FairShares fish and chips shop?
Cliff
Public
Seen by 91
The Fish and chips shop is for sale in my village, Robin Hoods Bay. The asking price is £525K and includes a cafe and a three bedroom flat. I met with the owners on Saturday and they have had an offer from a London chain who would employ (not necc local) workers at minimum wages to run it. The owners would be interested in selling to a FairShares company who would involve the community, employ local people (including my son in law who already works there) and use the accommodation for local young people (at the moment we are losing a lot of property to holiday lets). But not sure the owners would give us too much time as they already have a cash offer. We are willing to use our own property to help raise the money. Thanks to @Gavin who has already offered to help and bring in ideas of sustained fishing. Any other offers of help greatly appreciated. (edited)
Rory (as User) Fri 22 Feb 2019 12:17PM
Simon - not sure that franchising offers the developmental opportunities that co-operatives do, but I think Cliff's (SEi's) idea of a 'Business in a Box' might contain a nod towards franchising, and that buying a FairShares 'Business in a Box' is akin to purchasing IP and support systems that enable you to make a living. However, the control element of franchising is a problem as it negates the democratic control of franchisees over their franchise - something we'll have to debate on here. Cliff's practice of 'social licensing' offers more scope for making agreements based on aligned values, but respecting each parties right to control their own labour.
Graham Fri 22 Feb 2019 2:01PM
To say that the Plunkett Foundation doesn't understand co-ops seems a little extreme. The previous CEO, Peter Couchman, is a co-operator of the first order in my view, and did an enormous amount to make Plunkett an effective enabler of rural co-operatives in the UK, building on the heritage of Horace Plunkett.
Simon Carter Fri 22 Feb 2019 2:27PM
I'm sure you are correct. What I meant is the Plunkett Foundation fills a very specific niche that does not extend to worker coops.
Maureen McCulloch Fri 22 Feb 2019 2:28PM
Plunkett were really helpful practically and also with getting the idea of a community controlled business across to people who had no familiarity with the idea of co-ops or social enterprise, when my village was trying to sort out buying the local pub to re-open it as a community pub. They helped with grant support, feasibility studies, community engagement and sources of funding. The community pub didn't work out, mainly because the landlord was so intransigent. He's still holding out for development and change of use. But Plunkett are now helping us with a community orchard. I think maybe Plunkett are better on community ventures than worker co-ops and multi-stakeholder co-ops, but I recommended talking to them because of this really very good experience quite recently. They seemed very open to different ways of doing things. I think it would be great if they got on board with Fairshares.
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Simon Carter Fri 22 Feb 2019 1:47PM
Ya, I get all that. I was simply thinking that we need to put the cooperative model into the public domain a great deal more as an option for those who don't want to work for someone else, but also do not relish the prospect of entirely going it on their own in business. That describes both worker coops & franchising. Franchising has its own community, it's own magazines, why not the coop sector?.
Maybe businesses for sale could advertise in a worker coop magazine, with coop consultants also advertising their services to convert the business to a coop, assimilate existing staff with all their knowledge of the business. In fact, this would work especially well with the Fairshares model.
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Simon Carter · Fri 22 Feb 2019 11:39AM
Plunkett don't understand coops full stop.
It occurs to me at times like this that we do in fact have a great deal more in common with the franchise sector. In many ways buying a franchise is akin to buying a job. Why can't that job be as a member of a worker coop, Fairshares or otherwise?..