CoTech Spring 2019 Gathering now has added offers of very affordable accommodation in housing co-operatives - for a more interesting experience of Sheffield hospitality!
Full details and booking now open via CoTech Spring 2019 Gathering
Thanks 
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Stockpile your tickets now for the CoTech Spring Gathering - beat the Brexit rush!!
Actually it would be good if someone could book to test the booking interface and let me know if it needs any improvements ā¦
Ta
Ticket booked!! Canāt wait to see you guys and gals!
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Is anyone travelling and arriving the night before the gathering? Want to meet up for a drink on the Wednesday evening 24th April? Please post a message on this forum thread if so.
Sheffield-based people will definitely be in a pub somewhere - and everyoneās invited. Weāll sort out a venue and time to suit everyone, nearer the time.
Ticket bookingās now open via CoTech Spring 2019 Gathering
Looking forward to it
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Hey Jonathan, weāre going to be arriving on the Wednesday evening, not quite sure what time but almost certainly up for a pint or three.
Whatās happening re. planning for the Agenda? I have a couple of things that Iām keen to discuss, just wondering whether thereās been any thought yet on people leading groups, or workshops, or themes at all?
Also, do all the co-ops definitely know about the event in April? So few actually use this forum so it would be a pity if itās only being promoted here. @jonathan did you manage to get hold of people by phone and email?
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Hello Polly thanks for your message. Iāve emailed today, just now, and will chase up with phone calls next week, onwards. I previously phoned a sub-set of the membership but with sorting out other things I havenāt urged people to book until now.
Re. planning for the Agenda I intend to go through this thread, and any relevant emails, and put together a list of whatās already been proposed. Iāll do that by about Thursday/Friday next week and put a posting here, to prompt people to give some more input. Do please put your ideas up here if you havenāt already Hope that sounds OK?
And definitely letās have a pre-event pint on the Wednesday night
Just me coming from We Are Open! Booked my ticket and accommodation, looking forward to catching up with you all 
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I will be coming to the event
Looking forward to seeing yāall.
Would be interested to drift into a conversation about Show and Tell with Agaric - Sharing Work with Other Coops
And also this perhaps https://www.canvas.net/browse/athabascauniversity/courses/transition-cooperative-commonwealth - I think Iām just about to enroll. Starts today!
Also interested to float around feeling positive about all the cool things people are working on. X
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Sorry Cat & I at Dot Project wonāt be able to make this event which is such a shame - love to catch up with any outputs, or support virtually if we can!
Thanks to everyone whoās booked so far 
Ideas for the āContentā of the gathering are welcome also - Ta to https://community.coops.tech/u/nick and all whoāve already put forward suggestions
Just been watching an interesting video with Argentinian co-operators who will be visiting us at the Spring Gathering.
Itās over an hour long.
The first part explains how āinter-cooperatingā work-sharing in Argentinaās equivalent of CoTech.
At about 18:30 their planned visit to UK for the Spring Gathering is explained.
The rest of the video is a discussion, going into details of how the co-operative work-sharing works in practice. Worth watching
We now have a nice improvement to the wiki site, if you want to see some photos of the venue, and of some CoTech people ā¦
@jonathan suggested perhaps someone from Extinction Rebellion Sheffield could do a little talk to kick off the Climate Emergency and Tech section. Iām going to their meeting tonight and will see if anyone is interested in doing that.
What did they say Naomi please? Weāre thinking the Friday discussions will have a focus on environment.
Ah yes someone has volunteered to talk about how they think tech can help with the emergency, and also I would like to talk as well, but from a different perspective, about how activists can be manipulated into being lobbyists for eco-capitalism and how we might avoid that.
BTW, your avatar is disturbing, it looks like your head is on a spike
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Thatās great
Sorry about my disturbing head. Iāve had a bit of a haircut since then so perhaps Iāll update it
What do you think about a āCotech Question Timeā as part of the Gathering?
I imagine a fairly light hearted whole-group discussion for an hour or so, with a panel, and questions/contributions from the āaudienceā
Iāve got loads of questions Iād like to hear discussed, eg:
Whatās going to emerge as the Open Source alternative to Twitter, Facebook, Whatapp, etc?
What apps (or devices) do you use for good things like cycling, meeting people, food growing and preparation, daily life, etc?
What open source developments are you watching/involved with?
What organisations are you involved with in developing new tech solutions
Etc.
At the last event we really avoided having many whole-group sessions. We did a very short kick-off at the beginning (which as I understand it will now be a bit longer, thanks to @chrislowis doing a presentation on where CoTech has got to so far).
We also did summing-up and decision-making rounds at the end of each day, which were facilitated by @PeteBurden, @aaron and myself. These gave the working groups a few minutes each to share what theyād been doing, and bring sociocratic proposals to the group.
I liked this format, because weāre a really diverse group of people and so trying to find thematic or philosophical sessions that everyone feels are relevant to them is tricky. Meanwhile if people are up for running sessions that they think are interesting (such as how CoTech can help with the climate crisis, or what open source projects are going on), then itās great for them to be able to do that. However @jonathan, I really donāt think that you need to propose these sessions or feel any responsibility for recruiting people to them - if someone wants to run a session then they should also take responsibility for making sure that people go.
In some ways the Question Time format is something that we are trying at Space4 - having nights where we get panels and audience in to discuss subjects related to the tech co-op sector. I think those are great and they get more people to know about CoTech and what weāre up to. However, I mainly see these CoTech Gathering events as being about how to get CoTech to be more successful, rather than looking at the wider issues around technology.
In short, I am basically saying that I think that if anyone wants to discuss the questions that you have outlined here, that would be great, but I donāt think it should be a compulsory group session.
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On the wiki page I can see four things suggested to date for the agenda for next week: the climate crisis, the folks from Argentina, the Cotech website, and the item I suggested some while back - how can CoTech make a difference, a session which Iām still very happy and interested to lead if there is interest in it. The challenge I have, and Iām guessing that I may well not be alone in this, is that - as at the last CoTech event in these parts - I can only really spare the time to be there for one day. So I need to make a choice about which day looks to be the most effective and useful for me. Right now I have no basis on which to make that judgement. So it would be really helpful for me to get a better picture of the proposed structure of the event. It would also be good to get a sense of who is going to be there (is there a list that we can see?). Happy to be involved in helping to structure the event.
I totally agree with Pollyās perspective here.
In addition, I really donāt like panel discussions. I donāt like being on them or listening to them because I prefer more informal discussions where possible. Ofc this preference shouldnāt getting in the way of others participating in this format.
I would like to see some more sessions on collective bidding for example but donāt really have the capacity to put anything together beforehand. Should I just put something on the wiki?
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