Cooperative Development Working Group
Billy Smith
Public
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From https://www.uk.coop/understanding-co-ops/what-co-op/co-op-values-and-principles
There are seven co-operative principles that define how a co-op operates:
A co-op is owned and controlled by its members. It exists for the benefit of its members, who may be customers, workers, suppliers or the wider community.
A co-op is democratic – this means every member has an equal say in how it’s run and how profits are used.
Every member contributes financially in some way – from buying products, working for the co-op, investing in it or deciding how to spend its profits.
A co-op is an independent business, owned and controlled by its members.
It offers education and training to everyone involved, so they can develop the co-op and promote the benefits of co-operation.
It co-operates, works with and supports other co-ops.
A co-op supports the communities it works with.
From principles 6 & 7, we should all be working on creating local co-operatives that help support our respective local communities. :D
Is anyone interested in a working group to share our idea's and experiences?
Billy Smith Fri 25 Nov 2022 4:14PM
There are a large number of opportunities that only make sense economically if you set up a coop to use them.
Templating out this process will mean that we can create coops with reduced levels of risk, as we have all learned from each other's mistakes. :D
Ananta Gauranga dasa Fri 25 Nov 2022 4:21PM
I'm interested as well. I've been part of a number of cooperative structures, but those were "almost coops" because we didn't know how to make the principles operational.
Michael Potter Fri 25 Nov 2022 4:32PM
I've also experienced some disappointing false starts with cooperatives. What sort of templates are you talking about, Billy?
Billy Smith Fri 25 Nov 2022 4:55PM
Creating Templates for everything. :D
Create a standard legal structure that works;
Create the regional variations that have validity within each different legal jurisdiction;
Create Templates of Open-Source HardWare Designs that can be Locally-Manufactured for every form of climatic conditions;
Create Templates of Open-Source HardWare Designs to supply all of our Survival Needs, and Thrival Needs;
One useful bit of advice that i was given decades ago: "Always make it simple for the customer to give you money." :D
The Cooperative Corollary: "Always make it simple to help other people start a cooperative." :D
Michael Potter Fri 25 Nov 2022 5:20PM
These are worthy goals. I'd like to just say, for the record, that I don't want to get into any "selling the dream" stuff. As in, we build a template and charge people to use it. I think such things present a barrier to the adoption of co-ops.
Billy Smith Fri 25 Nov 2022 5:27PM
No :D
Selling the Templates won't work.
Giving the Templates away, and helping other people set up coops is the aim.
We have had the technical capabilities to feed, clothe, house, educate, and, provide medical/social care, to everyone on the planet, since the 1850's.
It's a social problem, not a technical problem, but my engineer's approach involves empowering people to build their own solutions.
Using Templates reduces the friction and reduces the costs, so more people can do this.
"Hand washes hand till we all rise together." :D
Saul Shanabrook Fri 25 Nov 2022 5:33PM
This sounds good to me! I would love to talk to others and share knowledge. I’m working to start a housing cooperative locally.
Marcelo Avelar Cohen Fri 25 Nov 2022 5:58PM
Yes, add me on! I am doing my Master's in Cooperatives, and I would love to participate :)
Michael Potter Fri 25 Nov 2022 6:27PM
Thanks Billy, I had to check ;-)
One design problem for cooperatives that I've observed is a tendency to rise from a small direct democracy that might even be consensus-based to something with close to a hundred members, or more, leading to a representative democracy at best, with all the flaws thereof.
Do you have cooperative templates assembled already? I think this is what platform cooperatives are intended to provide, but I find them quite confusing. Maybe our first goal should be to gather a list of existing resources to avoid re-inventing the wheel?
Do we all have access to Nextcloud to share notes at May First, or is there a place we can all access a document?
Michael Potter · Fri 25 Nov 2022 4:13PM
I'm definitely interested in this, both for general co-op talk and to possibly meet people who are interested in starting co-ops. Maybe we can set up a meeting at some point to discuss.