Playing Co-opoly at Co-ops United Manchester

We were delighted to have the opportunity to play and promote the game of Co-opoly at the Co-ops United event in Manchester on Thursday 1st November. We managed to set up four games running concurrently and came away totally vindicated in our belief that Co-opoly is an excellent tool for learning about co-operatives and especially what it’s like to work in one.

 

 

There was much interest in our ‘Pod’ – with people coming in to watch, asking us about the game, and asking where they could get hold of one.We asked players for feedback about the game – here are some of their comments:

  • the game cleverly illustrates a real-life problematic in co-ops, which is trying to find out what’s going on in colleague’s heads …
  • realistic but fun game, similar to working in a workers coop
  • one of the players immediately adopted the role of “Treasurer” to keep tabs on how many points the co-op owned in real time. This was used by the group along with some forward planning in case the points were needed to cover losses to weigh up spending decisions (e.g. “wage” rises for members).  This demonstrated an awareness that the co-op needs enough working capital to survive to trigger member benefit in the longer term and it also needs up to the minute financial information – something not all new-start co-ops understand!
  • die needs round corners, doesn’t roll well
  • black text on red cards is hard to read
  • good for children to learn an alternative to competition (especially siblings)
  • lastly a small child made the clever observation that for countries that don’t use Roman numerals – 1,2 3 etc. – the die would not work, so we agreed that the traditional dots would work better!

We were privileged to have the participation of Donna Balkan, from the Canadian Co-operative Association, who has played Co-opoly “at least 12 times” and who is a great fan of the game. See her blog about Co-ops United & thanks for the photos Donna!

 

There was a lot of interest in the new version of Co-opoly, which Toolbox for Education are currently fundraising for, which will be cheaper overseas, because easier to pack and post. Check their website & contribute if you can.

Co-opoly

To celebrate International Co-operatives Year, Cooperantics is proud to promote Co-opoly: The Game of Co-operatives where players collaborate to found and run a democratically owned and controlled business. In the game players make tough choices in order to survive as individuals and strive for the success of their co-operative business. We’ll be playing it with Somerset Co-operative Services before the AGM on 18th July in Taunton, so look out for a review of the game shortly after that.

You can purchase a copy of the game by clicking on the logo in the right hand side bar below

Co-opoly

It’s arrived! My Co-opoly game arrived yesterday.

Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives is a creative and exciting game designed for the growing cooperative movement. Games have been proven to be unique resources that shape the way people learn, work, and interact with one another, but Co-opoly is more than just a board game. It is an innovative way for aspiring and existing cooperators, as well as other interested parties, to discover co-ops and to practice cooperation.

People who have played the game call it “fun and engaging” as well as “a great teaching tool about how to build and sustain” cooperatives.

Can’t wait to start playing!

Will there be a game in Taunton during Co-ops Fortnight?

the jigsaw game

an essential tool in every co-operative developer’s bag! This excellent game can bring that fantastic penny dropping moment when people truly experience for the first time what it means to co-operate. A simple exercise involving asking players to complete jigsaws with the random pieces provided – without speaking. Players can neither speak, nor take pieces away from other players – the only way to complete the jigsaw is by giving pieces away. Important to hold a short discussion beforehand on what it means to co-operate – how do we do it? And also important to debrief afterwards – how close is that to real life, what are the lessons we can learn? Highly recommended, and you can find a link to a description of the game and a template, produced by the Co-operative College, here.