Trevor, how would you rate your co-op on each of the 7 cooperative principles? What works great? What could work even better?
Other questions (answers to any of them would be great) : Are there any cooperative principles that don't match up exactly with what members want? Are there any cooperative principles that members super-value? How are people on the board perceived as different from members not on the board? What do you do for non-board members to feel they own the organization? Do you have a period of time or criteria when someone joins, before they become a member-owner, or are members, as soon as they join, instantly equal in terms of your goals for their cooperative decision-making? If you wanted more capital, such as to expand, how would you see that most likely working within your members' values (would it be pre-sales, a bank loan/loan from outside organizations, or a few members with more money individually buying a building or receiving an interest rate higher than 8% per year, or all or most members contributing equally into a capital fund and not receiving a return higher than 8% per year)? Do you have financial reserves, and why or why not? How do various members think about the future? I'm interested in the principle of subsidiarity/federation/localism for opening additional locations; is that something you've thought about, and if so, how would new locations interact with the current location? Alex Linsker, Collective Agency, Portland Oregon, http://collectiveagency.co/ On Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 10:55:31 AM UTC-8, Trevor Twining wrote: > > Here’s a link to the Ontario Co-operative Association, whose resources and > advice were particularly valuable when we set up. If you’re in Ontario, > they’re more than happy to offer some initial assistance. If you’re > outside, they’re happy to refer you to the group in your area who can help. > We’ve become quite involved in the Niagara Regional Co-op Network which is > closely connected with On Co-Op. > > http://www.ontario.coop/programs_services/coop_development/starting_a_coop > > It’s a rich resource, but there’s still a lot of jargon. I’ll try to break > our experience down in plain language. > > 1. We were already meeting as a jelly group for 18 months before we > started with our space, so we had a core community from which to build. > 2. As we were talking about the mutually-invested community we wanted to > build, someone who was already working on a food co-op in our city asked if > we had considered the model. > 3. We looked at the resources at the link above and enough connected that > we decided this was the model for us. > 4. We filled out the incorporation forms ourselves. It took a couple of > hours. (I can walk you through if you get to this stage) > 5. The membership fees from the founding members gave us the capital we > needed to create the corporation and get the initial paperwork filed. > 6. Members pre-paid first, last and as many months as they could up-front > so that we could build a nest egg. Some members provided member loans. > 7. Our membership model also encourages participation that doesn’t > directly involve the space, so we have a larger group of members than space > users. (our current membership is 70, but less than 30 use the space > 1d/week or more) > 8. With that money in the bank, we were able to sign our lease, get our > utilities set up, and hang our sign on the door. > 9. We have a board of 8 directors, and they help guide the long term > direction of the group. I’m still chief resident volunteer > cat-herder/tummler, and we’re working on expanding our service offering so > we can pay someone to be in this role. > 10. Annually we have a meeting to review finances, vote on key changes in > direction, and when we get to the point where we’re managing a surplus, the > group will decide how that’s allocated. > > Next coworking meetup-type thing we do, I’d be happy to present this as a > talk in more detail. > > -------------------------------------------- > Trevor Twining > Cowork Niagara > http://coworkniagara.com > Home of Niagara’s independent workforce > twitter: @coworkniagara, @trevortwining > > > > > On Feb 18, 2016, at 12:00 PM, Trevor Twining <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > > Thanks all, for your feedback so far. > > Sounds like I need a (few?) follow up post(s). I’ll also post some links > shortly to resources we used. In Canada, most co-ops are provincially > incorporated, so I assume that in the US each state will have its own co-op > legislation. > > I’ll share what we did here in Ontario, and you should be able to figure > out how that works in your province/state. > > I’m not sure how this works in other countries, but the co-op movement in > Europe generally is huge, so there should be some good resources on that > side of the Atlantic. > > -------------------------------------------- > Trevor Twining > Cowork Niagara > http://coworkniagara.com > Home of Niagara’s independent workforce > twitter: @coworkniagara, @trevortwining > > > > > On Feb 18, 2016, at 11:28 AM, Tony Bacigalupo <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > > Trevor, I think a lot of us are excited to learn more about how you pulled > this off! > > I encountered early thoughts on this topic as well, but found it difficult > to get a clear sense of how to go about in a way that would be viable. I > think any more details you can provide on that would be helpful to others > considering similar structures. > > Thanks! > Tony > *---* > *Projects: New Work Cities <http://nwc.co/consulting> • Open Coworking > <http://opencoworking.org/> • Cotivation <http://cotivation.co/>* > *eBook: No More Sink Full of Mugs <http://nwc.co/mugs>* > *Connect: Personal site <http://tonybacigalupo.com/> • Twitter > <http://twitter.com/tonybgoode> • Facebook > <http://facebook.com/tonybacigalupo>* > *New: Preorder the Ultimate Coworking Toolkit > <http://nwc.co/consulting/toolkit>* > > > On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 8:53 AM, Jenifer Ross <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > >> Ditto. Can you provide more details on the financial structure? >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On Feb 18, 2016, at 10:40 AM, Jacob Sayles <[email protected] >> <javascript:>> wrote: >> >> I'd love to know more about this. I'm certainly sold on the value >> alignment but I don't have a sense for how it works. >> >> On Thursday, February 18, 2016, Trevor Twining <[email protected] >> <javascript:>> wrote: >> >>> Apologies. I used an internal link. </embarrassed> >>> >>> Here’s the real link >>> >>> >>> http://coworkniagara.com/blog/2016/02/10/why-co-operatives-and-coworking-go-hand-in-hand/ >>> >>> Trevor Twining >>> [email protected] >>> 416-201-2254 >>> twitter/skype/linkedin: trevortwining >>> >>> On Feb 18, 2016, at 9:40 AM, Trevor Twining <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>> Hey everyone, >>> >>> When we were developing the business plan for our space two years ago, a >>> prospective member asked us if we had considered setting Cowork Niagara up >>> as a co-operative. We didn’t know what that was, so we checked it out. >>> >>> It was the best thing that we could have done. We’re the only >>> co-operative coworking space in english-speaking Canada (there’s one other >>> in Quebec). I’m now convinced that if more spaces use this model it will >>> help create stronger, more resilient coworking communities. I’m sharing >>> this in the hopes that it piques your collective curiosity. >>> >>> I wrote a post about it on our newly-launched blog. If any of you have >>> any questions about this, feel free to ask. >>> >>> >>> http://cowork/blog/2016/02/10/why-co-operatives-and-coworking-go-hand-in-hand/ >>> >>> -------------------------------------------- >>> Trevor Twining >>> Cowork Niagara >>> http://coworkniagara.com >>> Home of Niagara’s independent workforce >>> twitter: @coworkniagara, @trevortwining >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com >>> --- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Coworking" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >> >> -- >> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Coworking" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> >> -- >> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Coworking" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > > -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
