CoTech Coordinator Working Group/ Meeting Notes/ 26th of November 2021

Agenda

- Actions assigned last meeting - Cooperative Society versus Private Company versus Limited By Guarantee

Actions assigned last meeting update

- John - Change to fund

 - Nothing much on this
 - More looking at the entity question
 - Did Chris know this was assigned to him, maybe not!
 - This said, moved it forward by prompting a discussion on the CoTech forum, which is really useful

- Alex - Organiser job, hiring process

 - Asked Ellie from CAST about their network coordinator role
 - Got hold of their job descriptions - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_hPwBxJXy-Bci2bnIPPCuV2ePHzuprrEUG0iDPc6Hwg/edit?usp=sharing - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pVs8fKVYqbvEPqFUHWnPXK1xXo6sNwfrzet80nrwhJk/edit
 - These seem like a good basis to build from
 - Next steps: write a draft, put it on the forum for feedback and carry on discussion

- Chris - Entity

 - Not sure as he isn't here, fair enough
 - Move to every fortnight, so the next one will be December 10th
 - Advertise more widely
 - Chris suggested on the forum the Cooperative Society
 - John checked this out
 - So we are moving forward...

Cooperative Society versus Private Company versus Limited By Guarantee

- John

 - Seems fine
 - Went on the Coops UK website
 - Downloaded model rules, linked to on forum
 - Read the first 12-15 pages
 - Skimmed the rest
 - The only problem is the borrowing £10million
 - But this is of course mutable!
 - A good problem to have
 - In model rules member coops provide named representatives
 - Everything else is similar to limited by guarantee
 - They even have rotation of directors
 - Seems fine
 - Probably want another pair of eyes on it
 - Broad take: you can have a simple cooperative society

- Alex

 - Seems fine, fear that it would be convoluted doesn't seem too bad
 - Next step is to go on cotech forum and say that coop society is the preferred direction of travel
 - Ask for critical concerns or if people know a problem with it

Next steps

- Keep on trucking - If we can get them done for the 10th of December, we have the basis for the sessions - Cool, that timeline seems reasonable - The gathering might be delayed until April or May because Covid-19 and energy level