I love co-ops, and I'm a member of a few. I think they work well for many types of business. We considered starting our space as co-op, but changed our minds. I've set up a co-op before, and (here in Ontario, at least) it was a tremendous amount of red tape and government involvement for something that can be just far easier when registering as a private business. So instead we try to operate as much as possible like a co-op by involving our members in decisions and soliciting feedback from them as much as possible, and profits have gone back into what the space needs.
However, we did propose the idea of a co-op to a group of folks that joined us for our first town hall meeting when we were doing our initial outreach to the community, and one private comment from the crowd stood out for us, which was something along the lines of "I struggle to make my own business work; I can't help to run your business too." He was just one person, but we know the rule that if one person says something there might well be several who are thinking it. So, that combined with my experience in setting up a co-op changed our minds. Plus there's the issue with that pesky hyphen... :-P r. *____________________ rachel young *[email protected] * * On 25 April 2011 08:43, Mark Nolte <[email protected]> wrote: > Are any of your coworking spaces a cooperative in legal structure? We are > considering this model of shared ownership and would appreciate anyone > offering up their thoughts on pros and cons of such a model > Thanks Mark. [email protected] > > Sent from my iPhone > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.
