Chicken Co-Op Seminar Request

Hi everyone, to start with, thank you so much for your patience, we took everything you shared with us to heart. We've been putting our chicken heads together to discuss our next steps and we believe we now have the right combination of knowns and unknowns to reach out for a follow up.

What do we have to show you? 

Taking a step back from thinking about the administrative details, based on your advice we opted to focus on formulating a more concise vision of the way we'd like our co-op to operate. To this end, we have assembled preliminary drafts of the following documents:

• A Business Plan: Containing:

  • Executive Summary

  • Introduction 

  • Market Overview and Strategy

  • Organisation and Management

  • Production and Operations

  • Costings and Finances

You can find this document attached below.

Some sections are more fleshed out than others, but we feel it is at a point where we know what we are asking for and are prepared to explain our vision in greater detail.

What are we asking for? 

We obviously still have many questions about this process, and as we move further along in this process we get closer to discovering what the right questions are. With that in mind we would like to ask for another seminar, 90-120 minutes, with the following breakdown.

• 20-30 minute presentation by the Chicken Coop team containing:

  • Distillation of business plan

  • Highlighting areas most in need of refinement.

  • Updates on progress regarding facilitation of payroll.

    • FSU is open to the idea, pitch preparation + negotiations

• 30-45 Minutes Information and Intelligence Sharing (Both Ways)

  • Animation Industry Insight

  • Neurodivergent Demographic Insight

  • Co-Opping Insight

  • FSU Operational Insight (Payroll etc)

Where would the seminar take place?

Pending poll results for when and where, FSU is prepared to host the ongoing Co-Operative seminars. Their meeting rooms are set up perfectly for hybrid meetings with surround microphones and speakers as well as webcams and a screen. The space is free to book (for us), large enough to accommodate ~30 people in person, with tea, coffee, biscuits, and enough space for catering.

Alternatively, a fully remote meeting is always possible, pending people’s availability and ability to commute.

What are the known unknowns?

We would like to highlight the areas in our business plan that would benefit from your expertise the most (ie the parts less fleshed out). There are a string of questions at the beginning of the business plan document highlighted in green, they are the following:

• Determine whether we can work as an outsource location.

  • IE: If Netflix wants something animated, can we accept international funding?

• What constitutes ‘community benefitting’?

  • Does employment of said community qualify?

• Hiring Cycles vs ‘Co-Ownership’ 

  • how can people be co op members but also be employed on a project basis? 

  • What should we be aware of with multiple types of workers and owners?

    • Freelance

    • PAYE

    • Members/Owners 

  • Can membership be invitation only? Or is it inherently open to everyone?

• How does profit sharing work?

• Different revenue streams that  social enterprises can avail of that ‘ordinary’ studios cannot.

  • What are clauses one can expect to be tied to these funds?

If you see anything else in the business plan that should be addressed in more detail, or should be prioritized more than it is, please let us know and we will adjust accordingly.

Thank you so much and we look forward to speaking!