We are restructuring our approach to strategic planning and delivering work, this will mean changes to some of our working groups.
A separate communication will go about that at a later date. But this announcement is about one of the new “Strategy Groups” called “Co-operative Support and Development”.
We already had a member learning group, so this new group is an evolution of that one, expanding its focus and inviting new people to get involved.
The draft purpose is below, so if you are interested in helping us deliver against this sort of purpose you are welcome to attend, or just observe, this preliminary meeting.
The meeting will be online on Thurs 25th April 13.30 - 15.00Launch Meeting - Zoom email me if you want a calender invite, or just turn-up.
Draft Purpose:
To be a member led space creating and delivering our co-operative support and development mission:
Providing access to coop support services and specialist training
Providing networking opportunities
Supporting coops to identify and develop new trading and development opportunities
Providing opportunities for those interested in cooperatives to connect to and learn from existing work coops
Providing guidance and support for starting, converting to or growing working coops
Draft Domains
Responsible for creating our co-operative support and development strategy and work plan based on the overall strategy and budget set by workers.coop
Oversee the delivery of this strategy and work plan through commissioning projects
Create a safe and genuinely egalitarian culture and space for supporters and worker members to explore, decide and oversee our strategy and delivery of work.
I have Thurs 21st Nov 2pm-3pm in my diary for another Co-op Support and Development meeting but nothing from workers.coop and I’ve just checked the workers.coop calendar and nothing in there. I’ve searched Workers.coop Hub and can’t find the minutes from the last one either. Not sure if this a @AthertonJohn or @samnord thing? Is this in your diary @Caleb@coopsmark ?
Sorry completely forgot. I can be free, not much to report back on other than we need to start work on the mentoring programme we got funding for. So we can chat through that if people want
I think that would be worthwhile. My concern is that we need to generate momentum as a group or it will die off/cease to have any capacity, and the business model of workers.coop is based on these groups. When you say “we need to start work” do you mean the Co-op Support and Development group?
Ok, I’ll send round an invite this afternoon and see who turns up. Although the Autumn Assembly was great, what it didn’t seem to do is get more names signing up for the two strategic working groups. Do we need to re-think the nature of how we get people involved. - Do we need to be evern more targeted/timebound with the asks to get involved.
Sorry I’ve just not got the head space this week to do this properly so best to just leave it and book in a properly organised meeting that we can invite more people to.
Do you want to pick a date you know you can do, maybe in 2 weeks, and hopefully enough folk can make it? We can use that meeting to get the ball rolling in properly for the group
I think a December meeting date would be good yes Nathan - I can advertise it in the December newsletter. The Movement Building group will be looking at how to increase the health of the strategic groups. but I do think setting consistent meeting dates and putting them on the events listing will help.
Maybe this group could meet on Thurs 12 December, 12-1pm? (Movement Building meeting may be the same week but typically on a Tuesday evening)
I am going to need to prioritise attending and organising the Movement Building meeting as that’s my main group.
Sounds good to me, but I am only one person. I can’t even find a list of who is in the group so cannot help out with chasing people. I’m not convinced everyone uses this forum
Hi Nathan.
Think John is over capacity at the moment to coordinate a meeting this month I think. What do you and @Caleb think is needed, a meeting this month, a meeting next month, we can list in the mid-December newsletter and gear to the new year to get along some more faces. Or a smaller meeting this month which I can attend also, if there is any urgent business or we feel the need to meet?
Because we haven’t really functioned properly yet since the re-organisation, I can’t answer the question. I don’t even know where I can find any relevant info. There is very little in our Group folder on Nextcloud.
It feels like we have moved from an active sub-group (Member Learning) that was achieving a lot to an inert group because we have not yet formed properly since the re-organisation.
I am concerned that we have an unsustainable system in place. Either Co-op Support and Development isn’t required or it needs to be functioning properly. This maybe needs Board attention? Workers.coop is still at an early growth stage and this could be a critical failure point or an indication of one.
I’m not too concerned. I actually think we could get back up and running reasonably quickly, but we keep postponing.
As I understand it this group is a strategic group that is keeping an eye on the projects under its domain - podcast, coop clinic, workshops etc.
Currently its “active members” are Nathan, John, Sam & I. I think this is enough to have a functional meeting.
When I told people at the Assembly what we were working on they voiced their support, so we need to get back to meeting and seeing which projects need to be shelved due to capacity/funding restraints and which need investment & support.
Once we have the ball rolling a little it will be easier to bring people into the group, but atm it feels like we are too occupied with getting new members, when I think we just need to meet regularly and then the people will come.
I recommend that we schedule in a meeting a few weeks before the next board meeting, so that we can feed anything back to them that needs to be fed back. Then we could meet on a quarterly basis to start with
Sounds fine. I’m less interested in being in an oversight committee than being involved in delivery. I was hoping we might unlock some more activity. I’ve had spare capacity available for workers.coop in recent months but no outlet for it.
I really hear what Nathan is saying and can’t say I disagree. I think there’s space for this group to mimic what Member Learning group was doing , meeting more often, having more active role in project development as it’s certaintly needed! With oversight in addition-perhaps every 3rd meeting for instance can be strategy/oversight with project development in between.
I also think we can get meetings going again relatively easily. I don’t think John can make meetings atmo (or anymore? to be clarified) so let’s schedule between us three and continue this conversation there (As well as our usual remit). I also hear about wanting to do delivery/action rather than oversight, but think there’s space for both in this group.
Happy to squeeze in a meeting before X-mas next week or in the 2nd or 3rd week of Jan. Next Board meeting is 14th Jan.
Just on the off-chance either of you can make it, Mira + I are meeting next Tuesday 17th December at 9am-10.30am to talk about peer networks.
In the previous Co-op Support + Dev meeting, we chatted about the group having more steer over the peer network programme.
If not, we’ll feedback our ideas in the next Co-op Support
Good call @samnord If John doesn’t have capacity let’s respect that. @Caleb is there any chance you can do some time on Weds 18th at all or do you want to go for January? That’s the only day I’ve got free next before Xmas
I can do Wed 18th any time between 3.30pm-5pm now if @Caleb can!
It would be good to schedule in the next couple of meetings as well, how does Thursday 16th Jan and Feb 13th sound, I am flexible on meeting time perhaps 14.00-15.30?
