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Well if the Mogg-Johnsons get their way we'll become a bit like the Virgin Islands so may be a really attractive option for European-based co-ops - a low tax regime, and one of the most flexible legal frameworks for co-ops on the planet.

Yep the UK is a very legally permissive environment for coops. Re your methodology for valorising work, I know of no legal barrier to that.

Thanks for this, Graham. Interesting perspective as we werent quite sure whether detaching from Europe would make it harder or less practical to be registered here. Still, at least being the worlds biggest haven has some advantages.

I live near the almost-non-existent border. The line has been almost washed away by now. There are a few agro-co-ops with farmers with land on either, and sometimes both, sides of the border. They will need to legally disentangle after Brexit. (As well as disentangling all the collection rounds, delivery rounds, livestock transfer schedules, grazing schedules...) It would not be unusual in recent years for someone owning land straddling the border to remove the fencing or hedging and create one field for tillage or pasture. It's fun to watch Brexit hit reality...

Hi! I think this may be the most appropriate thread to ask this - we have been consistently getting the "why aren't you a charity" question from people. Apart from the fact that charitable governance directly contravenes our mission, which is very bound up with sharing power, I've started an evolving boilerplate response to this question. Can anyone point me in the direction of work that's been done on charities vis a vis co-ops and - more interestingly - anything on the 'charity mindset'. Ie you're setting up a charity to help people in need, which may or may not include an understanding of how people can help themselves (thank you very much). Something more anthropological which I think would get closer to the matter on why we decided to be a co-op, not a charity, even though none of us had had experience of co-operatives before all this fun started!

This is currently what's on our website and then I'm expanding on that in emails: "
"Although we are not a charity, our aims are exclusively charitable, which is why we're asking for donations. We considered very seriously registering as a charity but decided against it because charities cannot safeguard the rights of their beneficiaries and workers in the way that co-operatives can. We have made the people we support and the people who give support the owners of the company. It is illegal not to include them in decisions about the company. A charity keeps its decision-making power concentrated in its trustees and then consults. Even though it has beneficiaries that it exists for, it is not accountable to them and can ignore them if it wishes to. "

Just a quick thought but often charity sort of implies a "hierarchical assumption" of some sort, where the person helping is "above" that who is helped.

Coops are more based on mutual help, not assymetric help, if that makes sense.

@emmaback You've hinted at one of the fundamental drawbacks of a charity which is that in general workers, sub-contractors or anyone else receiving payment from a charity cannot be Trustees and whilst beneficiaries CAN be Trustees, if they receive individual financial benefit from the charity this creates problems - unless that benefit is something all similar beneficiaries access. (Charities are also not allowed to provide preferential treatment for members)

Emma. have a look at Cartrefi Cymru, a long established LD care provider who have converted from a conventional charity to a co-operative whilst still keeping the charitable aims. http://www.cartrefi.coop
Also in Wales, Community Lives is a charitable Bencom with essentially co-operative rules https://www.communitylives.co.uk
Contacts there are Adrian Roper [email protected] and Rick Wilson [email protected]
NB I've only given you Adrian's PA's email, as Adrian recently lost his daughter in a tragic train accident and is only just starting to return to work. Jenny will advise you on when he's OK to contact direct.

Thanks Alex, we're already in touch with Cartrefi (remember the Buurtzorg email exchange?) - I haven't spoken to community lives yet though, so thanks for Rick's details.