forum.workers.coop - what is it?

@nathanbrown if we wanted to be able to engage non-members in a discussion about why we think they should join?

@Irena P Hi Irena. The workers.coop forum is open to any and all supporters/co-op curious folk, with workers.coop members having their own area (i.e. like this forum, which is open to all, with Solidfund members having their own subgroup).

Part of the reason for this proposed change is that if this main Loomio group evolves to be the Solidfund members' group, we can then have Solidfund governance/working subgroups. On Loomio, you can have subgroups, but not subgroups of subgroups.

Another reason is to bring together the wider worker co-op community in one place.

Does that meet your concern, and if so would you be able to change your vote?

@Chris Croome (Webarchitects Co-operative) Agree Chris, but this Loomio group doesn't run polls, as it operates purely as an information/conversation exchange. So asking people to move over to the Discourse forum at forum.workers.coop won't result in any loss of utility, imo.

I am assuming that if this proposal receives consent, Loomio would be able to restructure it for us to migrate the Solidfund subgroup to be the main group, without friction. That's an assumption...

@Nathan Brown (Co-op Culture) In the new Loomio setup, Solidfund discussions would be only visible to Solidfund members, even if we have to maintain this main group as a 'shell' without any of its own members. I am asking for guidance and best practice in the Loomio Community, here: https://www.loomio.com/d/ATIvDYCG/question-how-to-upgrade-actually-or-functionally-a-subgroup-into-a-main-group

@Sion Whellens (Principle Six) @ChrisCroome this is the bit that confused me: 'which means that although you can see Solidfund threads here, you can't participate unless you are a contributing member of the Fund. forum.workers.coop has gradually taken over from this place...' Does this mean Solidfund (past, present and future) contributors are the only ones who vote on where the funds go as they'll be the only ones with access to the Solidfund discussion group? And all other discussions will be moved to forum.workers.coop Is that the right interpretation? If so, happy to change my vote.

@Irena P Exactly so!

Need to keep SolidFund distinct

@nathanbrown at the start of this year we agreed to merge CoTech into workers.coop while keeping a distinct identity, continuing to have two face-to-face gatherings a year and monthly calls and shifting the focus of CoTech to promoting the member co-ops and getting more work for them, the first significant manifestation of this was the CoTech presence at at Co-ops Congress where we had people on panels, ran sessions had a stall, and spoke to a lot of people about tech and co-ops -- I believe that SolidFund can retain a distinct identity while also having a deeper relationship with workers.coop and that what we have done with CoTech is a practical example of this.

@Nathan Brown (Co-op Culture) Which it would be, if this group essentially is the same as the current SF subgroup?

I think there may be some misunderstanding here. As I read it, the proposal is for this Loomio place to be solely for Solidfund members. Everything else moves to the forum.workers.coop. This ensures that Solidfund can manage access to this place, that it remains distinct, and has continuing access to the voting/decision-making tools that Loomio provides.

@graham2 ah, sorry for misunderstanding.

@Graham Thanks for clarifying the proposal

@philipcoulthard why are you unable to join https://forum.workers.coop/ or have I misunderstood your issue?