How about Monday midday, or 4pm, or Wednesday midday?
Would be free around 3/4ish - I’m on UTC+2.
Shall we say 4pm today?
Hi
I’ve made an Appear.In for this to speak at 5.30 London time today. Luke - I just have a riseup email address for you and not sure how often you check that.
You can join us here: https://appear.in/cotechwortley
I just have 30 minutes to go through it but hopefully that’ll be enough.
Polly
Heyo - just a heads up I added an update on this to the community call agenda. Feel free to add some notes and I’ll point people to them, but I’m guessing one of you that attended the meeting a couple days ago won’t mind giving a verbal update 
1 Like
Over the phone Chris Lowis, Aaron and I discussed the following:
- Wortley Hall organisation was taken on by Chris and Aaron who spent about 8-9 days in total on the preparation.
- There are mixed feelings about what should happen next. We all agree it’s great to have an opportunity to meet face to face. However some co-ops, including Outlandish, felt there were fewer solid outcomes than hoped. There’s some difference in feeling about how much emphasis should be on socialising/working/talking
- Chris suggested that an easier way to manage money would be to work out the total costs and then sell tickets in advance (rather than invoicing people for different amounts after the event, which was time consuming and a headache)
- An alternative to the 3 day event would be to host a one day AGM somewhere, and have more opportunities to meet and work together through the year (we are already planning some CoTech Hackdays in London, and hoping to host a CoTech party in June, also in London)
I brought this up at the Outlandish Members’ meeting yesterday and the feeling here is that currently we don’t have the resources to play a leading role in organising a Wortley Hall (or similar). However, we would be happy to host people at Space4 in the autumn and can put some time into organising the logistics for that. We haven’t discussed finer details but the rough idea would be to have a couple of days of hacking, discussing and socialising.
…I’ll try to join the community call to discuss this verbally.
1 Like
Is this the latest on the 2018 event?
Shall we agree a date and lock down that it’s going to be in Space4?
1 Like
If we do want to go to Wortley Hall we need to check availability soon.
I think the issue is that none of the co-ops have the resources available to do the ‘host’ role that Outlandish did the first year and which Agile Collective and Go Free Range did last year.
Sadly I think there’s also an issue of affordability for some of the co-ops. We got a subsidy from SolidFund last year, but somewhat on condition that it was an investment (in getting the co-ops to be solvent) rather than a handout, so I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable asking for another subsidy - especially as the tech sector should be generating funds for the co-op movement rather than consuming them.
I’ve sadly missed all the Wortley Hall action, but I don’t think Space4 is really a suitable alternative to a residential gathering.
How about investigating residentials at more afforable places? Loads of good options here http://exclusive-hire.yha.org.uk/search/all-properties
How many people have come to the last 2 Wortley Hall gatherings?
It’s more the cost/time of organising and the lost earnings than the cost of the accomodation. The cost to Outlandish has been £20k-£30k each time with only about 10% of that being the cost of the accomodation. If we were going to take time out for a residential we’d want to do it somewhere nice. We can always piggyback on Worker Co-op Weekends as John suggested if people want the camp experience.
Is that actual spent money costs, or opportunity costs of people’s time? (I think someone sent me last years costs spreadsheet so I should probably just go and look at that)
Lots of YHA exclusive hires are very nice. Been to quite a few with a large group of friends who have an annual reunion. It’s bedrooms, not camping.
Opportunity costs. We still have all the normal overheads and costs while we’re at Wortley Hall, but aren’t earning any money during that time. The actual costs would be a lot too if we paid ourselves to attend, which we’ve not done as it seemed a bit extravagant.
Your overheads/income are 20k for 3 days? Damn 
I mean the question is as we have already touched on is what is the CoTech conference for?
i.e. where is the balance struck between networking/social (which I think are super valuable) and pure business and sector strategy (potentially more valuable). I’m sure there will be different perspectives on this.
Considering we got a lot of infrastructure stuff done, I would like to see us choose a couple of working/groups and topics from the 2017 conference and focus on those Wortley Hall 2017 - CoTech
I see the most important topics as:
- Marketing CoTech
- Sales and Collaboration
- Shared infrastructure
As Autonomic are a new co-op still working out our direction, we don’t really have any capital to donate to the proceedings as everything goes to paying ourselves at this stage. We will be slumming it whichever way and can only contribute time/energy as opposed to cash.
We probably won’t be able to afford to stay at Wortley Hall anyway and would instead maybe commute to the conference from Sheffield (staying with friends/members). Likewise for if it was hosted at Space4, we would stay with friends.
Could we perhaps get a quick temperature check of what the general feeling is from individuals/co-ops who will be attending? It’s hard to understand who is actually aware of this thread.
- Wortley Hall
- Space4
- Worker Co-op weekend
- Some combination of the above
0 voters
I am personally expressing interest in a combination of Space4 (or similar space) for the strategy meeting and then more of a social focus by combining with Worker Co-op weekend which I will assume will happen in May 2019. Combining with worker co-op weekend would allow us to make links with other co-ops that could be potential clients for the network.
I have concerns that Space4 is not accessible for anyone with mobility needs as it is only accessible up some stairs afaik? We also don’t want to make CoTech too London centric (mirroring a negative aspect of the rest of the tech economy).
1 Like
I agree with (Leo) a combination of Space4 (or similar space) for the strategy meeting and then more of a social focus by combining with Worker Co-op weekend …
Wortley is very convenient for us but it would be nice to have chance to see Space4.
And future years could be other venues to avoid London-centricity?
1 Like
Hi Polly, thanks a lot for organising this, would you be OK with me splitting this post off as a new thread so it is easier for people to find?