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Text of the page (random words):
for community activities the purchase has come about following a very successful campaign to find almost half a million pounds which has included community loan stock crowd funding personal loans and gifts and a loan from co operative community finance whose press release has alerted me to the story october books was for many years run as a workers co op but in the past two years has restructured with committed customers who are prepared to do some volunteering also able to become members of the co op thank you to martin meteyard who has sent me some more details about the membership arrangements you can access the ccf press release here but a rather more unusual way of hearing how the bookshop bought the bank is told in song form by singer songwriter jaquie daniels here posted on june 19 2018 by bibbyoncooperatives tagged administration co operative and community benefit societies act community benefit societies hastings pier comments no comments on lessons to be learned from hastings lessons to be learned from hastings there is some very painful news from hastings where the community benefit society running hastings pier was forced some months ago to go into administration funds raised through the high profile community share issue were lost that s bad enough but what s really upsetting is what has just happened now the community dusted itself down rallied round used crowdfunding and came up with a very strong rescue package for the pier new hope for a really good end result you d think yet what has transpired is that the administrator has disregarded the community s rescue proposal and has made a deal to dispose of the business to an entirely commercial operator administrators can of course do this i would strongly encourage you to read the moving blog which jess steele from hastings has just posted what i think is particularly important is jess s comments about the need for a different process of administration for community benefit societies as she says it is wrong to use a commercial administration process for a civic community asset applying private property sector solutions to a civic problem that the community is capable and willing to solve for itself given half a chance she goes on to propose a community administration act for use where a community asset is at stake supportive backbench mps are being sought to try to bring this forward here s her final thought the two battles for hastings pier 2006 13 and 2017 18 stand in deadly stark contrast to each other in one a very active community was eventually empowered by public funds to achieve the renovation of a derelict structure in the other the fully restored asset was removed secretly from 5 000 shareholder owners and then subjected to a commercial process that led unfathomably to where we are now posted on may 2 2018 by bibbyoncooperatives tagged co operative democracy co operative group comments 2 comments on voting time at the co operative group voting time at the co operative group the co operative group has now sent out agm and ballot papers to those of its members who are eligible to vote the ballot paper includes the usual motion to approve the directors remuneration report and also an additional motion to approve a change in the executive remuneration policy however the group does not make it easy to know what precisely these mean to get the details you have to go online to read the annual report it s worth a look for convenience i am giving the link here executive pay can be as the remuneration report itself says an emotive topic and it would be utopian to imagine that the group could necessarily practise the wage equality successfully operated at suma wholefoods the group says that it aims to set executive salaries and bonuses at the middle of the going market rate although this is what a lot of companies say and it s by no means always easy to know quite what this means in practice the motion to make a change to the executive remuneration policy actually refers to a proposal to increase the ceo s bonus arrangements while keeping his base salary unchanged one thing did strike me from the report the ratio between the highest and lowest paid employees of the group is 1 48 on base pay alone and 1 96 when bonuses are taken into account the group did some recent separate research on gender pay which found that women s pay is on average mean average 18 9 below that of men this report is also not easy to find so to help you here s the relevant link back to the agm there s also a motion asking members to approve a rule change again i feel the group should have offered more readily accessible information before asking members to vote having looked at the details i can advise you that the main substantive change is to increase the maximum term non executive directors can serve from six to nine years i m personally not convinced by this proposal and in the absence of any clear reasoning i am not at all sure i will be voting in favour posted on april 30 2018 by bibbyoncooperatives tagged co operative capital phone co op comments no comments on commenting on comments commenting on comments there are two comments to my post on saturday on the phone co op agm which because of the way wordpress tucks them away in the left hand margin you may miss the first is from amanda davis who has had problems leaving a comment due to the adverts which wordpress imposes which of course i have no control over i have wondered for some time whether the adverts are an issue and whether i should get them removed the only way to do this of course being to pay wp extra money myself i already pay wp for the bibbyoncooperatives org domain and am loath to contribute too much more to a us multinational but if people feel this is a problem or if the adverts which i don t see are inappropriate or offensive then please let me know the second comment is a very interesting one from martin meteyard about the nature of members capital in the phone co op and whether it should be treated as risk capital or simply some form of quasi building society savings martin raises a highly significant question and one which as he says the recent debates at the phone co op haven t brought out the question needs discussing posted on april 28 2018 by bibbyoncooperatives tagged co operative democracy midcounties co operative phone co op comments 3 comments on remote democracy at the phone co op s agm remote democracy at the phone co op s agm the members of the phone co op have overwhelmingly voted to transfer engagements to midcounties co op or to put it bluntly to be taken over it s a move which admittedly now has to be formally ratified at a second sgm i personally think is the right decision the sgm in sheffield was well organised and good humoured the main vote was 202 in favour and 17 against i took part remotely using live streaming and an online voting facility well done to the phone co op for making this possible there were it is true technical glitches but they were overcome this was an interesting experience for me the first time i have participated remotely at a co op general meeting it is i think much better if at all possible to attend an event like this in person there s a commitment involved which isn t necessarily there is you re sitting at home online at risk of all sorts of other distractions i had to momentarily dip out of proceedings when a friend came round wanting to use my printer for an emergency printing job for his youth group there s a need for some etiquette for online participants too some people in usual social media style were passing running comments not always complimentary as speakers were in mid flow and i m not sure this is something which we should encourage but participating online did mean i could attend an agm of a local coop i m involved in at 11am this morning and still be enfranchised for the phone co op meeting so good work posted on april 20 2018 by bibbyoncooperatives tagged rootstock comments no comments on taking stock at rootstock taking stock at rootstock rootstock occupies its own special and important niche in the british coop world taking in money from supportive investors and investing the capital in radical cooperative ventures particularly housing coops the spring newsletter from rootstock has just arrived through my letter box and i see it s also available online here worth a peruse posted on april 17 2018 by bibbyoncooperatives tagged co operative energy midcounties co operative phone co op comments no comments on the future at the phone co op the future at the phone co op i can t get to sheffield on april 28 th for the special general meeting of the phone co op but i have today registered to participate and vote at the event online it s commendable that the phone co op makes this facility available although i guess that you d expect a telecoms business to be able to organise this if anyone could the sgm is pretty significant there s a proposal on the table for the phone co op to merge itself into midcounties co operative one of britain s regional independent coop societies the technical coop term is a transfer of engagements midcounties has a deserved reputation both for its commitment to cooperation and member democracy and for running an effective business as well as its retail stores in a large chunk of the south midlands and welsh borders midcounties also runs the co operative energy subsidiary as well as a national network of childcare nurseries it s demonstrated i think that coops can be coops but also business savvy when necessary i ve written in the past of the importance of the phone co op britain s only significant independent consumer coop of the past twenty years i m afraid though that i am not convinced that the current board s quite risky business strategy for the coming years if the phone co op was to continue alone will keep the business viable i see that the board is itself arguing for support of the midcounties proposal so my view is that midcounties will be a very good fit for the phone co op in fact you could go so far as to argue that phone co op members are fortunate that midcounties has been prepared to get involved we ll see what member democracy decides in less than two weeks posted on march 27 2018 by bibbyoncooperatives tagged community land trusts self build housing uruguay comments no comments on co operative housing co operative housing i m interested in co operative solutions of all kinds to britain s housing crisis and try in my own neighbourhood to help by being a trustee of our local community land trust britain is behind other countries here s a moving video on self build housing co operatives in uruguay the link to which has arrived in my email account by a roundabout route let me pass on the link posted on march 27 2018 by bibbyoncooperatives tagged building societies building societies members association mutuality comments 1 comment on building society democracy building society democracy i have a series of opened envelopes on my desk in front of me all from building societies telling me that it s time to cast my votes to approve their accounts approve the directors remuneration and elect my directors it s pretty frustrating i am pleased that we still have mutually owned building societies after the demutualisation madness twenty years ago i support the idea of the societies being member owned i want to use my votes and yet democracy is not on the agenda not one of the building societies offers me a contested election for the board the days when there were candidates for building society boards particularly at the nationwide who were unendorsed by the existing board and who were generally put up by the grassroots building societies members association have passed the bsma now seems a very small little affair unfortunately of course building societies are complex financial institutions and we need competent directors but that doesn t necessarily mean that the only suitable board members are those initiated into the magic circle of non exec directorships and who hold accountancy qualifications or have spent their lives in banking or finance it s frustrating how few directors mention in their election addresses that they support mutuality for example on the other hand my relationship with the societies of which i am a member is also pretty much solely a transactional one although i do try to save with some of the smaller societies i am fickle in my favours tending to look above all at the interest rates being paid and nothing much else so i will vote but i will vote without enthusiasm and i will vote will no clear sense of how mutual organisations such as building societies can at this late stage in their development ever really be once again genuinely member owned and member responsive posted on march 19 2018 by bibbyoncooperatives tagged cooperatives in france scop workers co operatives comments no comments on a scoping exercise for the british co op movement a scoping exercise for the british co op movement i said in my last blog that i wanted to return to the question of what the british co op movement and hopefully a future co operatively minded labour government can learn from recent developments in france where workers coops scops sociétés coopératives et participatives have been growing in numbers in recent years there are currently around 2300 scops they include start ups employee buy outs of existing companies for example when the owner wants to sell up and employee rescues of failing businesses always the hardest option of the three in the last category i mentioned here the worker led rescue of the daily nice matin newspaper chain at the time the co op was being established i ve also mentioned several times the sea france ferry co op now unfortunately no longer trading i got talking to eleonore perrin massebiaux at the ways forward conference in manchester last month and afterwards she kindly gave me the link to a recent article she s written which provides a very good introduction to what is happening n france elly also sent me a link to a useful publication beyond the crisis from the european worker co op federation cecop which somehow i missed when it came out a few years ago cecop s report gives detailed information on what s happening in france spain and italy the version online claims to be a draft but since no final text appears to have been published we won t worry too much about that post navigation older posts search archives august 2018 june 2018 may 2018 april 2018 march 2018 february 2018 january 2018 november 2017 september 2017 august 2017 april 2017 march 2017 february 2017 january 2017 december 2016 october 2016 september 2016 august 2016 july 2016 june 2016 may 2016 april 2016 march 2016 february 2016 january 2016 december 2015 november 2015 september 2015 august 2015 july 2015 june 2015 may 2015 april 2015 march 2015 february 2015 january 2015 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