Glasgow Gathering 2022/CoTech Coordinator
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Attendees
John (Code-operative), Liam (MediaBlaze Hosts), Chris C (Webarchitects), Steve (Dev Society), Chris L (Go Free Range), Polly (Outlandish), Szczepan (Animorph)
Notes
Coordinator working group - earlier drafts and notes
Some questions to consider
- How much do we want this?
- What does the coordinator do?
- What can volunteers not do?
- How does this fit into the new worker coop federation?
- Is there a way we can start small quickly and build as we go?
Objectives
- From an earlier draft
- Find big juicy projects for member coops that pay into the fund
- Increase funding of cotech e.g. through grants or more coops paying in or commission on cotech-acquired projects
- Enable member coops to contribute to network themselves e.g. working on website, finalising mission statement and outreach to rest of workers movement
- Now
- What is the problem we’re trying to solve?
- Bottom-up approach is promising, e.g. newsletter work was a clearly defined work
- Community building and management
- Skill-sharing knowledge and mutual understanding
- Stewarding general circle, keeping people in the loop and nudging which is difficult for volunteers to do.
- Sales needs work. Say writing list of companies, potential clients and partners, and approach them with CoTech in mind.
Considerations
- What are the smallest pressing needs we have?
- Perhaps we can focus on several small ones, take them one after another?
- The coordinator would need to be familiar and comfortable with co-ops in the network (matchmaking). It might be difficult to sell without knowing people, without refreshing our identity, slidedeck etc. With enough understanding of what we offer and how we normally sell, the person could starting any sales on behalf of CoTech. In order to do business development you need to understand the community first.
- Created value
- What’s the brand halo of CoTech (people contributing, being part of doing cool & important stuff).
- How do we know of other co-ops that can do work, who’s got capacity and up to date info to quickly summon support?
- Legal
- Should we incorporate to be able to apply for funding? Only if we are about to employ someone. People can invoice us with the current setup.
- Finacials
- Financial model playground
- How many months of work can we fund? Could hire a salesperson from within CoTech to sell for a commission.
- Financial feedback loop is needed, currently fund doesn’t increase with success of member co-ops which stops some co-ops from engaging.
- Could we consider similar measure to workers.coop (0.1% payroll?). If we can prove the value of the coordinator work then we can change how Fund works. We currently have 21 co-ops contributing to Fund.
Proposed way forward
- We might need to look into outputs to avoid the coordinator getting bogged down in general conversations.
- Key areas
- Internal - Community building
- External - Identity and communications
- Outcome - Finding sources of funding & sales to finance further work (including contributions from benefiting coops)
- Timeframe and costs
- How much/often should the person work (as a freelancer)?
- 1 day a week seems appropriate.
- How much could be the day rate?
- £225 a day being decent rate? Could hire person for up to 6 months with the current bank balance (and including other expenditures planned).
- Other costs? Do they need a budget? E.g. travels, subscriptions.
- 100 pounds a month allowance? Then they could propose if they have larger needs.
- How much/often should the person work (as a freelancer)?
- Review process
- 3 month review, then assess against the objectives. Someone would need to volunteer to help.
Actions
- Polly and John will have a stab at drafting the job ad.
- Chris L. will look into finances in more detail.
- Sz can help with putting the proposal on Loomio and broadcasting within the network.
- We need to look into making the recruitment process fair and anonymised.
- Carry out a 'temperature check' at tomorrow's session.