Hi folks,
Do we have something containing our members and in what way they’re a co-op? The discussion about GreenNet joining CoTech highlighted uncertainty around the current membership criteria and I’m interested to understand what types of co-op we already have as members.
Cheers, Chris
We have the list of the 26 member co-ops, perhaps we could add a field to the site for co-op type? What would that list contain?
There must be other types?
It could also have the legal entity and perhaps even a URL for the registration page? For example:
But given that not all the 26 co-ops have filled in their co-ordinates to enable a marker on the map perhaps that would be asking too much…?
Perhaps a session at Wortley Hall could be on improving the coops.tech site content?
Also perhaps Freelancer co-op
I created a table on the wiki to list the members of CoTech and their legal form and type, it would be great if people could help fill in the blanks 
Great stuff. Thanks, Chris.
I’ve updated Go Free Range’s entry in that table. Doing so makes me wonder
whether we’re missing something, though. I’ve added us as a Worker co-op
with a legal form of a Company limited by shares. While I would argue that
these are both true, I also understand that our current articles of
association are not fully compatible with the ICA’s 7 principles (although
we’re working on this). Is there some additional information we can capture
that would highlight this discrepancy (between how we describe ourselves
and our company documents)?
Cheers, Chris
@chrisroos thanks for adding the details, feel free to add a “Notes” column to link to a footnote for this info, or something?
@chrisroos a worker co-op (employee or consortium of self-employed workers) can take a number of legal forms; my view is that it is the relationship between the members and shared purpose/aspiration that determines whether it’s a co-op and what type of co-op it is, rather than the legal form. That said, a CLS can’t really be common ownership, although if the members agree to put money aside for the purpose it can fulfil the principle that co-ops will usually have some kind of ‘indivisible reserve’. Co-ops UK has a model rule for a worker co-op CLS - https://www.uk.coop/sites/default/files/uploads/attachments/worker_co-operative_cls_0.pdf - might be worth comparing yours with that!
Indeed. There is no single legal definition of what a co-op is under UK law. 1976 common ownership act was nearest. Other countries have strict rules.
The list of CoTech co-ops on the website isn’t up to date (45 co-ops are listed but I think we have 50 members) and also that isn’t a suitable place record organisations that are former members, so I have added two of these to the membership table on the wiki and updated it (I counted seven co-ops that are CoTech members and not listed on the public site).
Dare I suggest that we could do with having a Membership Secretary and a Register of Members?
It would definitely be useful, we are now looking to contact co-ops in regards to the upcoming mini-gathering and realising we might be missing some co-ops… Would you like to add the register thread as a Thursday morning session @chris ?