Ways Forward 7

As 'people' with a fledgeling coop, I can tell you you're not wrong. To be blunt, my experience is the sector is overrun with consultants, theorists, & academics. I recently attended the Coop Party annual conference in Bristol where there was only one main hall session involving actual cooperative businesses, which was far & away the worst attended of the day. Alex Bird did a lunchtime 'workshop' on coop businesses, which was basically one long whinge about the lack of government funding. Meanwhile, the only time Coop UK shows any real interest in my business is at renewal. Having spent thirty years in & around small local, very often sole trader businesses I have to say there is a huge advantage in the simplicity of the 'for profit' purpose. It's vacuous maybe, but it provides clarity. My overriding conclusion is coops are very often confused about why they are coops. It's somehow more a protest movement than anything truly positive. It can't even come up with a reason for its purpose, relying instead upon the meaningless catch all of 'not for profit'. Please understand, I'm new to the coop world & I absolutely love it, but all in all, it needs a ginormous wake-up call. Sorry to be harsh.

You could also contribute to the Co-operatives Unleashed call for feedback here: https://party.coop/call-for-evidence/ If you're a Platform 6 member, you can contribute to a Platform 6 response from the member only Loomio and another response from the Co-operative Development Forum. https://www.loomio.org/g/RwbnzEXl/co-operative-development-bodies-forum

@simoncarter I have to say that this is not my experience. One of our problems is that there are insufficient consultants to meet the demand for on the ground co-op support. I suspect that your experience has been coloured by the lack of early enthusiasm in the sector for the particular idea that you are proposing.

Surely the point Mark is that every start up coop is precious if the sector is so desperate for growth. My post, although undoubtedly harsh, was prompted by Bob's awareness that the sector is ignoring people. I was simply confirming that this has been my experience. If I quit & drifted off, would anyone notice?. So much emphasis is indeed given to the issues that Bob identified that maybe the sector does lose sight of the fact that people run businesses, regardless of their legal form. All businesses are at their most vulnerable in their early stages. What your reply confirms is that people judged my idea, but lost sight of someone who had chosen first & foremost to start a cooperative business. That is what is important if we want more to do the same. By the way, the business concept continues to evolve, but no one has asked. A simple phone call from Coop UK twice a year to anyone who has expressed a desire to run a coop to ask 'how's it going' would make a huge difference.

Simon. Glad that you were one of the few who attended my lunchtime whinge. It was intended to be a whinge about the lack of experienced local co-op development experts/practitioners. There are only a few advisers around now, and how Jo Public is supposed to find them I don't know. An internet search will take you to Co-ops UK or Social Enterprise UK, where you will be offered a lot of internet based generic support, or you'll end up with a local enterprise agency who will try to put you off forming a co-op. In the 70's we had local CDAs in most major towns and cities, and the number of co-ops formed was commensurately much, much higher.
It's not about the money, it's about how and where its spent.

I appreciate what you say Alex, but the net result was a very defeatist, fatalistic, negative vibe, leaving me feeling very deflated. Precisely zero time was given to what can be done under the current circumstances. That's why this Platform Six initiative is so encouraging as it's solutions driven. We cannot wait for the circumstances to change. We have to look for answers where they are to be found right now. I'm new to the coop world, but I'm not getting any younger :slight_frown:

@simoncarter , I think you were unfair to Alex who was rather obliged to seek remedies that the sector as it is, is already well adapted to. However, if you made the same criticism of the prevailing business models available for CDBs to follow, I would absolutely agree. We have essentially two: one model of a community-rooted, trustee-run CDB that is so reliant on grant funding that it is practically a cargo cult; and one model of an opportunist consultancy, worker run CDB that invests next to nothing in market making or training up new CD workers and hence is largely parasitic on the work of a now-defunct, bygone generation of CDBs.
There should be no criticism whatsoever of the good people plying their trade within these models, who are wringing every possible drop of social impact from them, and heroically endeavouring to keep the CD flame alight in any form. The criticism should be of the movement as a whole which has tolerated the manifest shortcomings of these business models rather than research, develop, experiment and nuture alternatives.

If so then I apologies. That was not my intention. My criticism was simply based upon how I was left feeling as a result of the day, which is odd because I believe there has never been a better time for coops.

@bobcan can you say more about the rejection of the national CDA idea. I'm not convinced either way yet, but see how it is a massive hostage to fortune. It would have the potential to be:
1) a massive pinch-point or
2) a point of failure
3) run by unaccountable "shiny shoes" rather than co-operators.
4) handed over to one of the existing infrastructure organisations who may lack the empathy and/or skills to deliver.

Any national organisation centrally funded is by definition a pinch point, represents a single point of failure, and is vulnerable to political attack. Waiting for a potential future Labour government to legislate for and create such an entity is a waste of time, and if it were created it would soak up a huge amount of funding just in order to exist. In my view if the people doing co-operative development are serious about securing substantial support from a Labour administration then what is needed is a robust national co-operative development organisation that is owned and controlled by the people and orgs doing co-operative development for real, and which has the hard-won understanding of how cooperative development works (and doesn't work) in its DNA. Whilst Co-operatives UK is one of those organisations I don't believe that it is the right organisation to lead this, as - while it has a lot to offer - it does not meet this definition and has plenty of other fish to fry. The CD community does have the required focus, I believe it has the expertise and skills, and it even has organisations that could be used. What we need is a clear vision and the ambition to get on with it. Within six months we could have an organisation in place, with a clear game plan, that is ready to be funded by an incoming Labour administration. Perhaps the Ways Forward event should be our launch party.
Even so, such an entity would still have the key strategic weaknesses outlined above. To avoid those risks, it has to be resilient, agile, lightweight, decentralised, and very quickly build alternative funding streams, so that when Labour lose power, which is inevitable, cooperative development can continue to thrive.