 Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to our webinar this lunchtime. I can see participants coming in, so this is really great. My name is Stephen Flower and I'll be the host and also presenter during this with two other colleagues. We're just going to wait a couple of minutes as we always do for people to arrive and get comfortable. So there'll be some mood music to help us through this awkward minute or two. We have John with us from the cooperative of comedians. There could be, we've missed an opportunity here John for some warm up. Yeah, tell us a joke about co-ops. So I'm just waiting for the sign that we're ready to go. And we'll be here for one hour. We have some information from the co-ops UK about co-ops and then three presentations from colleagues that are in co-ops and were freelancers or a mixture of those. And then we should have time for questions and such as well. So just to know if you do have questions, it'd be great if you could pop them in the chat or and we can see them. And then we should have time later on towards the end to discuss and interact. Okay, so I think we're ready to go. I'm just looking for the sign from Jennifer. We're good to go. Thank you. All right. So welcome. So today's session is about freelancers uniting and how co-ops the cooperative model can can can help with that. And so as I say, we've got three organizations sharing their stories. And then before we do that, we wanted to just introduce those three people. So my name is Steven flower. I'm from open data services. We're a worker cooperative that we were freelancers and and joined together to form a company eight years ago now. And alongside myself, we have John Gibson. I think John the spotlight is on you to wave and say hello. Hello. Hello. And John's from felt now to productions. That's a couple of stand up comedians in the Northeast of England. And we were together on this webinar last year, John, I think, and John said that my jokes were funnier. So we'll see, we'll see about that. And also with us today, Melissa McNabb. And I think that spotlight Melissa and say hello. Thank Melissa. Melissa's from a director of code operative, a co-op of freelance software developers also based in the Northeast. Same part of the world as John and felt now. So this so us three, we're going to talk to talk about our stories about our situations as freelancers and then joining and forming types of cooperatives. And we wanted just to start off with it just to highlight that if you are thinking about this some some context and information about cooperatives and support out there to start your own web, perhaps. So, you might be asking, okay, but what is a cooperative. A co-op is it's an organization or business that's owned and controlled by its members. So that's coming to all the stories that we'll talk to about today that those that are working or part of the business own it as well. There's no external owner of the organization. In fact, that type of those type of members could be the customers could be the employees as in as in our case, but it could be local residents forming a co-op or even suppliers or consortia that form a co-op so there's many different models to it. As we can see, they could be pubs, energy supplies, taxi firms, bookshops, farmers, sports clubs, and like ourselves software companies and as we hear from John Comedians as well. And there are over 7000 co-ops in the UK, and they contribute a healthy 40 billion at least to the to the economy. And as I said, the members, the members of a co-op are the real key to that. So, they're the foundation of a co-op, they're why they exist and the members drive the mission, the purpose, the delivery of the co-op. And they choose to do what to do with the profits, either share them with members or not or keep them within the organization. The members are the shareholders there are no external shareholders within a co-op. And a co-op can exist to benefit the community but can also exist just to just to be a business that is shared amongst amongst its members. It doesn't have to be a certain way, but the key bit and the bits I think we might talk about this afternoon are that members always have an equal say. And that requires a bit of effort and time to make those things happen. And for freelancers thinking about those, you know, contractors or freelancers or people who work across many different projects, for example, they're around 4 million of those types of people self employed people in the UK. And so the idea of coming together to form an organization like a co-operative is very interesting. Benefits of working remotely as freelancers and consultants, we can probably say, you know, lots of freedom and flexibility. But then the challenges working from contract to contract and maybe contracts between contracts is a there's a gap, for example, which might mean unstable income. And then such protections of pensions and payroll and paid holiday and paid sick leave should that unfortunately happen are things that might not always come with working as a freelancer. So again, the ideas of forming organizations can bring some of those benefits. So forming a co-op will will will explore and illustrate hopefully some of these things that are here today. Some of the things that really help and when people join together to form such things are sharing the resources and the overheads and such new opportunities, gaining support from one another, seeking bigger, fairer, more equitable work, sharing the profits as we talked about already. And then perhaps, you know, in some cases, beginning to understand what what could be done, what's the bigger, bigger sum what what more could we do as a group as opposed to just being individuals. So there are lots of benefits and I'm hoping we can we can illustrate those through our examples today. And there are two things, two ways, perhaps two ways that you could join forces, but we might we might show it different today. So there's an idea, a model of a co-op of freelancers where they share the ownership profits and operational duties, but they remain their own entity, their own autonomy within within that that structure. So that's one model. Another model that this is the one open data services, our cooperative is where we form a new organization, a business, a limited company, and we become co equal owners of the business. So don't just think as a co-op of freelancers having one route, there are there are different ways, and of course co-ops UK can help can help you understand the options and and support you with that. So if you are interested now or at the end or tomorrow or next week co-ops UK is really the good place to start is where we started as co-op open data services. They have lots of resources and we'll touch on those towards the end of this afternoon's webinar. Okay, that's the little intro about co-ops and freelancers and why and what for but let's get on to the to the real side of things. So, Melissa, I think you're going to share your, your story from code operative. So I'm going to stop sharing and then pass to you. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa. I'm going to mute now. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, lovely. Thank you. I'm going to talk a little bit about code operative. And as obviously we live, we've mentioned where we're based in the northeast of England, primarily Newcastle. And I'm going to talk about our history, our structure, and all the way through to different projects that we work on and participate in. That's ourselves, you know. So code operative was founded in 2018 by three freelancer members and by December 2019 there were six full members and 18 network members. I joined in December 2019 starting our first piece of design work and I was made a full member in January 2020. We lost some of our members, but we've gained a lot more. And with some members obviously moving into other cooperatives, other start on their own businesses. And as of this month, February 2023, we are 10 full members and certain network members. And we are, like I said, primarily based in the northeast, but we are all over the country. That's the good thing about being freelancers you can kind of just be anywhere. So we also have members in London, Edinburgh, Wales, and even Paris. So our structure. So we have network members and full members. Network members are members of code operatives network. We join our discord server, usually after another network or full member invites them in. And they will have access to a couple of open channels on the server where they can talk to all members and apply for upcoming projects. They generally don't participate in organizational discussions. We also get full members are members of code operative that participate in projects as well as organizational and strategic strategic discussions. And we collaboratively have our have our own say on how code operative functions and we also get full member benefits so we have first priority over upcoming projects. We do have quite a unique payment structure. So code operative makes 9.52% profit from all projects. We charge the client 5% for connecting them with freelancers and then handling all of the pre project prep work. And then the freelancer for fits 5% of their day rate for using this service. And that money then goes towards goes to code operative and and we keep that to go towards day to day running costs. And paying for things like liability insurance solicitors and account fees, or paying off all members to do administrative tasks, such as finding projects. 25% of the day rate goes directly to their freelancer for participating in those projects. We're quite young so I'm just going to quickly go through our biggest achievement so far. We survived COVID as a start business and a lot of our work during lockdown came from COVID mutual aid funds helping businesses to get online, partnering with charities to make sure that they could stay afloat while all shops were closed. We recently won an award for best freelancers network in the Northeast. And our recent recent development project with the amazing charity, give your best, featured in Vogue, The Guardian and on Channel 4 Steph's Pat Lynch. The project consists of this designing, developing a free e-commerce platform for refugee refugee women to connect them with pre-loved clothes. The platform has connected almost 2000 women and children with 10,000 pre-loved items and launching six months ago. So why freelance? We enjoy the flexibility of being freelance, being able to manage our own time and expectations, whilst also benefiting from cooperating, bidding on bigger projects as a team and having the support of each other and what can be quite a solo stereotypical job. We do a lot of lending in the businesses, filling gaps within those businesses with freelancers. Our members then benefit from participating in projects that they want to within companies and having that extra layer of protection. And subsequently the businesses we lend to, which are typically other cooperatives, benefit from the lower day rate of a freelancer whilst also not having to hire for full time positions. It also means that the people we partner with can rely on us for having any type of skill. Most people within the network have different skill sets, myself, I'm a designer, project manager, and I look after our accounts and finance. Then we have people who can do React, React Native, WordPress. There's no shortage of variety and if we don't have what you're looking for, that 5% allows us to go out and find someone who can fill that gap. So who do we work with? An example of lending in other cooperatives would be Cooperative Web. So Co-op Web are a Bevanon based service cooperative. Sorry, Work is Co-op, who provide technical solutions. They contacted us for a React developer back in June last year and ever since we've had a really great work in relationship with them where we help with any projects that they need extra capacity on. We currently have five people supporting Co-op Web over several projects who now list us as a trusted partner. We're also the dedicated tech team for Digital Commons who are a newer cooperative and specialising data driven tools. They currently have three tools that we developed with different businesses and are now housed under the Digital Commons Cooperative. So firstly, we've got MicroMaps, which is formerly CMAP, and we developed this with the Solidarity Economy Association and it allows cooperatives and communities to visualise their connections with each other. We've got Land Explorer, which we developed with shared assets and helps community development projects find information on land. And then we have TWINE, which is a project that we picked up in phase two and we originally developed this with Power to Change. This is a mobile app that allows businesses to track and analyse volunteer and visitor activity. So why a Co-op and why cooperatives? I think for us, especially being freelancers, we're averse to the whole typical management structure. But the good thing about being freelance is that you are still your own boss, but by coming together we're absolutely stronger. And yeah, I guess that's everything. So thank you. And that's me and Casey want to get in contact. Thank you, Melissa. That was really interesting. Thank you very much. Maybe just a question about the structure you have between full and network members. How do you keep people communicating together, for example, between a network and a full member and those two statuses? So we have a Discord server and we have some channels that are shared, some that aren't. We have a lot of organisational channels. And we just post all the time we talk to each other. And then we do invite everyone to the AGM. So the network members are absolutely welcome to come to that. Have their say if they want to talk about any issues that they've been having as network members without having to get them involved in the traditional work. Sorry, I've lost my words. Do you understand what I'm saying? So yeah, without having to bring them to the everyday running of meetings and all that kind of stuff. Thank you. Yeah, I know it's a challenge we have with open data services as well about not everybody can be involved in everything all the time. So it's really interesting how you structure things. Some people don't want to either. You just don't want to say. And the other question I have before we bring John in was how did you get to the 5.6% was it 9.5% to. Yeah, so it's it's it's I mean it's technically 10 and it confuses the life out of me, but it's because it's 5% from the client and you've already that's already. That's 105% isn't it and then you would lose extra 5% it's very confusing. Okay, thank you very much. And we'll have we'll have chance for questions I'm sure towards towards the end after the next couple thank you Melissa that was really helpful really interesting and congratulations for making it through covert as a startup. So I think we're going to pass to John now from felt now. I think if the spotlights change and John, you share your screen. Okay, so I'm John Gibson I'm here from felt now productions. I'm going to tell you about our journey to becoming a cop. So this is what I'm going to go through. So who are felt now. Why do we exist. What do we do. Why are we a cooperative talk a little bit about the copper five and the benefits of working together. So who are felt now felt now productions are not for profit cooperative comedians from the northeast of England. And we are collaborating to create more comedy in the area and ideally that means more work for comedians. And as far as we know the only not for profit cooperative of comedians in the world. Why do we exist. Well, some of you are good memories will remember a little thing called covert. And in 2020 covered hit lockdown happened. And what that meant was all of the venues closed. And I mean even if you don't know that much about comedy you know venues play a key role in that. And so what we ended up doing a few of us got together and started putting on online comedy gigs. And that worked really well and we thought you know what we can do a lot more than that. So, we looked at the problems as we saw it in the northeast and, first of all, that there's very little comedy in the area it is a bit of a comedy desert in the northeast. We, which means that we've got increased travel expenses for comics, because we've got to travel more often than comics from other areas for instance. But what that also means is if there's fewer events for audiences, so audiences are losing out as well. It also means it's difficult to develop new acts you talent in the northeast because there's very few places for them to develop. And we felt there was a lack of community engagement between comedy and the comedy going audience of the northeast. And overall what that meant was it, the northeast just wasn't a great place for comedy or comedians. We set out to do a few things. So these are our major kind of strands if you like to felt now, we do comedy, we do outreach, we do heritage, and we are all about members. So in terms of comedy, we do gigs, and very much we focused on local gigs for local people by local comedians. We do the aim was to get more venues more gigs going and work in with the community. We want to work in with particularly working classroom rural and disadvantaged communities basically people who might not have access to comedy to do outreach in the communities in terms of workshops and charity gigs. We also want to celebrate the heritage of the northeast comedy, which we've got a lot of and promote that. And we also want to do things for our members so basically give them those well paying gigs stop them having to travel as often, you know put on new act nights so that they could, we could bring through the new talent. So why a cooperative, well, these are the things that we, you know the main things that we want to do as a as a cooperative working together to transform the local comedy scene, provide outreach for communities to deliver the wider social impact together to develop the new talent coming through from the local area, but we wanted it to be owned and controlled by the comedians to generate sort of buying by having a membership fee. And we, one of the key things we wanted was we wanted it to be not about directors and people getting rich. It was very much about comedians and the community. So, if you look at the cooperative values and a couple of principles, I'm not going to go through them all but you can see those you can get them straight from the website and there are certain things you'll see in here like demographic, and it has to be, you know, independent and owned and controlled by the members and everybody currently financially, et cetera and we all cooperate. And we didn't do this at the time but I've done it for the purposes of these slides. We mapped what we, what we set out to do against the cooperative values and the cooperative principles, and you'll see there's a fantastic correlation between what we set out to do and what being a co-op means. So that meant we were a really great great fit for being a co-op, because we matched almost everything. And like I said, I didn't do that at the time but it's incredible how closely we matched to what cooperatives set out to do. So we approached a cooperative hive and cooperative hive did a few things for us. So the providers with support and understanding and complete financial forecast for getting started, the providers with support and how to articulate and measure our social impact. And but mostly importantly, they provide the support and becoming a cooperative. And so what have we found as the benefits of working together? Well, we get to share our special skills and amongst the comedians are professional comedians but they're also semi professional comedians with different skills. We've got skills in IT and PR and project management and production. And so we get to share those amongst the community. We've got a Northeast brand now, Feltnout is a brand and we've got thousands of social media followers now and we're getting really good coverage across traditional media as well. And we get to support each other. So we volunteer to help out running gigs, do social media accounts, basically the whole running of the company operates on volunteers at the moment. And we get to do bigger contracts. So for instance, we've programmed a comedy tent for a music festival. We were commissioned by Tining We Archives and Museums to create a series of podcasts, things that we just wouldn't have been able to be considered for as an individual that we could do because we were a co-op. And it's opened up new opportunities. So we got new comedy venues. We got community outreach sessions and we're generating additional income for our members, which is one of the core reasons for being there. So how well have we done with that? Well, this is it broken down. So we've generated, this is in 2022. So last year we generated over £60,000 of work for our members. We've given 70 acts in the Northeast paid work across 18 venues, 120 ticketed gigs over 2006 sold through our website. Some venues sell their own tickets as well. We've launched the Patreon, we've got 48 subscribers. So these are people giving us money just because they believe in what we're doing. We've launched 11 podcasts from members and we've given eight comedians last year their first ever paid spot. So we are seeing those new talent come through. In terms of outreach, we secured £10,000 with the funding. Again, we couldn't necessarily have done that individually, but as an organization, we were able to bid for that, secured that equipment, which was microphones, speakers, lights, and basically everything we needed to produce a comedy in the box solution. As in, it doesn't matter where your venue is or what your venue is, you don't need to have any fancy set of we can bring comedy to your venue wherever. And obviously that opens up a whole new set of opportunities as well. We've provided a full all female lineup for the time date and Opera House charity event for red crisis. That's the photograph you can see there. So we did that because we've got the, you know, the poll across the comedy community to do that. We started the podcast, as I mentioned, we got we did 22 community workshops in terms of standard comedy and giving people the experience of that. And we've got over 5000 followers across social media. In terms of heritage, as I mentioned, we were commissioned by tiny way archives and museums to create five podcasts on historical comedy characters and we've done that. We celebrate the history of Northeast comedians and comedy on social media, and we also give history talks on local comedians and for members where we've got 57 members of independent comedians. And we've provided the podcasting facilities for members. We are promoting members podcast across socials. We've got members trained in other disciplines such as operating sound desks. We've run a new act of the year competition for these guys. We've got the stand up comedy writing workshops we've provided to members and sketch writing workshops and new act nights so that we can develop people. We've provided headshots to members professional headshots to using promotional material and we've loan. We've run lots of local gigs which reduce travel and hotel costs for members. And we also film in members shows, so that you can promote them. So, what have we found is that as the benefits of working together as a corp. Well, we have more work. We generate more income for members, which is a fantastic thing. We've got more clout because we're operating together. And that gives us more clout for doing things like making bids, etc. We've got a stronger brand. So, you know, comedy in the Northeast didn't have a brand is just lots of individuals doing their own thing, but now we've got a brand we can stand behind. And we're getting better PR because of that, because an individual comedian launching something maybe isn't big news but if it felt now gets behind it. We've got the contacts in the media and we've got a brand that we can put behind it to give people that PR that they need. And the collective support, as I mentioned, sharing, volunteering, all of those things that help felt now productions be, you know, better than the sum of its parts. And that is everything from me, that's felt now productions. Thank you very much. Thank you, John. That's really great. Interesting. Just interesting. Thank you very much. I wanted to ask you as a follow up. Earlier in when we're talking before we started about the community interest company situation that you have. Yes. Well, oftentimes when I'm talking to people about co-ops, they think, they think, oh, are you a non non for profit? And in our case, we're not a non for profit. We're, we're not a negative. So, but you are. And I was just interested about how you see the alignment of a co-op and a nonprofit in your particular circumstances. Absolutely. So one of the things that we were concerned about when we, when the initial group of us was starting the organization was that it would be seen by other comedians as some some way of sort of skimming money off of people and sort of being nefarious in some way. So the combat that as well as being a cooperative so we could share, you know, collective responsibility and decisions. We also wanted to make sure that any any money generated by felt now stayed within felt now and was either provided as services back to back to the members or was was used to fund community events and other things that would benefit comedians themselves. So it all basically gets plowed back into the members at the end of the day. And that's something that we were really keen on because we didn't want this to be seen as a sort of money grab by by individuals. Thank you. Thank you. And how do you we find this is quite quite a challenge really to as we grow and we get new members to explain and support people in terms of what is a co-op and what does it mean to be part of a co-op. Do you do you mentioned about things you do with members do you do much about actually you're in a co-op that means X, Y and Z. Absolutely so at the AGM, we did a little bit about what it means to be a co-op, because it's also new to people. And, and I think sometimes people need to hear those kind of messages, more than once, because you know it is so new and it's different to what they are used to. Yeah, we did that as part of the AGM to make sure that people understood that, you know, the organization is theirs as members that that they had a say in it that they had, you know, could set the direction that could become directors, etc. Okay, great. Thank you. And I have to ask, has somebody done a cooperative routine, comedy routine? No, I'm not aware of it. And as you noticed, I didn't either. Still no jokes in my presentation. Okay, on that, on that note, thank you, John. I will talk about open data services now thank you John, and thank you Melissa before, and we're on good good timing so we've got we've got time for me to share our story and then, and then we can have questions and such. So, can everybody see that? Yeah, hopefully. So, I'm going to talk about open data services cooperative. And we, we are about using data to help to measure change. And we've been around since 2015. And we started as for freelancers for for people that came together to form a company. And we're now 25 people. So we've grown steadily over the eight years. It's where we are now. And we've always worked from home. So we've always been freelancers that have worked on projects. And so when we came together, eight years ago, before everybody was working at home, we've always worked from home. So we, there was an interesting time for us to explain both being a co-op and that we work from home. Now, we just have to explain more about being a co-op. Most of us were freelancers or contractors before we joined our co-op. So we would, we would all be picking up contracts doing work similar to perhaps how Melissa was explaining, and then we form this company of which we joined. So now we are both employees of the company, but also equal owners of the company. And we actually have our annual general meeting this afternoon after this webinar. So we have some formality about that being employees and owners, and also some, as I was talking to John, some learning to have about what does it mean to be both these things and in a co-operative. We work on lots of initiatives with with organizations, particularly around transparency, whether it's transparency of international aid or ownership of companies or contracts that are put out in the public domain. So with lots of initiatives, we're trying to make a change with data and we have very specialist skills that we support them with. So we work on lots of initiatives. And we work with organizations such as the World Health Organization and the World Bank and co-op called Equal Care that has very interesting model as well. So we work with lots of organizations on many initiatives. And just to give you a very quick example of the type of people that we are. We are software developers and data analysts and business analysts, other types of analysts, quite techie in a sense, or quite niche in other senses. So we brought our skills together as a co-op to try and do as we've seen this afternoon have a bigger impact. But we all have very particular skills that we use. But we really value and enjoy working as teams together. So an example is with our initiative called 360 Giving that's about data on where the grants go, where the grants go, who gets the grants and where they're from in the UK. So with them, we help standardize the data about grants. That's the boring bit that we do. But then lots of organizations publish data about where their grants go. And so we built a search tool called grant nav, which you can find. I'll put a link in the chat. You can search for grants. So we're behind all that. We're working with the initiatives to make that work and happen. But as I say, the value for us is working as a team in a co-operative way. I should say that in our world that we inhabited before we formed the co-operative organizations like the World Bank or whatever else. It's always set up for consultants. We need a consultant to come and do this. Here's a short-term contract for another consultant. And we often we all found that was quite fragmented, somewhat lonely existence. You might be paid well or whatever, but you know, it's just looking for consultancies and contracts from all the time. We've really worked hard over the years as well to try and change some of these into opportunities for co-ops as well. So we've had some success, for example, with the World Bank to say, actually, you would benefit from working with a co-operative of consultants than just a single one. So that's an interesting evolvement of our work, I think. But yeah, I think that the real thing that we like to do is pool our skills, all these different skills that we have these technical skills, we brought them together in a single organization. And resilience has been a key word for us as well, particularly in the former times of COVID and such things where we really did stick together through that. So as I said before, we're lots of different technical skills in our cooperative and we all equally own the business and we share each. What we've found over the years, but what we're really finding now as we get to a certain point is that all these things that we are, we also need all these other things. We've always had all these other things like getting money, paying each other, governance, strategy, communications, trainings. But we're finding now we're at this sort of tipping point now where we might, we will need to employ people who do the business things, not just us specialists doing the business things. And I think it's been a really interesting pathway to get there and I think we'll be advertising very soon for some of those people to run the business alongside our delivery of work. So what are we learning from being a cooperative eight years in. Well, I think there are three themes that we really value so one is having a shared understanding of what we're doing what we're trying to work on, but shared understanding of what we want from from being a business together. And that's something we keep renewing and working on it's not something you set on day one. As I was talking to John earlier earlier on, you know, we have people coming in all the time and so we need to be new and understand our understandings. The co-op should reflect what people need. So we have a very good and very progressive parental leave policy, for example, people can take quite a lot of time supported by the co-op after to look after the little ones and that that was a need that came through, came through from our members that we worked together to form a policy and make sure that would be right and relevant. So the co-op for us reflect the needs of the people that own it. And key to all this for us is having stability and sustainability. So we have financial models and such things and we're always looking at can we afford to do X, Y and Z or can we afford to stretch and employ more people. So our cooperative wouldn't be anywhere if we didn't think about the sustainability of it. Some obvious, some of these themes, but I think they're key to what we do. To support those things that we have some really key pillars that we've developed over the years. So I mentioned the policies around parental leave or many other policies we've developed together as a cooperative. We have chosen to all get paid equally. So we all get paid the same. And then you pay differs according to your full time full time employment status, but we have a flat wage, we all get paid the same. But we have alongside that we were very flexible in how we work that supported by working from home but also people's lives are different so people can work flexibly. And key for us. I think there's another clue in the freelance bit there that we, everyone who works in our cooperative has a permanent contract. There's no fixed term or anything like that you're employed by the cooperative. That's your that that's that's it. There's no, there's no other alternative. So we have these things that we think glue together our values. We do also have this was the joke we have eight years of vaguely awkward team photos, which are, which we, we, we, we love. I don't know who this person is this person isn't part of our cooperative, maybe might be one day, but I'm out living. We're going to be hiring very soon. So, as I mentioned, we're this interesting point with our cooperative where we will be recruiting people to help us run the business, not just deliver the work of the of the co-op. So there'll be you can join a newsletter or check our website that might come through and and will be advertising very shortly for people. So quarter to that. That's our story about open data services cooperative. There's there's quite a lot of support from co-ops UK. And I think all three of our organizations have benefited from that. Certainly we when we started open data services, we talked to co-ops UK they showed us some model rules and helped us form that form the company. We really valued that. So, co-ops UK that have, first of all, have a look at their website. There are lots of resources there to help you understand what what is a co-op things we discussed today. Some templates and models with some really interesting resources, but also this step by step tool to help you understand this is a co-op model right for whatever context you want to work in. I would really recommend taking a look at that and and and running through the models and the the the quizzes wizards that they have to help to help understand if the co-op is right for you. And there was also a package available through co-ops UK and support in support with the co-op to bank up to 10 days of support to for people to understand their co-op or their development of their co-op what are the needs and what are the support that you need. I think John you mentioned something around this with the support you had from the program about developing a business plan or a budget for example that they might have helped you then do other things. So there are there's some really good support from co-ops UK and please access that if you are asking questions or thinking about co-ops because they're there to help. We have now time for questions. And I'm going to watch something as we're doing that I'm going to look at the chat but John or Melissa if you've got any other points you wanted to make something else you thought of whilst was presenting that would be great as a kind of take a look at. Just to follow up on your point about the support. Yeah, we got support with our business plan, which nobody in the organization had done before so that was really invaluable to help us kick off on the right foot. Yeah. We had we've had support with from co-ops UK around very specific HR things that we want to put in place you know and for example I mentioned the parental leave policy so co-ops UK really helpful to review that and to talk us through what it is and what it means and such things so yeah yeah. I don't know Melissa if you've had other support from co-ops UK or other organizations to help with your performing and development of code operative at all. Yeah, I think it's quite similar to yourself Steven and probably more towards the start. I think before I was actually involved so. Great. Great. Yeah, and there are co-ops UK lots of videos and other things that are available and I just noticed about this 15 minute consultation with a cooperative development manager. And she what's their name Jennifer the cooperative development manager they can help people like evaluate if they're if they're if the corp is the right move for them I think I'm looking at the questions in chat or if anyone has got any further questions and they want to put them in the chat that would be really helpful. So I'm looking so it's always a bit annoying with someone of this I'm working backwards and looking, looking at the first one that looks like a question but I'll try and get to others. So john asked you remain self employed employed by your co-op. So, I think there are three different answers from our experience there, john. In our case open data services, people become a member, a member of staff, they're employed by the co-op, but equally also they own the co-op. After, after six months they can choose to become a member and then they own it. So our case you're, you're, you're not self employed you're employed, but I think Melissa and john you're, you're slightly different. Yeah, so we are fully self employed. We all submit our self assessments in January, even the, the directors still self employed. Yeah, and we're exactly the same or self employed freelancers. So you both use the co-operative structure to pull resources and, and all the things we talked about but your, your remuneration and other things is self employed. Yeah. Yeah. So, there's another question here thanks for thanks to culture gave you put them in the chat. How do a co-op model address issues around group them out down on group dynamics conflict management and leadership. My response to that would be, I don't think, I think, I think those are things that are common to many organizations and not not not particular to co-ops by understand the point trying to be made there. We work really hard on those things. As I mentioned before we've got annual general meeting this afternoon, and it's maybe the 18th iteration of what an annual general meeting would be. Back in the early days, it was very, very formal and we'd wear shirts. Now it's shirts and jumpers and many parts are interactive as well. I think, I think you've got to work hard at those things and one thing we do is we set a training budget for everybody everybody can spend a certain amount of time some number of days training and often those trainings are organizational wealth and technical. John Melissa I don't know if you if you have any experience about how you address those common issues. Well, as you say, I don't think it's necessarily exclusive to cooperatives. We haven't had to cross any of that but what I will say is because I am familiar with it. If that person is interested in that kind of thing I would Google transactional analysis, which tells you about all the different ego states involved in in a two way conversation and can help with conflict resolution and also the drama triangle is a really video on on YouTube for the drama triangle which will help you get out of tight scripts. We've been talking a lot about communication styles lately and that everyone has different one different style and that's where some some things come from so yeah and Melissa have you. So we, I think the important part for us is that we were always listening to our members and to know trying to address anything that might come up. And we have worked very heavily with outlandish who do offer fund training, which is a form of conflict resolution, and they're great and honestly we couldn't recommend them enough. And outlandish are also a cooperative. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. I've got the couple of other questions I'm spotting here. We are an SME limited company. Could we become a co-op and maintain our company structure. I think, yes. In our case we're a company limited by shares, and then we are articles that we posted on companies house describe us as a co-op and our rules. So we're a regular limited company. We all have one share each. And as I say we have a then set of rules that describe us. But I think we, you know, it's not just the rules that posted on companies house it's how you act and interact and work together that the less tangible things but I think the answer there is certainly if you're a limited company you could become a co-op because it's more of a shift in model than a legal thing. Well, I don't know if John and Melissa you've got any further advice there. No, not for me. I think you've covered it. Yeah, I'd say the same. I'm glad not much different. We're also a limited company, but by guarantee not by shares. Okay. Thank you. Kim asked, I'm a final and a financial PR. I think it'd be great to work with those sport and backup and heft would a co-op model work for that. So I think, I think our story illustrates that yeah, you know those working with people in the similar area or or complimentary skills. It really it really does. It really can work. It doesn't work automatic automatically it takes takes work to do so but I think a co-op model could could be right. I can take my advice but hopefully Kim that is that is true. John Melissa, I don't think I think we'll both your stories illustrate that point as well. I think. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. I'm just seeing if there are any more though the two more messages at the end. So, Angerad. The decision related for the one for you, John here. We relate to the felt now story of need to build up a local infrastructure. How possible is for me a co-op. Of course, different. Yeah, how possible is it. Well, yeah, I can totally see how this relates actually. So, just to kind of relate it back to the question. So it's a question around musicians and form and a co-op and being at different levels or at their careers across different fields. So if you think about it actually that's very similar to the comics, you know we have comics who are full time comics, who some of which, you know, get television work, etc. All the way through to I mean the eagle eyed amongst you would have spotted lost voice guy on on my slides. You know, we have we have people right through from there, right down to, you know, newly starting in comedy and just dipping that on the water. And essentially the way it works for us is that we have people who book the comedy gigs and they apply their knowledge of the person skill set and level to forming the, the, the number of acts, and the type of really appropriate for a particular gig. So that's how we handle it in the comedy world, but it's definitely possible because we do it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, John. And the couple of other questions I see here as well now. Thanks to Cops UK for highlighting them. Natalia asking, do you have a non complete clause in your regulation or policies for regular members. I think that means perhaps in, in the, in, in the court, so court operative, for example, has, is that a thing where, where freelancers compete for the same work outside of the court, for example, or would you have to have an agreement with that and Natalia asked, how does that get explained if so or how do people think about that I think maybe. Obviously there is nothing stopping a freelancer going out and bidding for the same work that we're doing. But we all care about each other. So we're not good. I don't think it's just a general rule. I think we're not going to go out and do that. Our members guides quite slim. We are actually in the, in the process of re looking at that and having a look at all the kind of stuff that's in there. But we just find that, obviously, most people who are participating are kind enough and, you know, happy enough to bid for it as code operative so. Could I just add on to that sort of from our point of view it's exactly the same, but actually what we're finding is that individual members may get approached about other work. And sometimes they'll just point them in the direction of felt now and say, well, if you want to have that comedy night, just go and talk to felt now and they'll sort out for you. So we're actually finding that the members are basically gathering extra work for felt now, as well as for themselves. So some things that might do individually and some things that might say, actually that's a bit beyond what I either will be able to do and point them to felt now sort it out. Thank you. I don't think this applies to us. I spent on this one though is that we, when we lose members of staff, we often lose them to kind of clients that we have, or to governments or civil civil service. And I think that's because they see how, how, how people flourish within a co op. And they, they, they, they seek those people are that move on to bigger organizations that are less cooperative in their nature, perhaps, but we don't have any, any sort of non complete clause saying you can't go and work for a client or somebody who worked with it. We welcome that we think it's great. So the last question here I think can cause function beyond freelancers such as an SME such as SME organization seeking a collegiate approach. So I think the answer there might be in terms of organizations working together as cooperative which is certainly possible and there are models that co ops UK know of an examples of that. So it's not just freelancers but organizations in a, in a collective, for example. And I don't know if John Melissa you haven't got any examples or where you have members that have that were that were companies themselves for example. I don't have any examples we do have members who have their own company. But obviously that's completely separate from their interactions with that. Yeah, yeah. I think that's the same for us like we have members who, who are obviously like their own registered business. I'm not sure if it's relevant, but obviously as code operative we're also part of things like co tech, which is a load of cooperatives all sort of coming together and I wonder I'm sure you're part of it aren't you. Yeah. Yeah. You know exactly that yeah yeah so we do we do join other co ops I think it's the thank you Melissa that's that's that's the point that I completely forgot about thank you yeah yeah so hopefully that answers the question there or starts to and I think co ops UK would be really helpful there. Okay, last point we've got one more minute, wouldn't it be good for co ops you can have a co ops wanted pool to bring together like many people. I'm sure it would be and I think it is and co ops UK can can do those types of things I think. So, excellent. I'm going to, I'm going to make sure we finish on time now. So thank you for all your questions and hopefully we my colleagues answered them better than I did but thank you. Melissa for your your input in your presentation and great to hear the story. Thank you. Again, john, because we get the last year for your for your story. Thank you for everybody. Thanks to co ops UK for hosting us and thanks to the cooperative bank for the support that they're offering as well. So I think with that, we, I don't know what we do, we say goodbye. Thank you. Have a good afternoon. I've got to go to an AGM now so I'll keep my shirt on. Okay, thank you everybody. And have a good afternoon or morning or wherever you are. Thank you.