How we organise Platform 6

@johnmerritt of interest?

I say it's better to say Sorry than ask for Permission. People learn more from Sorry too!
Communities of practice should be self defining, otherwise they are excluding of deviance, eccentricity, insubordination and other qualities that result in novelty and innovation

How about, as a starter for 6, a weekly email newsletter to members?

Could perhaps be loosely based around the "weekly stand-up" commonly found in lean/ agile development communities, e.g. "what we did last week, what we're planning to this week, what blocks mights stop us/ what we need help with" sort of thing? :)

We're actually about to send out an email newsletter, and it's taken quite a long time to put together (I've just spent a good couple of hours on sub-edits and formatting) and I know Mark has done a lot more as he wrote the thing. So right now we're probably running away from the idea of a newsletter, but something much more brief as you suggest could potentially be do-able. Thanks!

Perhaps there could be a longer monthly one and people could choose which to receive, either or both?

It's always been a part of my view of how P6 will work that anyone should be able to create a page on the website for their project, and thereby give it some visibility, both for its own benefit and also so that Platform 6 members and supporters can become aware of it and engage with it. It strikes me that one of the things that is weird with the way that co-op development happens at the moment is that most new start projects are largely invisible, and it can take a good deal of effort on the part of project owners to build some profile. So if project owners/promoters could easily and quickly set up a project information page on the website, just as we're beginning to do with co-op crowdfunding campaigns, that could be a fairly easy thing to start with. And once created we could help to promote it through our networks.

I wonder how many more cooperatives there would be if the very option was promoted, as well as supporting coop businesses?.
I recently enquired about support from a local EC funded enterprise agency. When I got to the drop down box for 'business structure' (sole trader, limited company, CIC etc) No mention of coop. I had to contact them & insist they add it, but the degree of ignorance among those offering mainstream business support about coops, especially workers' coops, is breathtaking.

A lot of this ignorance/lack of awareness/visibility stems from the creation by the Blair government of "social enterprise" as a label, and the subsequent creation of the community interest company (CIC), which served primarily to hide the 'co-op' brand.

@Emma I'd value your thoughts on using circles to organise in P6

I think that I am going to be proposing that we organise on a sociocratic basis, with circles relating to different functional areas or project areas of P6. There would likely be a central co-ordinating circle comprised of representatives of those other circles. This function is currently carried out by regular meetings of the Directors and a Slack channel of the Directors.

The reasons for this are:
1) The membership are currently not as involved as they should be in the exciting stuff happening in P6; and
2) The current Board of Directors are doing lots of stuff that should be shared.
3) It's totally aligned with a mission - to create an engaged community of practice around co-op development.
4) It fits with Graham's desire to create a space for projects to develop (see above).

My proposal would be that this co-ordination - an executive function - becomes the function of the central circle, which runs mainly thru Slack. The Board would still exist with its separate legal duties and would be elected from the members at General Meeting. The central Circle is effectively acting as a collective CEO.

Circles would be in most cases - double-linked - sub-circles of the central circle would have a rep. from the central circle and appoint a rep. to that circle.

Here's diagram of what this might look like.