Thanks Polly. In fact, generating new business opportunities for members - way beyond co-op intertrading - is an object of workers.coop and we will be codesigning how we do this in an organised, focused way so that it's not just a cosy club. It's definitely not about buying each others' goods and services, for which the scope is limited, but about sharing wider business intelligence to create opportunities for each other. Although of course intertrading is a way to test each others' offer, and thus qualify referrals and recommendations to third parties.

Also just speaking as me, not Code-op:

Very happy to see this move forward. I think the clearest immediate benefit would be using workers.coop as the contracting body for the network coordinator (see here for proposal on that).

I think the main risk is that Cotech and workers.coop might not communicate enough to be able to co-operate effectively. While that would be a shame and a missed opportunity, I don't think it would damage Cotech much.

For me it looks like the potential upside is large and the potential downside is small so I'd be up for it.

Hi John, we haven't worked out exactly how communication and accountability will work in the case of industry circles, but I think we would want to coordinate (sociocracy style) by having a link person between the CoTech circle and the Coordinating circle. Otherwise it comes down to how collaborative members want to be, or how siloed, and what members see value in sharing.

Speaking in an individual capacity too. At first (when we discussed it informally at the Glasgow gathering) I was a bit sceptical about this, but I've softened a bit now.

On a personal and practical level I do some of the organisational work in CoTech (book keeping, running loomio proposals, some forum moderating, responding to inbound emails etc) and I'd quite like a bit more help with that - having some of those functions taken on by "circles" within wookers.coop and being able to contribute to those sounds appealing to me.

I'd be quite happy if the CoTech "industry circle" were given a budget by workers.coop to spend autonomously (including paying for freelance coordinator assistance) and we scrapped the CoTech fund, encouraging the members to join workers.coop instead, I think.

I'd like CoTech to retain an identity, in particular I like our gatherings when they happen and I wouldn't want to see them go away.

I agree with Doug that we should try to make these decisions online for a variety of reasons.

Blending financial admin and sharing aspects of administration are obvious efficiencies. The federation's subs model (1/1000th of payroll or freelancer fees, minimum £150 p.a. with pay-what-you-can membership for up to two years) is anyway different from CoTech's, so would need to work something out if you wanted to not to continue the CoTech Fund. CoTech would anyway be free to additionally fundraise for its own projects. But maybe the simpler model is: the CoTech fund continues as that additional fundraiser (just done through workers.coop's books and revenue/cost centres), while the workers.coop membership fee covers general/shared workers.coop activity, as it will for every other type of member.

I'd like to maybe do a video meeting for up to an hour, with anyone here who wants to draft a proposal together that would stand a chance of getting broad CoTech support/consent. Who's up for it - and I'll send round a Doodle to fix a time?

Good idea, I'm on for that, you could use a Nextcloud poll for picking a date and time, rather than Doodle.

Perhaps a bit of both, for example I'd love to help shape up a first draft from yourself asynchronously (which also might help more people to contribute)?

Not sure what went wrong with the link, try this?

https://office.coops.tech/apps/polls/list/relevant

I have written a draft proposal saved in a new CoTech (not workers.coop) Nextcloud folder 'Worker co-op federation' for contributors in this thread to critique/co-edit, or I could do it old style and email to you @Chris Croome (Webarchitects Co-operative) @Chris Lowis (Go Free Range) @Doug Belshaw @John Evans @Graham @John Atherton ?

If you don’t have a Nextcloud account get one via our new SSO

Thanks for drafting this @Sion Whellens (Principle Six/Calverts) I've added a couple of small bits to the document and also one comment, @Doug Belshaw 's comments are good and I think his suggestion to have a meeting to discuss it sounds like a sensible next step.

(removed previous message as I got confused between CoTech and workers.coop NextCloud instances...)

Have added comments to the doc, thanks @Sion Whellens (Principle Six/Calverts) ! (if there's no reason to keep it closed, could you make it accessible for everyone and comment-only?)

Hi @John Atherton The link you've posted needs to stay private and only issued to coops that sign up to the worker fed, otherwise it can be targeted by spammers, as this loomio forum is open to the public.

I've deactivated the original link and will send you the new one.

Thanks

@Liam MacLeod (MediaBlaze Hosts) you're going to hate the way that WAO does... most of our work then 😅 https://pads.weareopen.coop (haven't had a problem in seven years)

Etherpad has been specifically designed to be open, the SSO for things like the workers.coop Nextcloud instance has been setup for members of co-ops that join workers.coop not anyone in the world, the forum is open to all.

So no documents on the Nextcloud instance can ever be shared with non-members? That seems sub-optimal as a design decision, but OK!

No @dougbelshaw sorry not to have been clear, of course documents on Nextcloud can be made available for people to read who are not members, it is the SSO that is specifically for members.

Docs can be enabled to be publicly viewed, but not i think edited. We havent settled on our permission policy yet. But the assumption is there will be member only content

Ah ok assumed co-tech was a private forum. My bad!!

It's ok, no harm done :)

@athertonjohn even if this was a private forum we don't want to enable anyone involved with CoTech, most of whom probably haven't joined workers.coop to be able to access all the workers.coop internal member-only services do we?

Thanks for the comments on the draft proposal for a CoTech-workers.coop merger. I have modified the doc accordingly, although the changes aren't extensive. Please have a look, and suggest next steps. For instance: a video meeting with key people from workers.coop? A poll here to see if it's clear enough/good enough to take to workers.coop's mission circle before further developing? The proposal is to 'work towards', so it wouldn't be a final decision.

Look good to me @sionwhellens I'd have thought we would need some support from CoTech to indicate that this might be agreeable before taking it to workers.coop?

@Felix Lozano "Up to a point, Lord Copper" 😉

If this proposal receives consent, we may want to create a task-and-finish group to refine and work with workers.coop towards an MoA that we would bring back for decision.

@Sion Whellens (Principle Six/Calverts) I think there's a missing word in the proposal.

3rd bullet point under "More on the proposal" says `However the contractual relationship and financial admin could be done through workers.coop and since workers.coop is doing this it would reduce the duplication of effort`, should it say `since workers.coop is doing this already`?

On behalf of CBN

We too have reservations. For example, we think that this takes us further away from meaningful cooperation between all tech coops including those that are not worker coops - a point we have raised before.

Nevertheless we support the proposal.

@Chris Lowis (Go Free Range) @Chris Croome (Webarchitects Co-operative) @John Evans @Doug Belshaw and others who have contributed to this thread: would you be up for a circle to progress this? Suggestions as to how we organise it?

I'd be happy to attend to feed in informally from a workers.coop side on practicalities, so when you put forward a SLA or whatever its realistic for what we currently do. On a site note, useful to know where you are up to with the Network Coordinator as that may be a more pressing area we need to act on?

Sounds good to me @Sion Whellens (Principle Six/Calverts) - perhaps start a thread on workers.coop forum in the first instance?

I agree with @Chris Lowis (Go Free Range) that this needs to be very visible on the CoTech forum so that it doesn't 'take people by surprise'.

Appreciate @Chris Lowis (Go Free Range) suggestion that we could progress this from the CoTech side by combing through CoTech's consitution , looking at what changes would be entailed, and breaking it down into a series of more digestible proposals to CoTech members. The initial things it seems to me are:

• firstly, including a form of words that explains that CoTech is the Tech and Digital Industries circle of workers.coop and articulates the relationship in broad terms;

• secondly, to check that the statement of CoTech's purposes and membership criteria don't conflict with those of workers.coop (I don't think they do), and

• thirdly to say that only CoTech members that are also primary members of workers.coop have formal domain power and accountability, in terms of the link to other circles of workers.coop

As far as I can see, nothing much else in CoTech's constitution and infrastructure would need changing in the short term (e.g. CoTech Fund administration and hosting) - in effect this is CoTech's area of autonomy. From the workers.coop side, they will also need to check that the proposal in its current and evolving form makes sense (I think it does, but will now put it on the agenda for workers.coop's coordinating circle).

@Doug Belshaw @Chris Lowis (Go Free Range) does this make sense as a way to work on it? Will you start a thread in CoTech Forum on this, and look at the CoTech constitution to see what proposals you think would be implied?

Thanks Siôn. Forgive me if this has already been made clear, as I dare say it has: will a member of CoTech that chooses not to join workers.coop still have the same ‘domain power’ in relation to things CoTech only? Or put another way, do those not joining workers.coop lose their vote in CoTech. Not planning anything, just curious. Shaun

@Shaun Fensom Hi Sean how about this for a late reply? I think the short answer is no, only members of workers.coop would have full domain rights in the CoTech industrial circle. This would not prevent the circle giving non-members whatever access to its activities and deliberations it chooses to non-members of workers.coop, but I'd suggest for instance only members should have decision making power over (e.g.) the CoTech circle's budget within workers.coop, or its governance relationship with workers.coop and otyher workers.coop circles?

@Sion Whellens (Principle Six/Calverts)

@Sion Whellens (Principle Six/Calverts) Yup, that's quite a gap! I had to refresh myself on the conversation.

As per the discussion further down the thread, I like the idea of outsourcing the question as to who is and who isn’t a worker coop to someone else, because it has been tedious in CoTech. So definite advantage with this route.

However a) this theoretically could be pushing some members of CoTech away - unlikely but possible, and b) I never particularly liked the restriction to worker coops in CoTech in the first place, I would like to be able to admit other coops. But this an old battle that I lost years ago.

Thanks @Sion Whellens (Principle Six/Calverts) - that sounds like a good way forward. If @Doug Belshaw is keen I'm happy to work together to do as you suggest.

@Shaun Fensom - that's a good question and one I guess we'll have to thrash out over time. Personally I like the idea that someone else decides who/what a worker co-op is so we don't have to deal with the constant pain of that discussion everytime a new member applies to join CoTech. Saying that members of CoTech had to also be members of workers.coop (first), would certainly solve that (but cause other issues, no doubt).

@Chris Lowis (Go Free Range) Re qualification for membership, workers.coop has a pretty broad definition of who can join as an enterprise member - a worker co-op, a democratic employee-owned enterprise, or a worker-led multi stakeholder co-op. But CoTech could continue to define who qualifies to be a member of the CoTech industrial circle. So for instance: I think GreenNet might join workers.coop (because it walks, talks and identifies as a worker co-op despite its technical status as a charity); but CoTech can continue to exclude them, because CoTech's definition relies on the form of legal incorporation.

Or, CoTech could decide to adopt the federation criteria for its own circle membership, and see how it goes.

Yes, I'm happy with this. @Chris Lowis (Go Free Range) could you start the thread? I'm heading on holiday for three weeks after this week, and I can see the discussion getting quite a bit of traction. It might just be me, but I always fee like it's the original poster's job to keep things on track*, and I won't be able to to if I'm away!

*and the admins' job to keep things in line with the Code of Conduct, etc.

@Chris Lowis (Go Free Range) a belated reply to your comment. I agree that the debate about who is and who is not a worker coop has been tedious in CoTech and I hope and believe that workers.coop will take a catholic view of that. However, as an example, some tech coops may prefer to remain members of Cooperatives UK and not want the cost of also joining workers.coop - not planning anything, just musing on possible corner cases. Would such coops be forced to leave CoTech? Would they lose their say?

> I hope and believe that workers.coop will take a catholic view of that

I've not sure what that means? What is a catholic view?

However the current proposal for workers.coop:

> ## Cooperative Enterprise Members > Co-ops that are majority owned by their workers (employee, > > self-employed or volunteers) Or Community and Multi-stakeholder co-ops with significant worker control evidenced in secondary rules or other evidence provided

Is arguably less strict than what we have for CoTech:

> To join CoTech you need to be a worker owned co-operative providing digital or technical services in the UK.

And also this:

> Each member of the network is a company that is owned and democratically run by it’s workers (and, in some cases, customers).

(PS trying to edit posts here using Markdown is really horrible compared with Discourse...)

> I hope and believe that workers.coop will take a catholic view of that

I've not sure what that means? What is a catholic view?

catholic | ˈkaθ(ə)lɪk | adjective

including a wide variety of things; all-embracing: her tastes are pretty catholic.

Not to be confused with...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Worker_Movement

I've just added a "workers.coop member" column to the membership table on the wiki, almost half the members of CoTech are also members of workers.coop.

Note that the membership table and the website listing of members both need updating due to co-ops that no longer exist and also co-ops that have left or were never added in the first place...

@stevewest I think this is intentional -- the advantage of having the vote end before the gathering is that we won't need to debate this matter at the gathering and can consentrate on talking about other things and also implementing the changes we will need to making as a result (assuming the vote goes in favour).

At the moment I think that CoTech is an unincorporated association with its own governance. I'm unclear on a quick read of the proposal whether that legal from would be preserved into the new arrangement or whether CoTech becomes part of workers.coop.

Can someone clarify?

@Mark Simmonds (Co-op Culture) I think the way to summarise it is that CoTech becomes part of workers.coop, since all CoTech members will be members of workers.coop. The CoTech 'circle' would have its own decision making domains as outlined in the MoA, qualified by the policies of workers.coop

Thanks for all your hard work on this

Thanks everyone for thinking this through, it's a great idea. Unity is strength