At the recent Stir to Action event in Manchester @Louise came up with the bright idea of having a one day CoTech event the day before the planned workers.coop AGM in October / November 2023, assuming that the date, location and venue are suitable (I believe it is not yet booked @athertonjohn?) would anyone have any objections to this plan?
No objections from me! This sounds lovely. Where’s the AGM going to be held?
1 Like
As far as I’m aware a date and location have yet to be announced, @athertonjohn might know more?
1 Like
I don’t think there’s a confirmed date in October, but AFAIK it will be on a Friday evening / all day Saturday in Birmingham.
2 Likes
Thank you! Just trying to pencil things in so there’s space and time for travel and the like.
1 Like
There is a workers.coop online planning meeting to discuss this event on Friday, 30th June, 9:00-10:30am see the workers.coop forum for the URL:
I’m aiming to be there.
1 Like
There is a poll on forum.workers.coop for dates the the gathering, please vote assuming that the CoTech event would be the day before.
Thanks @chrisc
It’s looking like worker coop fed evernt will be on 25-26 October … so we’d be 24 October.
Chris - can you check if Warehouse is free?
Agenda items?
The big one is whether to integrate into the Workers.coop Federation (or semi-integrate - I guess it could take many possible forms?)
I’ve suggested on Day 1 of the worker coop event we have a session on AI and worker coops - so it’d be great if Co-Tech members can come along and contribute to that.
Maybe Co-Tech could facilitate that??
I’m personally also interested in how we can team up with workers.coop and other organisations to reach out to non-co-ops about converting into a coop; or to reach out to potential start-ups about the worker coop model.
Any other suggestions?
2 Likes
I sent a email to enquire about the availability and cost to the email address on the contact page and copied it to you and the reply contained:
I believe from last year Co-Tech counted as a standard organisation, so we’d charge £100/session for the cafe and £75/session for the large room. We charge for morning, afternoon and evening sessions. It’s £3 per head for unlimited hot drinks, including lovely Revolver coffee.
Sadly the WH Cafe co-op ceased trading last month and we’re looking for a new cafe operator, but can’t say that they will be in place by October, so if you were looking for catering, we might not be able to provide it, but can put you in touch with some other people who can
So if we assume that we only need the cafe then it would be £300 for the whole day including the evening and if we also need the upstairs room for the morning and afternoon sessions then it would be £450 plus £3 per head for tea / coffee.
How about we start by just booking the cafe and if it looks like we are going to need to have two different sessions happening at the same time then we also book the upstairs room?
I’m wondering if the upstairs room is a bit lighter and more flexible as a space for workshop / discussions sitting in a circle, but can’t quite remember. Feels more work-like, a place for joining in and more serious decisions. I do remember the cafe being darker and also feeling like we were all more dispersed with more random seating and less conducive to focussing (or maybe that’s just me with the prospect of imminent food/coffee!) … so my gut instinct would be to go for the upstairs as the primary meeting space. If it’s large enough?
How about upstairs in the day for the main business … and the cafe for a party in the evening??
£150 upstairs morning and afternoon plus the £3 per head teas etc
£100 cafe, evening party/social )which maybe workers.coop members could drop in on if they are arriving in the evening? And include a small allocation for some teas/coffees as some folk like that in the evening (or we could just NOT have hot drinks and that would be okay too).
Then we’d need to organise drinks / catering:
Do we go out for lunch or organise catering in the Warehouse? It is good to have a break from the room we;'re working in all day if possible.
We could just find somewhere nearby?
I think we need to finalise a proposed Co-Tech programme and run a poll asap to find out who’s likely to come along; and work out what/if we should charge for coming this time.
1 Like
That all sounds good to me @Louise, sorry I haven’t been around this week, would it be worth us having a chat next week to get the ball rolling before August?
Sorry to be that person, but it’s there a lift to the upstairs?
2 Likes