[P2P-F] Fwd: Draft Appeal - From Open Co-operativism report to Open Coop organisation

Tue Apr 14 15:14:33 CEST 2015

dear friends,

thank you so much for spreading the word on the below, as requested by
Stacco Troncoso:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stacco Troncoso <staccotroncoso at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 7:44 PM
Subject: Re: Draft Appeal - From Open Co-operativism report to Open Coop
organisation
To: Henry Tam <htam.global.t21 at btinternet.com>
Cc: Gary Alexander <garyalexand at gmail.com>, Jon Walker <
walker.jon.99 at gmail.com>, Pat Conaty

Hi friends. I've made a post compiling info about the Open Coops
Development agency in Common Transition.org. Please share the following
extract with your contacts or in Social Media. Thanks!

*Facebook/G+/Diaspora*
The Open Coop Development Agency, a proposal by Henry Tam. "Unlike their
traditional for-profit counterparts, Open Cooperatives are oriented towards
the common good in their statutes. They draw their membership from several
classes of stakeholders to co-produce both material and immaterial commons.
Another distinguishing quality is that they seek to address the issue of
global social and political power. What is missing is an Open Coop
equivalent of the CERN Accelerator, something to initiate changes with ever
greater momentum that will eventually escalate the energy to an entirely
new level. We propose to make the social economy hyper-productive,
hyper-competitive, hyper-cooperative. This is the mission of the Open Coop
Development Agency – a stand-alone or a federated network with existing
pro-Open Coop groups and institutions as supporters."
http://wp.me/p5UWKD-436
<http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwp.me%2Fp5UWKD-436&h=SAQH-9yw_&enc=AZPrujFSqO2KuUc2-CC-ww5tIZODcPAgvLY-fmi8q4R5DhCCt46rYpHcWWm3NywnDfHuZxoBOZLH_2NnX6EEpSFclZHTx07mqTCppfJqGDgiBq6e3hCqO_25L7poDl-FM8XefJDs-vah-_KGNH1KDd22-ZTnmvQt5SwEGxlzYstvJuM4rThbJ_8JAb6bln5Ha48Nr0iK2wW616Ddoj9qI_mn&s=1>

*Twitter et*

An agency to develop #OpenCoops <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23OpenCoops> for
the #Commons <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Commons>. "Open Cooperatives
are oriented towards the common good" http://wp.me/p5UWKD-436

On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 6:26 PM, Henry Tam <htam.global.t21 at btinternet.com>
wrote:

>  Many thanks to Jon and Gary for your comments.
>
> On Gary’s point about whether there is the beginning of a team working on
> the development of some form of OCDA, I’m pretty sure Pat, Michel, John and
> other colleagues meeting on 25 April will look at this issue in the context
> of Synergia’s evolution.  For any meta system to succeed, it must steer a
> path between Hobbesian authoritarianism and Godwinesque anarchy – too much
> unaccountable centralised control, and it would be swiftly rejected; too
> little collective coordination, and it would never get off the ground.
> Accountability through a respected group of prominent stakeholder
> organisations could be the way to start building a value-adding mechanism.
>
> Jon, your point about potential obstacles resonated with me a lot.  I’ve
> had a bit of experience too working with community-based and/or social
> purpose organisations, and there’s always considerable scepticism (and in
> some cases, hostility) when it comes to the suits coming in to tell ‘real
> people’ how to do things.  When I led the ‘Together We Can’ programme for
> the previous government, one of the initiatives we came up with was that of
> Guide Neighbourhoods, where we enabled community groups in deprived
> neighbourhoods in different parts of England and Wales to visit other
> groups/neighbourhoods and learn from them.  It boosted the ‘teaching’
> groups as they felt respected in being asked to share their experience; and
> it went down very well with the ‘learning’ groups as they were much better
> disposed to find out how their peers overcame comparable problems rather
> than having to listen to a bunch of rootless consultants.  When it comes to
> cooperative/commons groups, if we can help relationship-building to develop
> as mutual-support networks in social and economic terms, that could draw
> more in who can see beyond ‘someone else taking up our time’ to ‘we may be
> able to count on someone else one day’.
>
> Getting economies of scale advantages without losing democratic
> connections will be the big challenge and also the great prize.  Once
> groups find they can raise funds more easily, negotiate with conventional
> corporations with greater clout, etc their backing for a development agency
> that will bat for them, will continue to grow.
>
> The optimist in me wants to say, while this may all be some way off, but
> the glass is already one tenth full.
>
> In solidarity,
>
> Henry
>
>
> On 12/2/15 17:13, "Gary Alexander" <garyalexand at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > Firstly, thanks to Jon for these very helpful comments. I also think
> that
> > using Viable Systems principles is actually necessary to help all the
> separate
> > parts of our movement to come together. From Jon's comments, I would
> > especially highlight 2) dealing with conflicts of interest, both between
> > organisations and between people within organisations. If we are setting
> up a
> > collaborative society we need to know how to collaborate, and this is
> not
> > trivial in our culture. It should be an explicit and early function of
> Henry’s
> > proposal.
> >
> > Henry, I like your proposal very much. As Jon says, it is the beginning
> of a
> > meta-system. Do you have the beginnings of a team working on it?
> >
> > As for Pat and David’s paper, I thought it was excellent, and have
> promoted it
> > several times on Facebook and Twitter. It covers so much in a few pages.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Gary
> >
> > ================================
> > Dr Gary Alexander
> >
> > Author of "eGaia, Growing a peaceful, sustainable Earth through
> > communications"
> >
> > Website: http://earthconnected.net
> >
> > Mobile: 07766 - 711999
> >
> > On 12 Feb 2015, at 15:39, Jon Walker <walker.jon.99 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Dear All
> >>
> >> Before my comments here’s a very quick history for those who don’t know
> me.
> >> I spent around 30 years making my living setting up and working in
> coops in
> >> the UK, form small whole food-shops, to food-processing plants, to a
> big
> >> warehouse (Suma) to the Out of this World supermarkets which pioneered
> >> ethical consumerism, and now I’m a director of the Green Valley Grocer
>  - a
> >> community owned multi-stakeholder coop in my village, currently
> fighting off
> >> Aldi.   So my perspective is always from inside coops.  I came across
> the
> >> Viable Systems Model while working in Suma and used it to help to
> create an
> >> effective organisational structure which was 100% in line with
> individual
> >> autonomy and creativity and coop principles and works for large
> numbers.  20
> >> years later I was invited by Cloughjordan eco-village and helped them
> to
> >> design a structure for their project.  In 2002 I met, married and
> started to
> >> work with Angela Espinosa who also worked with the VSM (up to and
> including
> >> governmental level in Colombia) and we wrote a book on the VSM and
> >> sustainability (kindly reviewed by Pat for Resurgence) and since then
> we’ve
> >> been busy working on these ideas.   Coops are right at the heart of our
> >> thinking.  As an insider, the VSM is incredibly valuable  - whatever
> you do ,
> >> you have to be organised effectively.
> >>
> >> So -  my thoughts:
> >>
> >> Pat and David’s paper is spot-on in identifying that we need to start
> >> building links, finding ways to create new wholes out of the existing
> parts.
> >> which is why I’m keen to support and develop John’s Synergia project.
> >>
> >> Henry’s proposal is again right in line with this  -  we need a stable,
> >> accessible central function which is there to support the individual
> coops
> >> (the 8 jobs stated for the OCDA)  but also needs to start developing
> the
> >> links.  I would call this a meta-system.   So I would add an R&D
> function
> >> which looks at ways in which this already works (Mondragon,  Emilia
> Romagna
> >> etc etc ) and then start to talk to people like me out there and
> showing why
> >> this is a good idea.  Maybe organise regional conferences to start
> developing
> >> inter-trading or whatever mutually supportive functions can be
> identified in
> >> order to begin a collaborative economy.   I’m sure P2P will have much
> to
> >> contribute.
> >>
> >> From my experience there are a number of obstacles to making this work.
> >>
> >> a) People in coops (in the UK anyways) are suspicious of people who try
> to
> >> advise them.  Often they are seen as outsiders who’ve never worked in a
> coop
> >> and are making a very nice living telling the real cooperators what to
> do.
> >>
> >> b) Making a living in business is tough, and there’s often little time
> for
> >> thinking about anything else.  This tends to lead to a very inward
> looking
> >> perspective and a lack of interest in working with other coops.  I’ve
> seen
> >> coops refuse to share expertise,  or to work with others when there
> were very
> >> clear advantages, but a slight loss of autonomy.
> >>
> >> Maybe my experiences were particularly bad,  but these issues have to
> be
> >> dealt with.
> >>
> >> There are ways forward:
> >>
> >> 1) Establish a unifying vision which provides the cohesion for the
> larger
> >> whole.    This is partly what the Open Coop document does,  but needs
> to be
> >> developed and discussed so there’s a sense of solidarity with something
> >> larger.
> >>
> >> 2) Deal with conflicts of interest.  Most coops are trading and thus in
> >> competition with each other.  Ways must be found to ensure these
> conflicts
> >> don’t shake the whole thing to pieces.  The change in mind-set from
> >> competition to collaboration is not a trivial undertaking.
> >>
> >> 3) Make sure the synergies are clear.  Mutual support,  economies of
> scale,
> >> supportive markets.
> >>
> >> 4) Establish the value of a development body for the network which can
> look
> >> at issues impossible for the individual coops.
> >>
> >> 5) Clarify the way autonomy can be used as the basis for the effective
> >> functioning of the network.  Coops will need to know they won’t be
> throwing
> >> away their capacity to self organise and won’t be forced to take order
> from
> >> above.
> >>
> >>
> >> All of this is straight from the viable systems model,  which has
> always
> >> helped to point us in the right direction.   Currently Angela and I are
> >> working with a colleague who is using these ideas with networks of
> businesses
> >> (not coops !)  in Mexico and Colombia, attempting to collaborate to
> lower
> >> their environmental impact , and the results are much better than
> expected.
> >>
> >> Hope this helps.
> >>
> >> Jon
> >>
> >> *******
> >>
> >>
> >
>

-- 
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