Hey folks, another month rolls by! Here is the next cut of the monthly newsletter to keep the fires burning Hope you’re all doing fine. Yours in co-operation, The CoTech newsletter team.
PS. If you want to know how to subscribe, we’ve written instructions over here.
Contributing To The Newsletter
- Send feedback or items for the next issue to newsletter@coops.tech
- Direct message @decentral1se on the forum
- Contribute to the project repository
Get involved with CoTech
- Help plan the next face-to-face CoTech gathering (an additional separate thread was also made here).
- Join in on the discussion to decide whether CoTech should continue with Loomio or consider other options for online decision making (Loomio thread here).
- Want to see more shared digital communications in CoTech? There is a plan to bridge all the things and it needs your help!
- Lend a hand and help out on the technical effort to setup a self-hosted CoTech “WorkAdventure” instance.
- We’re co-operating in a competitively organised economy. How do we resolve the contradictions and nagivate the inconsistencies of running a co-operative? Weigh in on this question about client work and competition to move the conversation along.
- If the CoTech Infrastructure group were able to offer a VPS service - co-operatively run, co-operatively owned hardware, in a co-operative data centre running on renewable energy, would you want in? It’s an open call for input to all CoTech members - exciting stuff!
News
CoTech Spring Break
We invite all members of CoTech to join us for two days of delightful time together! We also welcome guests from international co-operative movement, particularly those specialising in tech.
See the packed out forum thread here. It was a wonderful two days.
Don’t forget, all the notes from the sessions are available on the wiki! There is some gold in there, as usual.
London Hackspace has re-opened
London Hackspace has re-opened, in line with the current guidelines on social distancing for infection control.
See the announcement and invite post on the forum.
Co-operatives UK are hiring
Co-operatives UK is an inspiring and unique place to work. Our people are committed, passionate and empowered by the belief that co-operatives offer a better way of doing business.
See the forum post here and the listing there.
Webarchitects call-out for solidarity: Unite LDN digital & tech branch on indefinite strike action!
One of our clients, Unite London Digital & Tech branch 2, have members taking indefinite strike action
See the forum post here for more details and ways to lend a hand.
CoTech General Circle call notes
CoTech forms a general “decision-making” circle that meets virtually on a synchronous basis once per month. This meeting should be attended by one representative of each member coop. The number of co-ops necessary to constitute a quorum for decision-making is one-third of the membership.
Two more calls have happened, if you couldn’t make it, catch up with the notes from March 31rst and April 28th. If you’d like to learn more about these calls, check out the wiki page.
Agile Collective started a new exciting project
We’re so excited to have been selected to work on the LocalGov Drupal Beta project, with @willguv @CumbriaCC and @mhclg it’s a big step forward for @LocalGovDrupal #opensource #drupal and for us, #collaboration in action!
See the tweet here and some hype happening over here and there.
Space4 has space for you
Calling social good organisations looking for a new home for their business, you can now rent our private office & join our incredible community of cooperatives, start ups & social innovators.
Sign up and/or spread the word over here.
Small Axe is hiring a Creative Campaigner
Looking for a brilliant Creative Campaigner to join our team in working to bring about a better world.
Find out more via this tweet.
Meet.coop reached 100 paying subscribers
We did it! Together we reached http://meet.coop members through @opencollect thanks to @bump_hq for being #100! to all who make #meetcoop
Spread the news and share this tweet around.
Agile Collective: Catalyst Resource Hub - Sprint 3 weeknotes
Agile Collective are currently working alongside CAST / Catalyst on the alpha phase of a reusable service platform for publishing guidance to professionals. The project is called Shared service platform - Guidance repositories. As part of the project-wide commitment to open working and transparency, we’ll be publishing weeknotes telling you what we’ve been up to.
Media Co-op: Hiring a Producer!
Experienced, talented corporate video Producer or TV Producer, with a social conscience. Role based in Glasgow.
See the full listing here.
Open Data Services Co-operative: Building Prioritisation Processes for Our Co-operative Work
Prioritising workloads operates differently in a non-hierarchical organisation. When there’s no chain of command, all prioritisation comes out of shared agreement.
Outlandish: New offices, new beginnings
We’ve moved! After more than 6 years in Tower House (aka Outlandish Towers) we’ve moved up the road. We’re now on the 4th floor of 113-115 Fonthill Road.
See the announcement post here and another post at the work that went into making it look lovely.
Events
Did you know our wonderful forum has a Calendar feature? If you post under the events category then they will automatically appear in this calendar. You can subscribe to it using iCal or RSS. The Agenda also gives a linear overview of upcoming events also.
Good luck to all the organisers and thanks for your energy and determination despite all the remaining uncertainties around organising events right now.
TBD: The Next CoTech Gathering
There is a poll setup by @Lucy to try and put some dates and figures on the next face-to-face CoTech meeting!
The idea is that CoTech (perhaps in collaboration with Solidfund/Young Co-operators Network) will extend the booking by a day, so that we can arrive Thursday evening and carry out our CoTechh sessions on the Friday. The total cost of this would be £1500.
Weigh in on this forum poll here.
You can also join the discussion on this separate thread.
23rd - 25th July: Worker Co-op Weekend
The Worker Co-op Council agreed to make a firm booking for Worker Co-op Weekend at Selgars Mill 3 near Tiverton, Friday 23-Sunday 25 July. The day before - Thursday 22 July - we are mooting a pre-event Solidfund 1 strategy session, which may run alongside a face-to-face gathering for the relaunched Young Cooperators Network.
See the forum post here.
21rst May: Shared Infrastructure Call
As a result of the CoTech Spring Break, the CoTech infrastructure group is on the move again. There are monthly meetings to try and think through and act on making some sort of co-operative cloud service offering (virtual servers are being discussed currently) possible.
See the event post here.
All notes and previous call posts are listed on the forum Hosting category.