Welcome to the new Co-operatives UK subreddit!

Co-operatives UK - alongside its Future Economy Alliance partners - has launched a Business Plan for Britain which calls on government to make bold, new policy interventions to unleash the potential of mission-led businesses. https://www.uk.coop/news/future-economy-alliance-calls-bold-policy-reform-fix-uk-economy

I would love to join a co-operative as a way to forge community. However, I recognise that many co-operatives are in hot demand, and some involve an interview process.

What skills are most valued for living in a co-operative?

Hello all!

Just recently joined and wanted to share a bit about the social care co-op I started working for last year. I can't see anything about us on this sub, but a couple of videos were posted to r/cooperatives about 4 years ago featuring one of our founders which might be of interest:

Platform Cooperativism Consortium - Emma Back

GEO.coop interview with Emma Back

I thought I'd just share a few updates and point anyone who is interested towards our website. It's been a good year for us and we managed to steer ourselves back on track after the pandemic with a community share offer which went really well. Currently, we're providing relationship-based care in the area of Calderdale, West Yorkshire (a lovely area - anyone who has watched BBC's Happy Valley will be fairly well-acquainted!) but we're hoping to replicate our model in other areas of England in the near future (watch this space!).

I personally work on communications and campaigns for the co-op, and part of my focus over the last few months has been trying to spread the word about us, the way we work, as well as our achievements and ambition to change social care in the UK (and who knows, maybe beyond these shores!) We have a blog that I'd love to get some more eyes on. Any suggestions or critiques are welcome: https://blog.equalcare.coop/

Glad to be a part of this community! Thank you for giving this a read :)

All the best,

Marc

Can anyone point me to coops that have been structured across countries and continents? Or any material on what kind of legal frameworks (or loopholes) exist to support that?

I wanna see what the options are and whether there are cool ones to support! this is all very new to me so any advice, reccs and resources appreciated

Hey everyone, done a fair amount of digging but can't find a definitive answer to the question in the title

I want to start a Co-operative business, that will be part owned by the community through community shares and also owned by the member employees.

Each member gets 1 vote, and each share holder gets one vote.

Is there a way I can put a framework in place that allows the community owners to vote on the service the business will provide, i.e. products available, methods of customer service, new services being introduced etc.

But allows the worker members to vote on the day to day running of the business. For example, wages, the number of holiday days, when these holidays are taken, what happens with the profits etc.

I'm very keen to have the business both community owned and worker owned, but understandably I'd rather allow the workers to have more say over their own jobs.

Usually community share owners have a responsibility for the business, in this case I would like to simply relieve the community share holders of their responsibilities to the business, in return for a lower voting power/limited company matters they can vote on.

They would still receive interest on the investment each year they leave their investment in the business

Edit: someone in r/cooperatives said the type of co-operative is a

“Worker-Consumer hybrid Cooperative”

Is this something that's possible in the UK?

I need to get a banner printed for the co-op I'm starting, probably need to get some flyers at some point soon and wondered if anyone had recommendations for a co-op printer?

I'm setting up a workers co-op and was looking at the legal form side of things, assuming I would setup a company limited by guarantee but reading the Co-op UK stuff, I can setup as a company limited by shares, which makes more sense to me as I'm setting up a profit-making (hopefully!) company, and although I'm not looking for outside investment it may be a possibility for the future - certainly I'd take the opportunity to not rule it out.

But I've not been able to understand what happens with the shares? Normally they would be owned by specific people or organisations but with a co-op they should be held in common by the workers of the co-op and I'm wondering how this works in a practical sense? Would I need to setup another organisation to hold those shares in trust for the workers of the co-op? Would I assign shares to workers as they join and remove them when they leave? Something else?

Hi, I really want to join the Co-op party, but I was just wondering if Nationwide counts as a co-op? Of course, the party doesn't have a publically available list of co-ops they accept, other than it must be approved by the NEC. I know that NW are a member of Co-Operatives UK, so I guessing it should be ok? Thanks

https://www.loomio.org/cooperative-and-community-interest-scotland/

This group is open to people interested in co-ops of all shapes and sizes, worker owned co-ops, community co-ops, multi-stakeholder co-ops etc.

You do not have to be involved directly in a co-op to join this group. We want to encourage people to feel comfortable to join the movement, learn by sharing and contribute to growing the number of co-ops in Scotland. We aim for this group to be a force for good and we need people to be joined up and active to make this happen.

hi all,

In July I launched a user-owned co-operative social network. As of now we have 241 members. It's called blossom.social . You can register for free and there is also an optional upgrade for €2 per month. Please take a look at it - it would be great to grow the community with fellow co-operators!

Best,

Tadgh Quill-Manley

Hi, I am a student currently doing my A-Levels and I am conducting a research project with Cambridge and was hoping I could share my questionnaire regarding how Brexit could affect the economy of the UK and hopefully get some replies. I would also really appreciate it if anyone who sees this could share this questionnaire to get as much exposure as possible. Feel free to put your input and anything you would like me to add/edit in the questionnaire. Thank you.

Questionnaire: https://forms.gle/dt4y7xBHwV2Qeamw7

Student Co-op Homes (@NoMoreLandlords) have launched a groundbreaking community share offer to raise funds to buy property to lease to 3 student co-ops across the UK. Find out more http://studenthomes.coop

A quick heads up on where you can find a listing of UK co-op related events. www.uk.coop/all-events

Its far from comprehensive and is due to be worked on for better functionality and UX, but you get the idea.

I'm in the first year of trading with my own company, (currently) a Nano-Brewery based out of Essex. As time prgresses and my quantites ramp up, I'll probably look to bring in some help. I'm a great believer that the only way to get the best out of a colleague is to give them a stake, which led me to consider 9in the past) equally dividing shares within an Ltd. I've been inspired by the idea of a (Workers) Co-Op of late, and was wondering if theres a way of structuring the company in a way that acknowledges horizontal ownership?

• Does such a structure already exist? if so, what is it?

• Failing it's existing, I'd look to build an Ltd. If using the arts of assoc., I stipulate that all 'employees' have an equal share and stake in business decisions, does that fulfil legal requirements?

• Check my maths, make sure I haven't missed something.

Company has 3 employees, 2 have worked for 12 months of the year, 3rd has worked for 6 months. Total 'Dividend' for employees would work out as 12 months + 12 months + 6 months = 30 months, multiplied by the individuals time actively employed (in months).

Anyone that could lend me any further advice, it'd be very much appreciated!

New research released today (19 February 2019) by Co-operatives UK and Nesta outlines the conditions necessary for platform co-operatives to become viable alternatives to the Big Tech corporations that monopolise the market, such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, Uber and Airbnb.

https://www.uk.coop/PlatformCoop

https://preview.redd.it/9sgdihlnl9i21.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d5087b9608fa34279114327e23ee1072837f512