Good leaders are made, not born.

No matter how keen your board members are to do a good job, they won't get too far without the learned skills co-op directors need. As a famous president of the United States once said, leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

As we said earlier, this is not a how-to guide for co-op directors. But good, skilled training is available throughout the co-op housing sector, from CHF Canada and regional federations, through workshops, manuals, guides and internet resources.

Make the education of your directors and members a priority - they can't attend workshops if there isn't any money available. So allow for it in the budget! Begin with the basics of board training, which all federations
offer in their education programs. There are more advanced courses available as well. For the full range of board training available from the co-op housing sector, check out the websites of CHF Canada and your
local federation if there is one.

As well, there is a lot of general information available on the internet for directors of all kinds of corporations-for-profit and not-for-profit alike. You'd be surprised how little difference there is between the general and legal duties for directors of a large corporation and for housing co-op directors.

It's hard to overstate the importance of training to good governance. A lot of careful thought has gone into the co-op housing sector's training materials, which draw on 30 years of experience-the good, the bad and the ugly-to offer you the best possible advice on governance. Make use of it!