Welcome to Bath Cooperative Alliance! Please introduce yourself

Take a moment to let the group know a bit about who you are. Post a comment below.
What’s your role or approach to participation in this group? What should people know about you to understand where you’re coming from?

Joaquim dSouza Tue 13 Feb 2018 5:04PM
I'm a web developer by trade and I work for Outlandish Co-operative, which is based in London. Politically I'm probably an anarcho-syndicalist, but I see co-operatives as the most practical way to redistribute power from capitalists to workers.
I'm a member of the Labour Party and very much a Corbynite.
[deactivated account] Fri 23 Feb 2018 5:46PM
Hello BCA. I'm a cooperative development worker with Co-operative Futures, a small specialist co-operative and social enterprise support business based in Gloucester (but we work much more widely than Gloucestershire). I live a bit north of Bath, so I almost count as a Bath resident (?), and I'm a strong supporter of any co-op initiative in the area. I'm an ex-director of Bath and West Community Energy. Fairly strong background in community energy co-ops. Politically left.
A Waterhouse Fri 23 Feb 2018 6:12PM
Bath resident, you are now, greater Bath and area. Welcome!
Lin Patterson Fri 23 Feb 2018 10:15PM
Welcome, Chris, and other new members. I’m Lin Patterson, Larkhall resident and Green Councillor for Lambridge Ward. Next meetings are scheduled for March, April and May on the last Thursday’s of the month 7:30pm at New Oriel Hall. Keep an eye out for the minutes from last night—it was a good meeting!
[deactivated account] Mon 26 Feb 2018 12:15PM
Thanks Lin and Anthony. Very sorry I missed the most recent meeting. I'll try and make the next ones, and I'll look out for the minutes from last week.

William Heath Tue 14 Aug 2018 9:52PM
I'm William; I spoke at the BCA inaugural event. I'm an early stage entrepreneur and helped activate The Bell Inn co-op and the Big Bath City Bid. I'm hoping the Komedia CBS process will go through and I'm working on how to secure the future of Fairfield, the House of HIM. I worked on the Co-ops UK national co-operative development strategy for Ed Mayo, focussing on "platform co-ops".
My main day-job concern is personal data - tech that supports privacy and data protection, and working to restore control over personal data to the individual.
Lin Patterson Wed 15 Aug 2018 6:44AM
The TEDx event introducing William’s idea at the Abbey on 29Sept, 2018, 1-5pm looks very interesting. I plan to be there.

Poll Created Wed 15 Aug 2018 7:01AM
Should BCA be part of the Bath Connect trial? Closed Sun 19 Aug 2018 5:01PM
Poll now closed. Opinion coalesced around "yes we should". Some questions were raised; I hope they've been adequately addressed. The ToRs evolved somewhat in that two Arts organisations (Moles and Chapel Arts) that are not social enterprises have offered to join; I'm happy to include them as prospective co-ops. As Lin says, we don't want to be insular; it would be good to create a mindset that more businesses in Bath can be headed towards co-operativism.
I need to get the app side done. I think all I need from BCA is the email address to which any preferences should be sent.
If people in Bath are given an easy way to connect to a selection of co-ops and other social enterprises does BCA want to be on the list and to respect the preferences people might express (by email)? Bath Connect is a live demo to be up and running in time for announcement on 29 Sept so decision needed soon.
Results
Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Yes, looks helpful and BCA should be in there | 100.0% | 9 |
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||
No, that is not right for BCA | 0.0% | 0 | ||||
Need more information (if so please specify in comments) | 0.0% | 0 | ||||
Undecided | 0% | 11 |
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9 of 20 people have voted (45%)
Jane Samson Wed 15 Aug 2018 8:35AM
Sounds good and like something we should sign up to - but what is TEDx?
A Waterhouse Wed 15 Aug 2018 8:45AM
Yes it seems something BCA should be involed with but further info is needed.
Austin Fri 17 Aug 2018 7:53AM
I am very interested in this and would like to discuss it at our next meeting with others
Jane Samson Sat 18 Aug 2018 6:52PM
Sounds good and like something we should sign up to - but what is TEDx?

William Heath Sat 18 Aug 2018 6:30AM
Do suggest other organisations we should invite. So far we have Komedia, TechforGood, Moles, Chapel Arts, Julian House and another 15 or so invitations out (incl Bath City and The Bell)
A Waterhouse Sat 18 Aug 2018 8:23AM
Do all these enterprises , entities qualify as coops or democratic?
Sent from Outlook
Lin Patterson Sat 18 Aug 2018 9:05AM
Even if they’re not all as cooperative or democratic as we would think pure, it looks like being a group through which we can outreach. Do we only want to talk to clones? How else could Bath become a Cooperative City than if we mingle with those who are potentially sympathetic?

William Heath Sat 18 Aug 2018 12:55PM
The invitation is not restricted to existing co-ops. That said I think it suits co-ops because of the richer relationship they have with individuals. It’s just a small trial so we can’t claim too much for it.

Gareth Tue 11 Jun 2019 3:46PM
Hi BCA. I'm a part of the small membership team at Co-operatives UK. I'm based in Manchester but spent a fair amount of my time on the road either visiting members or running our physical Co-op Connections events. Yes I'm a fair distance from Bath, but I'm keen to assist any groups around the country to organise, promote co-operation or start new co-ops. I'm a member of a co-op pub and a brewery, so you can see where my interests are. I think its great to see the efforts of the BCA and the progress that's being made. If you're interested in hearing more from CUK, please consider signing up to our mailing list www.uk.coop/email and please let me know of any events that we can promote on our events pages. www.uk.coop/all-events - The Ted Howard event listing went live today.
Bryn Jones Thu 8 Aug 2019 10:57AM
Human Survival - It Was Cooperation Wot Did It.
Link below is to a rather academic but fascinating account of how humans evolved cooperative genes and hormones to survive and prosper.
Useful counter to arguments based on necessity for competitive individualism.
Early sections are a bit dry and pedantic but worth persevering for the inspiring conclusions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj1ds5JsyGE

Nick Sellen Thu 3 Dec 2020 6:08PM
Hey! This seems to be the place to introduce myself, although last post in August 2019, but I didn't see other place for introductions, so here goes.
I grew up in Bath, but have been travelling around a lot, particularly in Germany, often by bike (of the pedal variety), I recently decided to base myself in Bath for a bit longer. I don't know how long right now, but long enough to get a bit more involved in stuff going on here.
One of my main activities is software development, I am part of the team building https://karrot.world - which is kind of a "community empowerment" software tool, supporting volunteer communities to organise themselves, its open source and built by volunteers. So far it's been focused on foodsaving groups (similar to foodsharing.de), but we're making it more generally adaptable for other kinds of groups, think community gardens, bike kitchens, mutual aid groups, ... kind of an organising tool for when just having a facebook or whatsapp group isn't enough any more (and maybe if you care about keeping your data out of the hands of big tech).
Anyway, enough about karrot for now, I could talk a lot about that! I'm hoping to find some communities in Bath that might enjoy using it, but not in a rush for that, I don't like tech that imposes itself on people. People first. Software later.
I also had various co-op experiences, my first experience was visiting various UK housing co-ops whilst on a bike tour almost 10 years ago, nutclough, cornerstone, talamh. I later worked with Outlandish in London (but I was remote, quite literally, see my profile pic, working under a tree), a little bit with Webarchitects, and I participated in and contribute some stuff for cotech. I frequent the cotech forum occasionally, and the platform co-op discuss mailing list even more occasionally.
I'm a big proponent of wide concepts of "co-operativism", that address all the 7 principles, and maybe extends them further, this thread on the cotech forum gives you a flavour of where I'm coming from, if you're into reading long threads with lots of words! Co-opted, absorbed, or destroyed by Capitalism?. Just creating a bunch of co-ops that are basically like normal businesses but internally organise democratically is maybe a positive step, but doesn't excite me very much, I'm looking for solutions beyond capitalist modes of exchange, etc.. so when people say words like "good" and "community" I want to know what they mean more specifically, which higher organising modes and principles do they connect to.
... but in any case in Bath, I'm just getting involved in whatever is going on, so I need a nice balance in life, there's a couple of kids I take care of once a week, I'm hoping to find a rhythm to do some basic physical work at Dry Arch Growers (just had my introduction there this morning!), etc...
I don't know quite what BCA does, or is intended to do, but happy to hang around! I am not intending to suddenly become a really active member or something, for now, investigating All The Things.
Oh, and I'm in Larkhall (a few doors up from @A Waterhouse). If anyone ever wants to get to know me more, I'm normally up for a covid-friendly walk in the area! Walking and talking is a nice activity :) Keen to get to know larkhall people more (I've started adding a lot more local info into open street map too, opening times, bench info, bus shelters, etc.. so if you're into that I'd love to share that, it's actually a nice activity for a walk, getting to know all the little details...).
Well, that's quite enough from me for now, I am quite prone to verbosity...
Bryn Jones · Tue 13 Feb 2018 12:54PM
I'm an academic social scientist cum activist. Committed to local environmental causes as chair of Transition Larkhall but also to political campaigns, currently as education officer for Bath Labour Party.