Youth is not wasted on the young

On Saturday I went to the open day of #cocamp the 3 yearly international camp for the Woodcraft Folk and their associated international movements. So who are they and why as a member of a co-operative should you be interested?

Who are they?
The Woodcraft Folk, although a fully autonomous and independent organisation, is closely aligned with (and gets funding from) the co-operative movement basically the youth wing. I think they merged with the official youth wing back in the 40's. For those interested there is a whole raft of heritage and historical documents here.

So they are a youth organisation like Scouts but without the woggles and all that stuff about God and the Queen.  They are democratically run by their members (anyone involved over 16), where children and young adults are taught about values such as self-help, co-operation and all those other words we love.

Why should you be interested?
This is the place we will get the next generation of co-operators from, they will want to work in worker co-ops, start-up the next Suma's, phone co-op's or (by the looks of the adverts/films on this site.) media co-ops. They will think of ways of democratically organising, using social networks and other technology we can't even imagine.  The kids and young adults I spoke to were articulate, confident and instinctively  co-operated with each other.

The best example I saw was five bicycles pulling and another group pushing a "mobile DF's centre" up a hill. (If you imagine a 3x3m wooden construction on wheels, with walls, a roof  and a 3 piece suite inside you won't be far off.)

If we can get these people to move into the wider co-operative movement, help them grow and develop, the movement won't just be in safe hands they will far surpass what's been achieved in the last generation.

The actual visit

Cocamp has been running from Saturday 30th July to Tuesday 9th August 2011. In their own words from the website:


"The camp will be an opportunity for young people from across the world to learn about, and put into practice, co-operative values, with these values also embedded in the planning, organisation, and programme of the event"
 
Here are some photos from my visit to their open day:

This is a picture of the map, the camp is split into Villages, which are a circle of tents where people camp, cook and organise together.

Villages are grouped into Towns for larger activities, each Town had a: Town Hall, Library and Cafe. There were four towns in all and roughly 2500 people on site from places as diverse as: Austria, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Bradford (the village I ate with).

I should mention Bob Cannell of Suma looked after me for the day, for which I was very grateful.

Here is a picture of a solar and wind power station in the Scottish Woodcraft town, there town was entirely powered by renewable energy. Although I didn't spot them I noticed a Dulas (Welsh worker co-op) van in the car park, so there must have been a Welsh contingent some where as well.I saw groups from Bradford, Manchester (Chortlton), Hebdon Bridge, and loads from London.





I also bumped into the Co-operative College  who ran a workshop on co-operative trading. Children learnt about co-operatives, fair trade and globalisation through running a trading game involving: a bank, diary farm, wholesaler, retailer, cafe etc.  See the picture.

Another Co-operative College activity was called "Co-op in a box", where kids explored the co-operative values and principles and each box held items needed to produce things; from hair platting, friendship band, smoothly making and cake decorating.

The groups then decided what to do; how much to charge and then went about setting up their co-op (One kid I heard made £30). Interestingly there was some debate between the parents/leaders about what to do with the "profits" as some presumed the money should go to charity (so even the parents learnt something about true co-ops). Thankfully the kids did choose what to do with the money (it was their co-op after all).

It wasn't all co-op stuff; here are some pictures of posters put around the camp for other sessions.  All the session were voluntary and the kids could decide what to go to (and quite a lot were their idea too).

This last picture shows copies of the daily newspaper which was written and edited by the younger kids and members of the DF's who are the 16 -21 yrs group.  Each evening the paper was sent to a local newspaper printers to be printed. First edition is here.

So if you have kids and you want them to grow up confident and able to co-operate why not look into sending them to the Woodcraft Folk.




Further Reading
Woodcraft Folk
Woodcraft Heritage site
DF's Website (16 - 21's)

Governance and Management structures in worker co-operatives

The other day a consumer co-operative Board member asked if I could send them some info on what worker co-operative governance and management structures look like.  I always jump at the chance to inform fellow co-operators.  The only problem was I couldn't find what I was looking for. So below is my attempt to set-out some very generalised 'types' of structure.

Most worker co-operatives evolve their own structure and practices as they grow and mature. Also theory and what I've observed won't always reflect the situation in your particular co-op. So please please set me straight and provide examples of how you structure your worker co-op.  Also if you know of good web links please share.

www.cultivate.coop does have some interesting articles and I might replicate this blog there, if people think its good enough.

First a quick look at terms:
Governance: Is about how the views/will of the members (who own the co-op) are represented. How they set their: vision, goals and strategic direction of the co-op.

Management: On the other hand is about the achieving these goals, the detail and managing resources on a day-to-day basis.

"Governance pertains to the vision of an organization, and translation of the vision into policy, management is all about making decisions for implementing the policies.".

Governing Body: Is the group of people who govern the organisation on behalf of the members.  In a Company this is the "Board of Directors".

For a lot lot more info on Legal Structures and Governance have a look at our www.uk.coop/simplyseries 

Below are the types of structure I have seen in worker co-ops in order of scale. I give a brief description followed by a diagram. In the diagrams I attempt to illustrate Governance and Management relationships.

Key


The Collective
When people first come together informally or create a small worker co-operative.  They often start as collectives; Governance and Management can be very difficult to separate, usually all members are at the same level in terms of Governance, formally as Directors (or act as if directors) and operate using a flat management structure (everyone gets an equal say on issues).

Some people may take the 'lead' in a certain areas or activities but this may swap and change depending on the circumstance. I've tended to see this structure from 2-10 people.



Growth
As a worker co-operative grows or becomes more complex/specialised (around 8-15 people, some last even longer) it becomes more and more difficult to keep everyone informed and the level of interaction needed for decision making becomes too high (there is also the issue of newer members not being 'experianced' enough).  At this point two things happen:

Firstly; Governance moves to a system of representation where some members are elected by the membership to represent their views and these representatives are delegated to make certain decisions on their behalf.  Some co-operatives choose Directors on a completely open annual elections basis (at AGM), others staggered elections 3 one year 4 the next etc. Others have certain designated places for certain roles within the organisation (for example the Finance role).

Issues with this approach like any form of representations, can break down if: members don't feel their views are represented or there is a lack of clarity on level/type of decision that has been delegated. Co-operatives UK is currently writing a guide called "Simply Governance" so watch this space for more information.

Secondly; Management changes and this can change in variety of ways:

Self-managing work teams
Usually this means, as co-operatives grows they split into teams; based on areas of the business: Cafe/Shop, Sales/Designers/Printers, Warehouse/Drivers/Buyers etc.

These become self-managing collectives, who then nominate representatives from their own team to the Governing Body


Hierarchy system
Usually this means a general manager is chosen; sometimes elected or specifically recruited/selected by the governing body.  They are accountable to the governing body, and have been given authority to manage the organisation. In larger co-ops there may be multiple levels of management. A term used for this relationship is; "Management is not a status but a function"



Even larger structures
Suma is the largest worker co-operative in the UK with around 130 employees.  They operate on an equal pay basis and don't have a CEO or executive managers in the normal sense of the term.  They also multi-role; which means members work in a least two different "Function Areas" of the Business.

Suma is governed by periodic General Meetings for all the membership, and an elected Board of Directors. On the Management side; the business is divided into "Function Area" Such as: Buyers, Warehouse, Drivers etc.  

These like the above operate relatively autonomously with each area having a "Functional Area Co-ordinator" who are elected to co-ordinate an area and come together with other "FACs" to co-ordinate operations as a whole.



Suma is the largest using this structure, and there are a lot of interesting theories about democratic management and social relationships (how far can you go). One theory is Dunbar's number:

"A theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships...^[1] This says that numbers larger than the Dunbar number generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar's number. It has been suggested it lies between 100 and 230, with a commonly used value of 150.[2 "

It might be no co-incidence that Suma has reached this size.  Is there a natural size for a worker co-operative? What should a worker co-operative do it if wishes to retain a democratic management structure but grow beyond 150? One suggestion is for the co-op to divide or create off-shoots, forming "Consortia" Corporate Group Structures of smaller co-operatives that share common approaches, branding and inter-trade with each other.

Mondragon
Some might say the Pinnacle of worker co-operative achievement is Mondragon in Spain. Governance and Management in Mondragon is very different to UK worker co-operatives; for a start it employs 85,066 people! It also has a very standard management hierarchy (although there are maximum pay ratio's and most managers are trained from within).

Mondragon is not like a traditional PLC either and operates more like an Economy in itself.  Mondragon is a type of Consortia mentioned above, where its member co-ops have their own bank, social security, education, research and development services.  All the 250+ businesses are split into Group; Divisions; Units. Each individual company is semi-autonomous and may leave the Mondragon Group (and some have).

Modragon's Governance is also on a representative system with workers voting for Board Members of their individual company, who in turn vote for the next level up

This below diagram illustrates one companies relationship to the overall structure.

Further Reading
Durbar's Number
Difference between Management and Governance
http://www.uk.coop/simplyseries 

Worker co-operative election results 2011

Thank you for all those members voting, we can now publish the results of the worker co-operative council elections 2011. The results are:

Candidate	Organisation	No of votes
Britta Werner	Unicorn Grocery	237
Richard Crook	Essential Trading Co-operative	203
Edward Russell	Co-operative Web	175
Athene Ellana Richford	GreenCity Wholefoods	121
Steven Glynn	Sustainable Change Cooperative	114
M J Ray	Turo Technology LLP	64

Voter turn-out was 21% and I would like to congratulate Britta and Ed for being re-elected and Richard and Athene who will be new members of the Council.  They will join members not up for election this year:

Alison Banton, Dulas

Bob Cannell, Suma Wholefoods

Sion Whellens, Calverts

The next council meeting will take place on Friday 25th June at Congress in Birmingham. So if you would like to talk to your new and existing representatives please come along to Congress and Co-operatives UK's AGM.