Annual Scottish Worker Co-operative Forum

Last Friday I was involved in organising an event with Co-operative Mutuality Scotland and Co-operative Development Scotland. The event was held in Glasgow, bringing together worker co-operatives from all over Scotland. We discussed closer working between co-operatives and getting the most out of the business support on offer from organisations like Co-operative Development Scotland.

Lisa McNair from Unicorn Grocery ran a practical workshop on HR issues and Bob Cannel from Suma talked about implementing The Code of Governance for worker co-operatives.

There was some really useful knowledge sharing and I intend to collect together resources from participants and make them available to other Co-operatives members. If your Co-operative has useful member recruitment, induction, disciplinary resources; please send them to me as it can save new co-operatives reinventing the wheel.

Members of The Employee Co-operative Council (Our representative body for worker co-operatives) also attended the event and held their quarterly meeting. There was also ample time for members to catch up with each other, and get to know new members like The Very People a PR and Marketing Business and City Design Co-operative an architect and urban design business.

CMS hope to make this event an yearly opportunity for worker co-operatives to get together and we hope to be back next year.