The WCC is elected by worker coops in membership of Coops UK. It has 7 members (4 places up for election this year). Its job is to advise Coops UK and help it deliver for us, and help shape the future of the worker coop movement.
But it’s done a lot more, including putting on Worker Coop Weekend, coop skills trainings and organising Solidfund. We need people to stand for the WCC to make it a diverse, effective group. If your worker coop is in Coops UK, you can nominate anyone. It’s a few days’ commitment a year, you will be reimbursed for travel etc expenses and loss of earnings.
Closing date for nominations is 15 April, so not long left if you want to step up. Here’s the link
Just out of interest, Sion, and from your experience, I’d like to ask what the committee needs currently ? New energy and ideas are always welcome, of course, but in terms of skills, etc? Diversity, which you mentioned?
I had a look at the link and it’s got 2 tech co-ops and 4 CoTech co-ops represented, I think, and appears to have some gender balance, glad to see that.
Thanks
Hard to say what gaps we have currently, because it’s an elected group (7 + 2 co-opted for skills and experience), and 4 places are up for (re) election this year, then the composition of the WCC does depend on who gets most votes from worker co-ops when the ballot papers go out. That depends on the 200-word personal statement, and it’s not 1 member 1 vote because the voting is weighted by size of coop. Long way of saying that it’s not appointed on skills and experience, except for the co-options. In the past it’s sometimes co-opted people who stood, but didn’t get elected.
My own view is that because it’s primarily a policy and thinking/planning group, it works well when we have a good mix of people who, at one end, are interested in wrestling with the Co-ops UK relationship and strategic thinking about strengthening the worker co-op movement; to people with ideas about effective communication and event planning; to people with specific skills (e.g. worker co-op HR, political skills, project management skills). It’s also good to have people from different industries and demographics.