected to the world of women and coffee exactly , it's not just a US only thing. Agreed. a really fun we were talking earlier , just a quick real life moment that happened recently. Just you know, we were talking about how we're sharing resources across networks. And US Women Coffee had an inquiry recently. And it was a high school student, right? Yeah, it was just a student reaching out , working on a project focusing on women and coffee and yeah, it was sustainability and talking about how women are getting involved with financing and all of those things and you know, they forward ited to me and I was like, oh, this is a great opportunity to talk about Cafe Dels because the student basically was asking does this even exist? Yeah . And if it does exist, can I learn more about it? And we sent her all the information and she was blown away. Yeah. Like this is just something that, you know, other parts of the world aren't necessarily aware of what's going on. Sure. So just being able to, you know, forward a quick email and be like, Hey, can you guys help out with this? And we absolutely could. So it's just such a good example. Yeah, I agree. I think what was nice, like a good reminder was to see that we live in a silo where we are so in tune with all these great things that are happening that we forget that outside our layer of where we are, there's a lot of people who are interested, but they don't know where to start. And so these relationships that have been forming and especially between US women in coffee and Cavoya, it's that's case in point. It made me so happy and that I reached out to that person just to say like, if you need anything else, please let us know. And they were just like to the moon, enthusiastic about what Fritz sent them about the Captain Dellas program . Looking ahead some future goals , I know you can talk about this too, Mark as part of the board. You know, some things that we've all talked about is just to continue building momentum with our webinars. We have some exciting stuff lined up for the rest of the year . And hopefully together we can reach and impact wider audience when it comes to collecting more resources for education as well because we're reaching out to the members with surveys. We want to hear from you. We want to craft areas that are valued to you for your membership money. So it's we're going to continue to send these surveys out and please respond this is how we ask our programs. Yeah . Absolutely. And you will continue to hear from me. I am the info at USWencoffee. org as well. So I'll be held accountable if you don't hear from us. Or have another cup of coffee ? And seven other pizza pie . You've been listening to another cup, part of the Kaboya Coffee podcasting network where the executive producer is me, Mike Ferguson. Our theme music is Let's have another cup of coffee performed by, as I'm sure you guessed, Glenn Miller and his orchestra . If you've enjoyed this or any show on the Kawai Coffee podcast ing network, please do all the things. Like, subscribe, review, don't keep us a secret, and take our listener survey at the link in the show notes. Finally, remember two things . You can email me with thoughts, ideas , kind words, and limericks at mic. ferguson at Cavoy dot com