Sociocracy for Co-ops – help is at hand!

There’ve been some changes at Co-operantics. Nathan has moved on to greater things and can now be found at our sister co-op: Culture Co-op . We hope to be able to continue our productive and supportive relationship.  Contact nathan@culture.coop

And I’m delighted to welcome Abbie Kempson as a Co-operantics Associate. Abbie is a member of Unicorn Co-operative Grocery where she has been a member for the past 8 years.

Abbie has 20 years’ experience in community organising and worker co-operation. Passionate about co-operative working and building social justice into the heart of our organisations, she has a long-held interest in participatory processes for collective decision making and action, and many years’ experience of delivering training in meeting facilitation and consent and consensus decision making.

Abbie is a Certified Sociocracy Trainer and has led on implementing sociocratic governance at Unicorn Grocery worker co-op. She is a founder member of People Support worker co-op, which provides a broad range of advice and support services to co-ops and is also run sociocratically.

Abbie is currently Leader of Sociocracy for All’s Co-op Circle. She was drawn to sociocracy by its practical approach to supporting democratic self-governance and its synergy with the core values of co-operation – from the self-help and self-responsibility of organising collectively to actively contribute to solving problems and improving our lives (whether in work, co-housing, activism, community organising), to supporting equality (one member one voice), equity (fairness through meeting the needs of all who engage) and solidarity.

Abbie is keen to share her skills and experience in implementing sociocracy in a large worker co-op with other co-ops. Please get in touch if you would like to book training or mentoring. Or watch this space for details of our next training course.

 

Co-operative online learning – a primer

This primer is written for teams or individuals tasked with organising &/or designing &/or delivery of online learning in a worker co-operative or co-operative network. It’s for people new to online learning or those who wish to review their practice.

Download pdf here:  CO-OPERATIVE ONLINE LEARNING – A PRIMER

Content summary

What do I mean by cooperative learning? How can we replicate those concepts and techniques in an online workshop? Benefits of online learning.

Organise
• skills audit &/or training needs analysis
• agree outline content and learning goals
• agree target audience
• decide which platform is most appropriate
• install the platform
• familiarise yourselves with the platform

Design
• planning, learning goals, scope of the training
• review any existing face to face (f2f) materials and discuss and agree which materials can be used with no adaptation, which need adaptation for online use and which are not suitable
• adapt existing exercises and design new ones with the online medium in mind
• produce preparatory reading, an agenda or timetable, handouts and a guide to the platform you will use
• have the programme reviewed by other members of your co-operative or network
• agree the various roles: facilitator, tech monitor + +
• produce and send the agenda to the participants, along with any preparatory reading and the tech guide to the platform
• useful tools for online learning

Delivery
• facilitation of online learning
• two processes to be aware of: task & group function
• techniques and methods
• hold a familiarisation session for participants before the start

Evaluation thoughts

Resources

Continue reading “Co-operative online learning – a primer”