CBC have a long established associate process for people who want to be mentored by a more experienced CDB worker in their dealings with client coops and be a part of a campaigning organisation too. Associate subs are £10 per month as a contribution to CBC's minimal running costs.

Principle Six - yes.

Request for input.

As you are probably aware, Co-op Culture held two workshops recently at which members of worker co-operatives, who had expressed an interest, spent a day exploring their current co-operative development practice, how they might do it better and do more of it, and what were the barriers and opportunities around this "barefoot co-operative development".

The members of the participating worker co-operatives were very keen to get involved in all stages of co-operative development from inspiring people to create co-ops to peer to peer mentoring to actually delivering support.

In the new year, we'll be reporting the results of this process to all stakeholders, including CDB's. Several themes are emerging that certainly affect and could potentially involve existing CDB's directly. We'd like to include in the report, the reaction of those CDB's to these emerging themes and also the wider concept of Barefoot Co-operative Development. We are also exploring some of the ideas that have emerged with other partners, such as Co-operatives UK.

The form linked below, describes some of the emerging themes and we seek your initial thoughts, to factor them into the report and the suggestions for where we go with this.

https://goo.gl/forms/5S2jnsCHx4jPnHh53

Thank you to the 9 CDB's that have contributed so far. We'll be closing the form on Monday 15th January in order to give us time to analyse CDB feedback and include in the draft report. Please contribute before Monday if you haven't yet done so. We plan to circulate the draft report the week before the next CDB Forum meeting on the 12th February, at which we'll discuss the next possible steps.

Back from the dead! In an effort to provoke more action and potentially co-ordinate our activities regardingn Barefoot Co-op Develoment, I'd like to hold a "Fringe" meeting - an extended conversation - with CDBs who are interested in working with Barefoot Co-op Developers after the CDB Forum meeting. I am sure there will be somewhere we can grab a coffee or other beverage if the room needs to be cleared. I will also post this in the CDB Forum thread

I can’t get to Brum before the Saturday so will miss the CDB Forum, but am digesting Coop Culture’s paper on barefoots and will hopefully have Principle Six’s version ready in time

This is embarrasing...I thought I had sent this last week but here it is unsent! .....For your perusal, and in the spirit of open-ness, here is a working paper on how Co-op Culture is/planning to work with barefoot co-op developers. It's an agile process, we are learning and so the paper is a work in progress and does not go into the detail of insurance etc which will be dealt with at contracting stage. We aren't suggesting any other CDB takes this approach and welcome a plurality of offers to barefoot co-op developers.

For any CDBs who are interested in discussing how we can train up and/or integrate the next generation of co-op developers from barefoots, we will be holding a Zoom meeting on Tues 26th February at 10 a.m. We really hope someone from your CDB can participate if you are interested in working with barefoot coop developers. https://zoom.us/j/833356021

Thanks Nathan. I'll join if I can (but might have last minute prep to do for an AGM I'm chairing later in the day).

Ah, er, that's an interesting time. South West Co-op Support - that's SCS, Kabin, Co-op Futures and CAN - are having a meeting in Bristol at 11 that day. So a Zoom at 1000 is either really convenient, or really inconvenient, and I'm not sure which. I'll see if I can make it work, and then you'll get four of us for the price of one.

and me. I'll need a reminder

I'd like to come to this, the worker co-op solidfund initiative hit a stumbling block of time and organising, so nice to relook at this from another angle

Sorry, going to have to give my apologies now but am still very interested.

I am running a Principle Six event at exactly that time - otherwise would be there

Just a quick reminder that we have a Zoom session tomorrow at 10am to discuss how we as CDBs can integrate barefoot practitioners into our work and provide them with experience, skills, on the job training etc https://zoom.us/j/833356021

apologies if i dont make this, depends on wifi/mobile signal

CMS is interested in this but we all have other commitments this morning. Please keep us in the loop.

same for me sadly, something else has come up I can't get out of, do let me know how it goes.

Aaargh my apologies too, am faciltating a P6 even. I’m not doing very well here.

Some rudimentary notes about what was discussed. Although small in numbers, it was useful to tease out some key issues and agree some next steps

Once people are regular practitioners they could be invited into the whole CD Forum. I agree with @johnatherton that for some barefooters, the whole forum might be overload - a bit "all or nothing". I find it difficult to keep up and I am doing 40+ hours a week. Maybe consider it a "ladder of participation"?

Thanks for the Zoom notes and for keeping this alive. I would like to be a bit clearer about how people think this action thread relates to outcomes from the Solidfund-sponsored initiative, which is focused on worker coops and worker cooperation. This is my (and others) main concern; although there is obviously a general need to expand dev capacity, worker coop initiatives find it even harder to access startup support than other types of coop.

In response to @sionwhellens while I see the worker co-op sector as a primary source for barefoot co-op development workers both in the past and in the future, I feel that the development of training suitable for barefoot workers will probably need to be open to practitioners from across the co-op piste in order to be sustainable and certainly if we want it to be funded by the wider co-op (or even community business) sector. I think that the lack of funding for support for worker co-operatives is a separate issue to the creation of a training programme, although the predominance of barefoots from the worker co-op sector may help to improve the situation by osmosis.

Thanks Mark. Just want to be clear that this is a 'fork' in relation to the Solidfund initiative. I see it as being a bit like the worker coop skills training event programme that the Worker Coop Council designed (and, largely, ran - i.e. Rebecca at Seeds and others) a few years ago. It was successful in its own terms, then absorbed/adapted into a wider programme of coop trainings by Coops UK. I still think there is still potential demand for a focused worker coop thing.

It's one way we might do it. I'm happy to explore here and at Worker Co-op Weekend how we might satisfy the demand for a worker co-op focussed programme. At the moment the "big" money available to co-op development is targetted at all co-ops (or sectors within that - eg platform co-ops) or the community business sector that disfavours worker co-ops.

To be honest that is my view too, there are enough people knocking around with experience of community share issues / community co-ops, but there certainly aren't enough people who genuinely know how to advise on worker owned co-ops. But if to get external funding we are saying its for wider benefit but internally we know our goal is clear, then I have less of an issue.

This also relates to the strategic direction of SolidFund - will it ever be big enough to run a dedicated worker co-op support programme? How big would that need to be in terms of income? How might we get there? There was interest in direct funding (1% fund) from worker co-ops at the Barefoot workshops and one of the policy asks being posited in response to the Co-ops Unleashed report is corporation tax relief for co-ops supporting co-op development funding.

Exactly Mark. I guess the investment in the worker coop barefoot events was that - an attempt to explore how we might satisfy the demand for a worker coop focused programme. Perhaps we need to reset and go a bit more onto the front foot, with some clear objectives.

I think SolidFund could be in a position to do this in a couple of years time if current rates of growth are maintained. We have over £15k to distribute this year and will have more next year because we are retaining half our income each year.

The key, assuming we want to do this, is to get to a point where we have enough money to entice a partner. Going to potential funders in or supportive of the co-operative movement and saying (for example) we have £20k to put into worker co-operative development each year, please can you match it up to £40k is a conversation with a great deal of potential.

I'm confused that there is a feeling thatthere aren't enough people to advise worker coops. I'd quite happily work solely with worker coops and never touch community coops but the work just isn't there. (caveat: I am referring to paid work not pro bono)

Perhaps this is a bit of chicken and egg? If there aren't many people who "genuinely know how to advise on worker owned co-ops", and those that are around are quite well hidden, given the near-zero coverage given to the model, then the number of would-be worker co-ops approaching people like Nathan will necessarily be very low. Which is not the same thing in my view as there not being any demand. In my view there probably is demand, although much of it is latent, i.e. if people were more aware of the possibility, and how they might access information, advice, funding and support, then we'd probably see a lot more visible demand.
I think most of us would agree that if we wanted to double (or preferably more) the size of the worker co-op sector in the next 12 months, we wouldn't start here. The challenge, in my view, is to understand where we would start, and what we'd do in order to achieve that goal. If that work has already been done let's look at it.
I'd say that having more people with the basic skillset (and the confidence to use it) is part of the solution, but only part.

I'm very much up for Platform 6 playing a leading role in the barefoot coopdev initiative as it plays absolutely into our agenda of crowdsourcing expertise. Here’s info about Open Badges which I think could be the way forward in terms of accrediting barefootists (and others). https://openbadges.org/about/ I'm looking at how we build this in to our platform.

I think that openbadges look great - well worth exploring

open badges, theres a worker coop developing these in the uk. sorry cant remember who. came to WCW a couple of years ago. John Atherton might know.

yes they are democratising training and development

Yes. They are called 'We Are Open'. I'm in communication.

I've just emailed all those who attended the Barefoot workshops (or expressed interest in doing so) to ask them if they would like to join this Loomio group. Watch this space.

Hey, I was a participant on the Barefoot workshops and have already been part of the co-operative development forum loomio. I've been actively pursuing trying to get some more direct experience within the co-operative development sector, particularly in supporting worker co-ops, in the hope of becoming a practitioner. Energies being invested by existing CD people is very much appreciated toward encouraging new practitioners, but as already outlined above it does seem like further resourcing is required to create a clearer pathway/training/resources - utilising Solid Fund resources, either independently or with a partner seems like a good way forward (perhaps some funding for some initial design work ahead of reaching out to possible partners?). I think Graham has made good points about the need to develop new practitioners alongside a strategy creating/incentivising more worker co-operatives and this also needing to be tied to this work. Happy to be involved as a keen would-be practitioner in helping push these ideas forward :)

Cheers @joshualawson1 One thing that would be good to know is what you need in order to feel confident and competent to deliver face to face co-op development support. We're currently looking at developing training and steer on content and method of delivery would be particularly useful feedback from potential barefoot practitioners.

an important area is consultation skills. what questions to ask at different stages of interaction and how to ask them.

i think this is the biggest obstacle to skilled and knowledgeable cooperators 'going into' other coops as advisors. its scary until you are experienced.

there are great 'how to' do consultation books and videos for GPs. lots of which is relevant to coop doctors too. i can look them up. my other half trains GPs in consultation skills.

previously practitioner training has concentrated on the 'what' and nowhere near enough on the 'how'.

if youre experienced you have probably tried to forget how you learned (oh god i remember my crass attempts).
and you wont know where the holes are in your competence from OTJ training (on the job) or CA (copy annie aka apprenticeship)

glad this is being revived and hopefully this time around it wont be stuffed into an accreditation straitjacket but developed for needs.

ciao

bob

More direct/practical experience - delivering sessions alongside/partnered with a more experienced practitioner would be a big help. Also resources that outline the various areas where support may be needed, legal, membership etc, would also be a great help in framing the scope of the work and provide greater clarity for upcoming barefooters to see what further skills they might need. Happy to provide more detailed or specific feedback into the development work :)

Thanks for the heads up from @martinmeteyard on this excellent podast from Geo Collective. Speaks directly to the conversation here. Driving our movement with P2P learning

There's also a transcript of the podcast which you can skim through if you don't have time to listen to the whole thing.

So keen to hear an update from Barefoot Co-op Development if possible. Any helicopter views, how the last two years have faired for co-op development in your experiences etc. What Barefoot's next steps could be - this and more would be really interesting. thanks.

Hi Irena, Principle Six has been working with three alumni from the last Barefoots cohort, and someone I advised is applying to the programme after next, so very positive!

@Irena P there is a recent update on our website, including a downloadable report. Latest news is that we have just started Barefoot 2.0 with 16 new people and are looking to start Barefoot 3.0 in the new year. Exciting times!

If anyone is interested in working with any of our new exciting cohort - allowing them to sit in on support meetings etc., then please do get in touch.

@Irena P In addition to the update on our website, new CDB People Support Co-op is registered and trading (including referalls and contracts from Co-op Culture), one other is in the process of registration and a third is under discussion. We have established a reference group and will be reviewing the strategy for Barefoot's future including stewardship and growth potential. We are also whitelabelling the programme so that it can be picked up and delivered by other co-operative development practitioners including in other countries with different trading and legal environments.

I'm so glad I asked, this IS exciting...

Thank you for your email. I work part-time, on different days each week, so I may not be able to attend to your email immediately.
I will contact you as soon as possible on my return. If your query is urgent please don't hesitate to contact me on my mobile (07903 932 214).

Mark thanks for the link - can you resend the link to the previous loomino board that had all the recordings on please - my laptop died and now have a new one so putting everything back online so I can access, Plus did you mention a certificate of completion - I may have missed the email
Thanks
Carole

Will do Carole

Thank you for your email. I work part-time, on different days each week, so I may not be able to attend to your email immediately.
I will contact you as soon as possible on my return. If your query is urgent please don't hesitate to contact me on my mobile (07903 932 214).

Thank you for your email. I work part-time, on different days each week, so I may not be able to attend to your email immediately.
I will contact you as soon as possible on my return. If your query is urgent please don't hesitate to contact me on my mobile (07903 932 214).

Further to this, I'm unable to add Barefoots yet as the Loomio plan for the CD Forum has lapsed. This was a special deal negotiated between Loomio and Co-operatives UK - I've raised it with @Petra Morris