CoTech Coordinator Working Group/Proposals/Incorporation
The following is a draft proposal. If any section concerns you or you would like to add some detail, please contact someone in this thread on the forum: https://community.coops.tech/t/coordinator-proposal-working-group/2945
Draft Text of Proposal
- A legal entity known as Cotech shall be created.
- The voting members of Cotech will be the coops in Cotech that contribute to the fund.
- Coops that don't contribute to the fund are still eligible for associate membership.
- The new entity will run be run on sociocratic principles i.e. consent-based decision making by a General Circle that can delegate tasks to specific circles as needed.
Legal Form
The current suggestions for legal form are
- Limited by Guarantee
- Cooperative society
More forms here: https://www.uk.coop/start-new-co-op/start/choosing-your-legal-form
Both forms have advantages. And both forms have model rules we could use to get set up in a fairly standard way.
Associate Membership
Suggestions is that associates still appear on the cotech website, have access to cotech areas of forum, can attend meetings of circles. Indirectly benefit from coordinator role, but don’t have vote on who is hired or how to spend cotech’s money. Basically they get everything that all cotech members are currently getting.
Do they still have a vote on non-financial stuff? I think the answer is that if it comes down to the wire, no. But hopefully we don’t have to rely on that principle i.e. most circles and initiatives can involve associates with not too much effort to accommodate them. Their critical concerns are unlikely to be totally foreign to member coops.
We should regard associate membership as part of the pathway to full membership, but also that for some coops it might make sense to remain in association indefinitely.
Notes
Ltd vs Society might be a good use case for loomio, given that it’s pretty much one or the other. The point is need a fairly high turn-out to get it sorted. Ideally everyone who would join at the start of cotech inc takes the vote. And if we can't just pick one, maybe we could vote to pay coops UK (or whoever) to choose one for us?