 Ah, so welcome to Holly Oakhouse, welcome to the 2018 Annual General Meeting of Corporatives UK. It's absolutely delightful to be in a room which is standing room only. Maybe we should have thought about getting a smaller room earlier. It's slightly daunting however, it's usually when you're on a stage and you're dressing the hodl masses, you can't see the lights of their eyes and now unfortunately I can see everybody. And so my self-consciousness has gone through the roof. So as chair of Corporatives UK, my name is Nick Matthews. I'm from the heart of England Co-operative Society. I'd like to warmly welcome you both to Holly Oakhouse and to the Pauline Green Room in Holly Oakhouse. It's very unusual for co-operators to name a room over somebody before they're dead. But we thought that Pauline had been such an auspicious co-operator to have a woman co-operator from Britain as the General Secretary of the International Co-operative Alliance. We think was a very significant event and worthy of the commemoration of this particular room. Now I know a couple of years ago at the AGM of our largest member of the co-op, there was an altercation over the warnings and announcements before the meeting started. So I'll tell you, we're not expecting a fire alarm. But if there is one, we leave the way we came in, do not use the lift, use the stairs. We go out, we turn right and we assemble in what is no saddler's yard. Secondly, if you need to use the facilities, I think when you get to the stairwell, you see the ladies is down and the men's is up. That's always the case, I'm afraid. They always leave things up. But for those at home, I think they'll know where their toilets are, hopefully if they're on the internet, they'll know where their toilets are in their own home. And if they don't, get off the internet and find out. So without any more people from me, my name's Nick Matthews. On my right is the Secretary of the Society, Zeena King. I just forgot your name. It's a good start, isn't it? Zeena King, Zeena's, this is her first annual general meeting. You've seen Zeena running around like a beaver at previous annual general meetings and making sure everything worked well. Now she has responsibility for being on the top table, so I hope you'll be kind to Zeena. And on my left is Ed Mayo, not politically, of course, he's Ed Mayo, the Secretary General of a great organisation. So that's the top table. Just another little bit of housekeeping. Voting members will have one of these. You should have given in your attendance to your card when you arrived. If you haven't, give it a chance to make sure that your attendance is recorded. There's a process at home again, which you'll remind me of. So that we know people have logged in and have got the appropriate voting materials. When there's a vote, just hold your card up. If there needs to be a card vote, then we'll have a proper go through a process of doing that. Most of the votes, I hope, will be by a show of hands. I don't know if there's anything exciting or contentious on the agenda, but you never know. Let's hope we have an argument about something, otherwise it will be a waste of a Friday night after a few glasses of wine. So before I... I'll be taking the notice of the meeting as read. If anybody requires paper versions on the way in, any of the papers, paper copies of the formal papers of the meeting were available on the table in the refreshment room before you went in, although the material, of course, was published electronically. So before we go to any of the decisions today, it's almost a year since we launched the National Corporate Development Strategy, a strategy focused on a different kind of economy, one powered by cooperation which challenges people to work together to harness the growing desire for a fairer economy. I don't think that's going to be an exciting concept to the people in the room, but it ought to be an exciting concept out there. Part of that strategy was the idea that we do it ourselves and obviously as an umbrella body we have the responsibility to carry out some of that well ourselves. We're going to start this meeting by hearing some important messages from colleagues and members of our organisation. I've just been doing just that. So let me introduce you to the three participants who are going to set the scene for us this evening. Jane Powell from Lincoln Corporative Society, Steve Hoey from Leeds Community Holds and then Liam McLeod from Media Blaze. Without me putting my copy book any further, perhaps Jane you would like to share your story with us. Good evening everyone and this is amazing. I don't think I've ever been in such a packed room and thank you for that lovely introduction Nick. I've worked with COPS UK for longer than I care to admit and at the time when I think I first worked with the organisation, it was in fact the old COPS Union as we saw on the introductory video. And in that time I've experienced the unique blend of support, advice and assistance that the organisation can offer over the whole range of your purpose promoting, uniting and developing COPS. So I've been asked to talk about the way that we've worked with COPS UK recently and in the past. So I thought I'd talk about two strands of your wonderful advice service. So there are two strands now. The excellent co-operative HR services used to be known as the CEA to some of us in previous history and they provide a fantastic service working with our HR teams, helping them advise colleagues and employees on HR issues of all sorts of things, all sorts of varieties. They also help my board and you can see a little extract from our Immuneration Report on the top. I picked a few examples in this talk and it was really hard to just distill them into a small number of things because there is such a lot that COPS UK does. But one of the things they do is help our board when it comes to its remuneration policy and its approach to remuneration in general through the CEA providing advice to the Board of Directors on that and we've got the little extract from the annual report up there. But I've also used the wonderful rule change service numerous times and you can see the rule changes that we did in 2015 which were about introducing young members and then we're currently working on some new rules which we're putting to our members on the 9th of June about introducing a competency framework for our board and the advice team at COPS UK have really helped us with that the whole breadth of ways and I'll talk about some of that in a bit more detail in a minute but what they do is help us with the rule drafting, they help us with what we're going to put in it and then they register it with the CEA and that's all part of our member advice service. We don't have to pay any more for that which is absolutely wonderful. Thank you. They also provide thought leadership on corporate governance in the COPS sector and we've been working on that with some of my colleagues earlier today and I've put up some of the examples of that on the slide which I think there that will be, yep. So we've got the code, the corporate governance consumer code which is drawn up by co-operatives UK last revised in 2013 and we're looking at how that might look for the future. There's the expert reference panel, the time a member of which is providing some guidance and resources about co-operative governance across the whole sector and then recently we've used that expertise that really good expertise on thought leadership on corporate governance to provide some paid for consultancy for my board working with face-to-face development sessions for our board of directors delving deeply and conscientiously into the role and responsibilities of co-op directors focusing on those gritty issues that we all have to look at on a day-to-day basis especially the inherent conflict the election process brings for selection for our boards. And that's where the Co-Opture case sound guidance help the most and working with them together the board developed a competency framework which you can see there's a little sort of diagrammatical representation of it there but it was a competency framework that our directors chose and we will be putting that to the members to vote on whether or not we can use that in the future at our meetings in June. So I couldn't give a talk like this without mentioning the myriad of other things that Co-Opture K does and as you know they run a whole load of training events and you can access all of that information on the website there's a picture of me and some of my directors at the Co-Opture retail conference and they're embarrassed I think and I can't move on from this bit without mentioning the practitioners forum in November which is a wonderful event that is, well it's always sold out isn't it, every year so great networking opportunity that we've also you've mentioned this in your talk that's staying poorly in launching the National Carp Development Strategy and we hope at Lincolnshire Carp that we'll be able to work with Co-Opture K in the future looking at how you can connect the national framework for carp development with local delivery on the ground and that these are some examples of local co-ops that I really love that we've got in these are ones from our trading area in Lincolnshire and on the top, oh slightly moved a bit but at the top in the middle you've got Larkrise and that's a co-op just outside Lincoln where a carp of care providers for people with learning disabilities and the members of the co-op are the care providers themselves and service users and they provide a day care service for for those adults with learning disabilities they identified that there was a gap in the market where kids were leaving schools wasn't anything for them to do and they created this, they're wonderful top right you've got Grimsby Community Energy which has also been supported by Co-op Group for the Hive Project and Lincolnshire Carps invested £5,000 in community shares in them sort of to the left, that's Chainbridge Forge that's a working Forge museum that's a co-operative that's based on the east coast of Lincolnshire and bottom right is the University of Lincoln School of Social Sciences which is setting up a unique blend of carp learning where the learners work jointly with the lecturers to develop the courses alright and this is just a little illustration of the international work that Co-op UK does in combining working with all of us bringing together to combine resources when there's an international incident so these are about fundraising initiatives one example is the yep Japanese earthquake, we donated £10,000 for that and £5,000 for Typhoon Fund promoting Co-ops locally this should be the big Co-op Clean and you can see some of our members and colleagues cleaning things up as part of that annual initiative I really like the way that Co-op UK promotes Co-ops in a whole load of different things and this was an example of one initiative where we worked with Co-op UK looking at what is the impact of Lincolnshire Co-op on the local economy, what happens and we found that for every £100 that goes through our till an additional £40 is generated for local suppliers, customers and employees that was quite a good piece of research wasn't it okay so I couldn't finish without mentioning the fantastic resources that are on the website so just a couple of things these are resources that are on the website that anybody can use that I've picked out that we've used ourselves in our organisation so guidance on GDPR guidance on modern slavery so thank you so much for listening I really hope that was what you wanted me to talk about but it's given but it has given really an overview of the breadth of things that Co-op UK does for its members and I'd also like to finish by thanking Ed, Nick and Zina for their wise thoughts and support over the years thank you Steve thank you very much it's good to be here I'm Steve Hoey, I've come across from Leeds I work at Leeds Community Homes I'm going to tell you all about what we've been up to we're members I've got my little voting card there so I'll be staying around but I'm going to talk a little bit about cooperating to create people powered homes so to start off with this slide makes us remember that there's a long history around cooperating and particularly we're interested in housing so I've got a slide of the house there but Homo sapiens has been around for about 200,000 years and Homo erectus they reckon maybe 2 million years and we've been creating shelter and most of that time we were wandering around in small bands helping each other out, looking after each other building houses and other shelters so this is just not a new thing really, cooperation in general and also housing doing housing together some other ways of doing housing are really very recent blips in history so really part of what we're trying to do maybe is get back towards let's do this cooperatively let's do affordable housing our houses will hopefully be a bit more energy efficient than that one but you never know so just very briefly Leeds community home started 4 years ago when Paul Chatterton who is one of the co-founders at Lilac which is also a co-op and myself got together over a coffee and just said look there's loads of great community-led housing happening in Leeds how do we make more of that happen and we quickly gathered a group of people around us including Rob Greenland Jill Coopland people from Latch, Canopy, Gibson and other partners as well including Leeds who are also a co-op doing architecture and engineering in Leeds and formed a small group and decided quite quickly to found a community benefit society called Leeds Community Homes and we deliberated quite a while about what our first project might be this is an artist impression of the development on the Climate Innovation District just south of Leeds the centre near the Royal Armouries spanning the river and this is the site of our first project so we last winter we launched a community share issue which was really successful we raised £360,000 which is our top target which is brilliant we also attracted 275 members to the co-op through that share issue as well which gives us a really good kind of boost and good membership base on which to build so with this project that £360,000 through a deal with the private developers called SITU and Leeds City Council we're going to be purchasing 16 affordable homes on that site out of the 500 that they're going to be building and so that's going to be phenomenal they're on site now, you can see the building is starting to go up which is great the other thing that we're up to is that in December Power to Change decided to give us a grant to help us develop our Enabler Hub service and through that service we're going to be working with a small number of groups four in the first six months but also a wider range of groups less intensively and we're in touch with about 20 different groups, local authorities co-ops community-led housing groups individuals who want to do housing and what we're hopefully going to be doing is advising them supporting them in Leeds and the wider region we've had interest from Kirkleys Council as well Bradford City Council people over there are interested Harrogah Wakefield so it's kind of spreading a bit and as the only member of staff I'm getting a bit stretched actually but we're really keen to be in touch with everyone who's interested in community-led housing and really see how much we can enable so I'm coming up to my five minutes so that's quite handy just to sum up it's been a great four years this last few months has been a real whirlwind as we've had a little bit of funding for the directors who've been brilliant over the last three, four years have been putting in loads of their time and now we've actually got someone me who can kind of get things done in the office a bit more and get out and meet people and so hopefully thanks to the support of Co-ops UK which has been really valuable over those years and hopefully in maybe three or four or five years time you'll be hearing about all the houses we've built we've got quite an ambitious target of building or enabling 1,000 homes over 10 years so we'll see how that goes thanks very much Liam, floor's yours I dare apologise Hi, my name's Liam Liam Cloud as Nick said thank you for having me I just wanted to talk a bit about basically the business that we run it's an IT business we do mainly web hosting, IT security things like that but what we have been doing is we've been partnering up with other worker-based co-operatives to bring together Co-tech which is a group of technology-based worker co-ops ranging from various skill sets which enables us to kind of bid and work together for various projects so currently within Co-tech we have 32 members between those two members is over 255 members of staff generated over £10.4m worth of revenue and over 287 clients including the Co-ops UK so that is some of the work that we deal with we have a range of clients and again, those clients range quite broadly same, BBC Sorry, I need to avoid you to get asked a bit about that apologies about that but hey, what can you do so yeah, within the skill sets it ranges from animation to IT consultancy, mentoring, printing hosting, web design just to name a few so the range of technologies used within the group primarily are based on open source software and applications that we can have an impact on and influence and we can help build amongst other developers as well so a lot of our participation is mainly based online we use an online forum to discuss a lot of the work that we do currently it's been running for just over a year we've got around 228 topics within there 100 sorry, 1.9,000 posts 1.5 million, sorry, 1.5,000 daily engaged users in a steady stream of discussion so within that again we talk different events mainly about co-optives, labour movement technology, cryptocurrencies governance and constitutions and we help to develop kind of handbooks for tech based co-optives to help them to help them identify to be co-operative as possible so there is a yearly meet-up that we do have and that's based at Wally Hall as you can see, a lovely place so that's every year maybe changing however for the past couple of years it has been based at Wally Hall and it just gives us an opportunity for everyone to meet in person discuss topics such as empowerment and engagement between members and obviously the larger co-op industry we also use that time to help promote collaboration and work together in different teams to kind of build work that we can put together so there will be sessions that we can try and maybe develop things and build a product as such so again it is an opportunity to meet face to face network, have fun mainly and identify the goals for the co-tech group so within co-tech and another work co-op Landish help to create this joint venture of course called Space4 and it's a incubation hub co-working an event space based in Finsbury Park in London so it currently seats 24 desks with multiple members utilising the space there's currently 16 members utilising that space so it was set up back in April 2016 and the idea was it was there to support new worker co-optives coming into the industry and to help mentor them becoming as best as they can so with that there was a few difficulties in terms of building that in terms of building the community and in terms of financing those kind of issues so with co-optives UK it's great that you can go to them for advice in terms of where to go financing things like that so just a bit about collaboration of co-optives we obviously and as well do believe in further cooperation between members and other co-optives field potential is a little lack of collaboration in some respects identify those kind of barriers to collaboration find out what may be leaning people away from it and again push for large co-ops to use smaller co-optives because we are in the market and we are there and it can be difficult for us to get our foot in the door especially in the range of industries that there are and on the basis of that I believe that is all I have to say thank you this presentation gives you a favour over the over 700 members we have in co-optives UK from a society that's about 150 and 50 year old who was 2 years old although the rate of growth of the 2 year old is a bit scary I think it looks like it's going to overtake some of our older members very shortly if it carries on at that rate of growth which is very very exciting for all of us so I'd like to thank those members for sharing their stories with you I think that gives you a flavour of the interactions and the types of co-operatives that we are working with now in co-operatives UK so again thank you for those contributions I have to now move on to the first formal item of business it's still an AGM after all so firstly we have to approve the minutes of the AGM on the 30th of June 2017 looking round through the room I know that some of you were actually there although it's a bit like the 60s if you can remember if you were there you won't be able to remember so can I have a I'll propose those minutes as being a true and correct recall just somebody second that from the floor for me thank you Vincent Briar Amber again the only name the resolution will be on the screen and online for the colleagues at home to absorb so we'll have to wait a little bit while that goes up for those voting in the room we need a show of cards just to support the resolution can we have that please thank you very much again a slight pause where we we have the null points from Luxembourg in the online vote just before we do that are anybody against the motion or any abstentions are there any abstentions if you don't vote at home that will be an abstention if there's anybody at home who's against it please sale now thank you thank you very much so therefore we move on to resolution number one from the agenda this is the annual report and financial statements the resolution is to receive the annual report and financial statements together with the report of the auditors for the year ending 30th of December 2017 I will formally move that resolution to outlaw the financial statements can I welcome Michael Shepard the finance manager I'm Michael Shepard the finance manager for Carps UK welcome fellow co-operators in person and online to the annual general meeting of Carps UK at Holyoke House we're in the polling green room which used to be mine and the finance office I used to sit in that corner back in the day and it proves our commitment to developing Holyoke House it's my responsibility to present the financial statement outline report for the year ending December 2017 and it gives me great pleasure to do so after my presentation and an update from our auditor there will be time and an opportunity for questions 2017 was the final year of our current three year strategic plan the outcomes against which the key performance indicators are logged on page 19 of the report my presentation will concentrate on the finance performance from pages 20 to 43 we posted a pre-tax surplus of £2,427 before the power to change investment I'll cover in some detail shortly our cash flow statement shows that we have a reduction in our overall cash position of around £137,000 but it's still healthy at £1.4 million last time I'm going to talk about this I promise the soon army donation fund has been cleared and it's no longer in our account and it won't be mentioned again especially by me and the report is available on the college website about its use but it was valuable and it was good use joking about there we go in 2017 we received £477,000 from power to change which is a charity to invest in societies to kickstart their growth this is our first year of this type of investment we obtained financial and legal advice on the treatment of these funds Corbidge UK will hold these shares and each year we will measure them for impairment if money is a return we will lot to reinvest them in other societies to continue the work we will continue this work anyway under the booster 2 programme and we will have further investment funds over the next few years with these funds Corbidge UK acts as a conduit for money coming into the sector on a pilot basis we cannot be sure that the investments will remain on our balance sheet or that the value will remain the same it's an excellent initiative but I wanted to touch to I wanted it's an excellent initiative and I wanted to make sure that our members are able to see our true underlying financial position this year and for subsequent years that's why it needs to be explained if you think we've made thousands of pounds of profit it's a member association the simple answer is no we haven't unfortunately page 38 of the annual report shows the investments and these are the places that we invested and this that's it right okay we'll win it now and these are the places in the country so hopefully next year there will be more yellow blobs that's a technical term okay income expenditure is main consistent and in line with expectations in previous years we've budgeted for a deficit in 2017 due to covering for an employed long term sick absence and some repair works but we ended up up pulsing a small profit as part of our strategy to diverse our income the retail society partnership subscription income as a percentage of our total income has reduced to 59% this year and it continues to be one of our KPI targets projects that meet the wide objectives of Cork UK are a large part of our work we will continue to seek partnership funding for the work we do and we have had success in securing funding for community initiatives that meet our mission of promote developed unite I'll get used to it by the time we're finished expenditure personnel as you would expect is our biggest cost and 49% of our expenditure is on core personnel which was actually reduced by 27,000 pounds year on year establishment costs are up by 6,000 pounds year on year but our income from lettings has increased by 28,000 pounds with the nearly full occupancy of the building Holyalcal's letting has increased year on year by 8% over in a good position we continue to invest in the building and are proud that it remains the centre of excellence of the Cork movement we we can report that we've retained the fair tax mark again and page 39 note 9 gives the detail on the tax position I'm not going to go into that you'll be pleased to know the balance sheet funding from project is generally received in advance with project income being held on the balance sheet as deferred income and recognised as the value of the work done and performed today so as per the accounts in the summary stated this concludes my presentation to the AGM of the 2017 statutory accounts and rest assured my team and I will continue to look after the money finally I'd like to thank my team and all the staff and board members for their work during 2017 thank you for your patience and listening I would like now to pass it to Nicola Quail our auditor thank you good evening our audit report for the year is set out on pages 24 and 25 of the annual report and financial statements and I will just read the opinion paragraph we've audited the financial statements of Cooperatives UK Limited for the year ended December 2017 which comprised the income statement, balance sheet cash flow statement statements of changes in equity and related notes including the accounting policies in note one in our opinion the financial statements give a true and fair view in accordance with UK accounting standards including FRS 102 the financial reporting standard applicable in the UK and the Republic of Ireland of the state of the society's affairs as that 31st December 2017 and of the income and expenditure of the society for the year then ended and they comply with the requirements of the Cooperatives and community benefit societies act 2014 thank you on the money are there any questions to Mike of Art of the Auditors just wait for the microphone sorry thank you hi Emma Howard I can see there's been a marked increase in expenditure for consultancy fees I was just wondering if that's a one off or if it's expected to be continued and if we could just have a little bit more information about that because it certainly seems to be driving the profit figure thank you Emma sorry included in the consultancy fees we've actually got consultants we've got consultants that used to be members of staff so the staff personnel has increased as the the consultants has gone up for it to do with members of staff moving to consultancy and it's a lot lower than the personnel of the cost any other questions that was interesting wasn't it the answer was more complicated than the question any other questions did everybody understand the power to change now yes we know that we're we're investing in start-up co-ops and we take an equity share in the co-op and that's what the money is on our balance sheet sorry you need a microphone Jenny sorry very interesting to hear Jenny De Villiers and actually part of the regional co-op council as well it would be quite good to learn perhaps the vision of co-ops UK if you are working in partnership with House of Cays how do you see that concept working across the whole co-op movement to support regional bodies that are currently existing as we all know regional co-op councils are on the demise through the funding curve what is the position that you could foresee going forward that you could ignore co-ops thanks for that question Jenny it's not necessarily related to the point I was just going to come back more formally is there any other questions on the account on the finances no that's excellent for yours Ed so the rest of the annual report am I good to go good it's a great pleasure to be here at the annual general meeting thank you very much for travelling to be here or for logging into to be here excuse my lack of jacket it's just hot enough between us in the room and Jenny maybe I should just start with your question because the power to change funding comes with very close ties which is that it's about a co-investment in community benefit societies that are raising community share issues so Leeds community homes is a perfect example and in some ways what was exciting about Leeds community homes and it's amazing what's going on in the city is that actually every city should have a community homes kind of project this country cries out for housing and actually I think you are pioneering and piloting kind of ways of doing exactly exactly that so the power to change funding is about equity capital co-investment where local people are getting together to put up money that's being matched by that as a charitable funder it's not about regional structures or the valuable work of regional kind of you know bodies Jane thank you again for your kind of input on that because it shows actually how much the larger consumer societies can do in their own trading area and those regional connections are core to it as well and I see that right across our members it's great privilege that I have to be able to go out and to visit co-op so you know as if we're going to Merthyr Tidfield see their Merthyr Valley homes a significant housing multi-stakeholder co-operative doing an extraordinary work to regenerate a town that is tough the football club has gone co-operative as well go to the Channel Islands where our vice chair is running a marathon this weekend but Wernher again the Channel Islands Co-op Society doing something of the same I must now be very brief because that was off script and I wanted to say that the work of Co-operatives UK is you'll be as members judges of what we do but it's a coming together that makes us valuable that we are a co-operative of co-operatives now we're not a young co-op there are one or two co-ops in the room they're a little bit older but we are approaching in 2020 our 150th anniversary I wasn't there at the start but we're thanks to Gillian the co-operative heritage kind of trust have been looking at the archives and and this is my predecessor Edward van Citar Neil who provided advice and support as general secretary of the Co-operative Union in the late 19th century to a number of kind of start-up co-ops and may well be co-ops in the room who benefited from that early example of co-operative advice and this rather lovely quote 15 years into the founding of the Co-operative Union about the value of coming together and today these are tough times for sure but they are also hopeful times for the Co-operative sector and what we do is more relevant than ever looking through in terms of our annual report and what we did over 2017 I thought I would pick out some key numbers to share with you and if there are any questions around any aspects of the annual report in our work it would be a pleasure to talk to it the organisation works to a strategy that is the same as the brass plaque on the side of Holyoke House this very special building the home to the Co-operative movement and in modern day parlance the strategy set by the Board is that we should promote, develop and unite Co-operative enterprises the strategy that we are working to was set in 2014 when it was times of crisis and of stretch within the Co-operative sector and part of what we recognised was that we needed to diversify our business base in line with our mission and what Michael described in terms of our work on finances and the work of the staff team is in and around how we do that, we provide member subscriptions we use Holyoke House as a base for co-ops but we get a rental income from that and we attract money for projects as well and we offer consultancy services and if that wasn't clear in what Jane did, I think it was, we were there to help if you would like us to do so and we are three years into that strategy and the Board has extended that same strategy through to 2020 I do want to thank Board members many of whom present today and in particular Nick as chair for guiding us through this period so the numbers that I will work through kind of very briefly 90% satisfaction 97% satisfaction with our advisory kind of services and if you have not used our legal or government's advisory services then you would be very welcome to be in contact over 470 different co-operatives attend our events, the main events including some of those were mentioned earlier again get over 95% kind of satisfaction for those ways of bringing members together of any co-ops in the room that have got less than 10 million pounds of turnover thank you very much well you may be among those co-ops that will benefit from one change that we have made to the audit requirements for fast growing co-ops some years ago we persuaded the government to get rid of the government from mid-year audited statement, sorry about that Nicola in terms of the because it saved our members something like 200,000 not all on KPMG 200,000 pounds in those audit fees with this change is something that we campaigned for we saw a doubling of the threshold under which co-ops do not have to have more clients that brings us into line with companies more widely through the Hive supported by the cooperative bank and we are very grateful to the cooperative bank for its active partnership and support of the sector through the Hive program we have been able to support over 350 fledgling co-ops and growing co-ops with different forms of business support or advice the community shares story of which Leeds Community Homes is one example but one of many Johnny is now an expert on the Glen Wyvis distillery which is a cooperative distillery in the north of Scotland I think it closed about over 250 years ago one of Rabi Burns' favourite whiskies been reopened by the community in Dingwall as a project to regenerate a town that actually had been left to go a bit more to rack and ruin a ring road around it had been left there revitalising the town the distillery is now being set up as a tourist centre so you can go there you can get on an electric bus and go and visit the distillery the only thing is that whisky takes longer to brew if that is the right word distill then a community share issue does to raise we have helped our members raise over £2 million in share equity in 2017 we did as Jane said launch the storm and floods appeal the time of Brexit we believe passionately that we need to be more international and more open than ever and we are grateful to a late Friday afternoon email that we got from colleagues at Southern Cooperative that said with all the news about typhoons and hurricane is there going to be any kind of appeal because if there was we would donate that started a weekend's work with the team here and in contact with a number of our members and by Monday morning we launched an appeal that went out with a £50,000 starting donation from the Cooperative group with Southern Co-op amongst others in contributing to it and a large number of societies contributed to raising around 140,000 I've seen the photos from some of the early results in Nepal for example where they're affected by flooding and it's a very very encouraging response that is there so thank you but also as a member don't hesitate to suggest we won't always work over the weekend but when it's an emergency we will our communications work has been excellent and I pay tribute to staff colleagues our outgoing colleague Gail Simon who left to go and work as a member at SUMA thanks Ross for poaching him but many others as well we've got some fabulous resources that are out there one video was viewed over 200,000 times another one with Michael Sheen the actor little moment of celebrity magic dust Co-operative Congress last year was viewed 180,000 times and of course Co-operative full night which is coming up in later in June before Co-operative Congress on June the 23rd is our time to celebrate the Co-operative difference what difference we make how we are different what difference we make to the country and the final one is 36 million and I don't know if any of you can guess what this might be you might have been involved I don't know we helped to run a buy twitter campaign that we said well actually why couldn't twitter be owned by its users and working with activists in the states and elsewhere we put a resolution down at the annual general meeting of twitter in San Francisco the board didn't decide to send me which is a disappointment but the board of twitter tried to rule it out they took it to the security exchange commission try to get it out but the resolution was put down correctly it went to a vote we got 36 million votes from twitter shareholders in favor of a resolution to explore a cooperative model unfortunately money talks and the big shareholders had rejected so it was it didn't go through but it was a campaign to show that very much as your presentation showed in the work of Kotak that cooperatives are about the future we are so relevant to these times this is a great age of participation a great age of cooperation and many of those technology options do not have to be enclosed by venture capital and by silicon valley they can be democratically owned in a very true spirit of cooperation and then finally I should close on this I was given 8 minutes I think I made an a half of the time I was in the national labour organization talked about the work of our data our open data and some years ago it was a subject that would come up at our annual general meetings why is the data that co-op to UK puts out so poor there's a co-op here that died five years ago there's a new co-op there that nobody kind of knows can we really trust the figures and we took that seriously worked with others regional councils Jenny and others the cooperative development Scotland Wales co-operative centre with whom we partner and the team led by kind of Paul and colleagues at the back were praised by the international labour organization looking at co-operative statistics last year as the gold standard for data on co-ops and that's our role is not to be data experts but is to tell the co-operative story telling that story the inspiring story of our members the story of our members that we are proud to be able to work with and to support what we're able to do is to build a cooperative economy and to do so by promoting and developing and hopefully uniting as well the cooperative sector thank you very much thanks very much Ed time for questions we've got a first question from online so Seena so Martin who is attending from cooperative business consultants has asked and power to change is obviously fantastic news for co-ops in England is co-operative UK lobbying for similar opportunities in Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland the answer is yes what we've been able to try in England power to change are limited in terms of their focus on England is novel no one else has done this this idea of essentially almost institutional investment into co-operative societies but on the same terms as members that are putting up their own capital for that and it might be described as a pilot and rightly so and actually we've got plenty of things wrong plenty of learning it's taking some time meal my colleague has been involved in much of this directly so we're learning as we go but we are proving the model so Martin congratulations on your work in Scotland with many community co-operatives that I know and I'm aware of and we will be really hopeful that with the support of our members in Scotland and partners in Scotland including the Development Trust Association Scotland we run the community shares unit there in partnership with us that we could be able to bring this model right throughout the UK so any questions to Ed from don't they mouth easily looks like he got away with it again any questions thank you Jenny how are you just talking we've obviously circulated that I think it's quite interesting how that is working out and who is taking in that is it Newsy Group how is it working thank you very much and Jenny your question relates to the National Co-operative Development Strategy under the theme of do it ourselves which we've worked on and developed with our members across the sector and it's been a really exciting process but it also helps our work at Co-operatives UK because it gives us a framework within which we can focus on how to grow the co-operative economy and many of the conversations that we have with our members are about what the fit is in relation to that in terms of example of some of the work that is going on one of the themes was around replicating success and one of the really most inspiring stories of the last kind of year it's in 2018 rather than 2017 and might just to give credit to you for kind of work around this if I've got that right is the Student Housing Co-operative kind of secondary association what's the title series? Student Co-operative Homes thank you very much and this is a secondary co-operative which is trying to spread a very successful model that has started in Edinburgh and in Birmingham and elsewhere so that's one example of work along those lines we talked about three added three new sectors where we thought the co-operative model would be particularly relevant one in social care, the second in digital platform co-ops and the third in freelancer co-ops people working self-employed and again we're seeing examples across that we've just been running over the last week or so an accelerator for platform co-ops essentially if you think of Uber, Airbnb, this is what you think of as platforms why should those platforms not be owned democratically by the people that drive for those or use those services, that's the platform co-op idea and with stir to action our member we've launched unfound which is an accelerator for platform co-ops and we've got six fledgling would-be platform co-ops and they're so exciting really to see we've got one in social care which is a multi-stakeholder co-cares model presented at co-op congress so you'll have seen that develop and emerge that's getting support from larger social care co-ops like in Wales for example offering to connect we've got taxi drivers in there we've got physiotherapists there's a music streaming platform co-op so really the future coming forward and then again in terms of the freelancer co-ops we've been working so one of the really positive things we've done over the last month in fact is to announce a tie-up with actually the UK's largest freelancer co-op called ipsy and ipsy has 67,000 members have worked through there and recognised their work as a co-operative so many exciting moves going forward I would ask all of you in the Roman or online also to take a look at the toolkit in the way that you said Jenny to see how your co-operative can engage in this because the strategy is not a strategy for a team of people in Manchester to do that's never going to work it's an open invitation to anybody to get involved in the co-operative sector and the co-operation of those valued and expert people that work in the co-operative development sector often working against the odds and with limited resources to do it how can your co-ops get involved I would love and I know Jenny that you're on the national member council of the co-op group I would love to see the co-op group take a lead and have a clear and compelling answer was engaging with the national co-operative development strategy so I hope you can hear about what we've been doing in our members but also take it back to your own democratic spaces board spaces, workplaces and think about how you can get engaged in this story because we're better together that's the core co-operative message and that's certainly true for co-operative development he's got the behind you sorry Tanyalene just asking about co-operative development on the ground lots of discussion at the moment regarding doubling the co-operative economy whichever themes they sit under but some independent societies are funding some co-operative development on the ground but it's a general concern throughout the movement and where do we go from that and I know yourselves with who the hive are dealing with some of that but I think co-operative development as a whole for all co-operatives in the room or subscribe to you is how we can work together to raise funds to have correct co-operative development on the ground thank you very much Tanya and I agree wholeheartedly with your kind of comment and your suggestion that this is partly about resources and I think partly also what we're doing is learning about the way to fit this into a commercial proposition as well for co-operatives so it does feed into a virtuous circle so that it's not asking our members to be philanthropists in terms of something else they're doing something that is caught as their identity as a co-operative co-operating with others the supply chain example was a great example Kotec is an amazing example of co-operating together and pulling themselves up by the bootstrap in doing so if we can connect Kotec in a simple way with technology and procurement spend from co-ops across the sector again we're starting to see how this could really grow it's one of the beauties of the movement compared to some others we have the small and we have the large but there's this idea of equality that we can really learn from each other and if we can find ways with each other that's good the development advice then comes as a essential tool to be able to make that happen and I think we've got concerns for example around knowledge and succession there's a lot of expertise out there that is at risk of being lost and so the co-operative strategy was intended to affirm the value of resources going in in exactly that way David Stunbury, member of the Co-op Groups National Members Council I'm not an accountant so I should preface my remarks by saying that but it looks as if the total assets are 1.3 million of which almost half a million is invested in power to change that seems quite a high proportion and I do wonder just how secure those investments of almost half a million are Michael is here and can talk to this but just to explain the money is from power to change not to power to change it's new additional money that is granted by this lottery charitable foundation through Co-operatives UK and the money is invested in fledgling co-ops so is money that is in line with the investment policy that we have as an organisation but it is money that is at risk I don't know Nicola whether you want to say anything more about the treatment it's a relatively unusual thing that we are doing here it is quite unusual can we have a microphone it is quite unusual we did look at the accounting as a result but effectively you've been given those funds by power to change into separate investments and the return that you will get from those investments or the value of those investments should grow as the investments have been made in them but we'll need to be reviewed for impairment going forward if any circumstances should change the carrying value of those investments will be reviewed at every balance sheet date if that makes sense one more question over here and if we can have shorter answers I wasn't about Nicola I'm not sure of students cooperation and others I was just wondering so if we turn to page 38 investments so the value carried forward we've got 400,000 investment in the cult group 176 in other cultive shares got power to change I was just wondering what comes under other investments £289,000 because I can't seem to see a breakdown 38 so other investments we've got money invested through James Sharp on the stock exchange PLC equity investment ethical equity investment into DQ could you not think about the better investment within the cult movement rather than the stock exchange especially as I do have to invest in not only the cult movement but being a better financial position we've spread our risk by putting in some in different places it's not all in the cult movement it's some outside and we get a good return for it and it's something that the audit committee agreed to do and it's something that we reduce through the audit committee every quarter or three times a year three times a year so it's a good question but no another question down the front Jenny Ruff would it affect the power to change of the co-op bank if it had its cooperative name taken from it as is proposed what was the first part of the question would it affect the power to change of the co-op bank there's no link between the power to change funding oh sorry change again I suppose I understand that the co-op bank underpins to some extent this organisation and also the Hive or is a significant contributor and I also hear that there's a proposal to take the name cooperative from it because of its structure not being cooperative even though it helps cooperative and so I was wondering whether that might be a dangerous move in terms of its credibility with respect to supporting the co-op movement I can talk to you yes I mean the issue that we know is an uncomfortable one which is essentially the demutalisation of the co-op bank in 2014 and 2015 the agreement that exists with the co-op bank around the name given that the co-op bank is now investor owned so it is not a co-op it has co-op values enshrined within its articles which is very welcome technically it was always included in the statistics of the co-optive economy because although a company it was wholly owned by a member owned co-operative so that ultimately you could say that member control was there whereas now it is essentially investor owned and controlled for the moment yes and so there is criteria that we have used in working with the co-op to bank around that identity compliance agreement and framework part of that is around the support that it does give to the co-operative kind of sector if the co-operative bank for whatever reason stopped that support then that would be a significant gap because the national co-operative development strategy that is supported quite significantly by the Hyde program I have said to a number of our larger members that if the co-operative bank was not funding the Hyde then we would be coming to you eyeballing some of our members in the room as I speak to do this because it is a key piece of infrastructure for the sector so it is absolutely on our risk register we look at this very closely the board consider it quite regularly we are in close contact with others such as our bank which is the union of co-operative bank customers and we are very much on the same page as them for the moment which is to encourage the co-operative bank to live up to those co-operative values and to be clear about its natural identity Thanks for that Ed thanks for those questions excuse me it is time now to formally move the resolution for the annual report of financial statements can I get a second during the room for the annual accounts thank you very much in that case can we therefore have a vote on accepting the financial report statements all those in favour thank you very much is anybody against and any abstentions thank you very very much indeed there we have to do also I've got to wait a little bit for the online voters thank you very very much indeed can we actually can you imagine the day some day when would they all vote against that would be quite strange to have something going on outside that it wasn't really in control so we move on to resolution number 2 and these resolutions really are I suppose the classic housekeeping resolutions the first one is from John Anson John I'd like to just point out this is John's final opportunity to address the room as a member of the Board of Corporatives UK he's only been doing it for 38 years so if he gets it wrong it's because he's such a youngster he has done much practice John answer the floor George a great pleasure in my last go up duty of recommending the reappointment of KPMG as a society's auditor we are fortunate to have Nicola Quayle who is the Manchester senior partner the first female to do so to supervise the audit after 21 years she almost knows as much as I do about the co-op movement recommend the reappointment of KPMG as auditor from the conclusion of this meeting until the conclusion of the next AGM next year second floor please thank you very much can we have a shout of all those in favour of that resolution thank you very much is there anybody against now thank you very much any abstentions thank you in favour of what again more abstention so I think that's carried thank you very much and again the next tranche resolutions are slightly tidied up resolutions technically we don't have to do this but we thought as we recommended to our members that they should do it we thought we were to do these things as well so resolution number three on board fees this used to be moved by oh sorry Ross I was looking past you yeah oh Ross I haven't got a speech repair sorry so there's three that I will be presenting so I'm Ross Hodgson chair of the new chair of the Renumeration Appointments and Succession Committee and also member of the board so we'll go to the first one it's also the both level three but it's that 3A3B so the first one is the board fee the directors are eligible to claim so in 2011 our members approved an annual increase to the board fee in line with RPI and this increase could be applied to further member consent so following some consideration of best practice governance the board proposed removing the rights for the directors to automatically receive any increase instead reverse the position where any uplift in board fee requires the agreement of a simple majority of members at the general meeting so so therefore do you have a second to finish proposal thank you very much all those in favour please show anybody against thank you very much, that's good Ross you're doing well so far chair's fee which I'm not interested in at all I'm sorry about this again I'm never going to do the Eurovision some contest am I resolution number three chair's fee so I have no interest in whatsoever Nick will be quiet through this so yeah this concerns the fee but the chair of Cubs UK currently Nick our chair is elected to the board this year and the chair receives a currently separate annual fee currently which is 2700 and it's not eligible for the board fee on top of that Runco has completed a piece of work to review whether the amount paid is fair and provides adequate compensation and is now proposing that it increases board members feel that over a number of years we're going to rely on the good will of the chair for all this broad another time and it's beyond the facilitation of the board meetings and it's often now acting as an ambassador for Cubs UK attending and speaking events working outside the staff team doing board reviews so it's massively expanded and as a new member to the board I can attest to the amount of time and effort that Nick does put into the role so the review completed considered chair's fees in comparable organisations the time commitment expected and the average wage at Cubs UK the proposal today is for a significant increase in the fee paid to the chair which if approved will ensure that from now on any direct tuition to stamp collection receives a fair reward for the time that they put in there's also another dimension that is sort of important given the amount of time that Nick does put in that the role isn't just obtainable for people that can afford to give up that time and that people are rewarded for the time they give up I can attest to the fact that Nick does put these hours in and does probably put more hours than this in but we'll leave it at this for now so yeah, I'll move that we move to the convert if I'm allowed to do that Does anybody have any questions? John John Boyle from Revolver Co-op Is this resolution being based on the incredible work that Matthews does or is this resolution being based on the expected work of any chair I know it says that on there but you've alluded a lot to the fantastic work that Nick does I'd rather the motion actually was restricted to the work expected of any future chair an existing chair I think there is if I've alluded to Nick too much in that it will downplay the future but yeah it is about what is expected of the chair and Nick is putting in what we expect of the chair and that amount that he is putting in is over and above really what the fee currently gets that's what it's a bit next though Thanks for that question, John You can get your own back We need a seconder Look it wasn't my wife then Seconder Or else in favour please Thank you, anybody against any abstentions and online Excredible at that unanimous Obviously we've been too low Last but not least She's slightly complicated but I think you can explain it to Thanks So yeah This sticks to the wording of the existing attendance allowance policy which under rule 46 requires the approval of the members and so we're here Substance to this small amendment is to enable anyone including but not limited to current directors to claim the allowance where they've incurred actual loss of earnings as a result of attending meetings or events at the request of Co-op's UK Directors may not claim for any time spent which is ordinarily expected to follow in that role such as board meetings to be completely open and honest Part of the reason that this has come about is that over the past few years the old wording or the current wording does not allow for directors to claim this fee There's been about five or six times when they've been paid that fee they shouldn't have been this loss of earnings allowance which is a small amount but that's partly why this review has come around and partly what I alluded to last time is the importance of people being able to take roles and not expected to do things unpaid when they could be claiming earnings elsewhere So yeah, that's partly sort of a small change to allow directors outside of board meetings to be able to claim that fee but hopefully I've explained that well enough Yeah, I think that's it Anybody got any questions? Just wait for a minute Just so we can hear online I think this is just a wording exercise isn't it, because as far as since my board days on Corp UK we were actually following that pattern, weren't we? So isn't this just a re-wording of the existing position? It's a minor change in that the current policy wouldn't allow a director who received a board fee to claim attendance allowance under any circumstances even if they're attending for example a worker council or an international event on our behalf, so currently it restricts directors if they're receiving a board fee from also claiming it so it isn't a small wording change I think also we'd like to be able occasionally if we've got a colleague who serves on a committee not from Corp UK but say on a governance committee or an external committee where we ask people to do something on our behalf I mean I don't think very many people would give up a day's pay for 90 pounds and travel all the way to Manchester at least it's a token to say that we appreciate the sacrifice they're making if they're doing something on behalf of the movement that we've asked them to do and they're not going to be completely editable so it is a tidy up thing but we thought it was important as we demand other societies I mean put these remunerations things to their members that we whilst these are very trivial events relatively that we go through the same process thank you Ross is there a seconder for this motion thank you very much all those in favour please share thank you very much is there anybody against any abstentions and voting online thank you very much thanks Ross so I know most of you have only come for that middle bit because you want to stand by me afterwards and get a drink but now we're going to some perhaps more exciting parts of the agenda we move on to resolution number five and this is about the future of the wonderful building in which we live Neil we're going to see everyone I only have a couple of minutes to speak and you saw the form at the start of the meeting and as you saw from the form we're in a historic room in a very historic building beautifully sunlit actually bust in the corner of George Jacob Hollyoak a great corporator and our building Hollyoak House named after him is a major part of movement history recent years have seen many changes in Manchester in cooperative property the great Victorian buildings around us are all being restored as you can see if you walk around the area but they're no longer owned by the movement and they're no longer owned by corporators this building is Hollyoak House is the remaining movement building in Manchester and as part of the national co-development strategy Cubs UK were asked to develop a 25 year strategy for Hollyoak House it is our home of course Cubs UK but it's also home to the cooperative college co-op press parts of the phone co-op cooperative heritage trust I must thank for the excellent film you saw at the start Abcol and various other third party tenants the building is old sometimes it needs a fair bit of TLC and repair and over the last year there have been various options for making Hollyoak a vibrant modern movement asset for this century as well as the last we've been developing what I think are some good ideas to increase the capacity of the building and rental income and help Cubs UK achieve a more diverse source of income in future which Michael referred to we're presently talking to the cooperative group to achieve a clear legal title on which we may bring these ideas to fruition though Hollyoak is to all extents and purposes the home of Cubs UK and we have all revenue and liabilities as our responsibility the legal title is complex for historic reasons you saw on the video the various reconfigurations of the building over the years and helped Ray the Luftwaffe Cubs group have been helpful in early talks and we hope that Hollyoak development might take place alongside our 150th anniversary in 2020 the resolution in front of the AGM is not for any specific development proposal that is yet to be decided it is more a statement of principle that members are asked to agree the Hollyoak continues to serve as an asset for the movement and our time and resources over the next period, the next year are used to develop specific ideas and plans to be brought in time for any development in the form of that development to the board and as required the members of Cooperatives UK so the resolution that you see behind me reads that the Hollyoak House was raised by subscription across the current movement as a home for the cooperative union in memory of George Shake and Hollyoak the great 19th century champion of the pioneers it remains true to that purpose today members resolve to sustain the building as an asset for the movement welcoming steps to secure the commercial viability and heritage quality of Hollyoak House for the decades ahead thank you so Neil's moved the resolution are any questions on this proposal no, in that case can we have a seconder oh we've got a whole sea of seconders that means they either want to get on with it or they want to get on with it in that case all those in favour of the resolution thank you very much is anybody against any abstentions and I'm lying more votes in favour thank you very much we just got one piece of information to convey before we close the meeting and let everybody out for a sunny evening in Manchester that's worth a photograph in itself see that, the elections to our board we have five board seats that Terms of Office came to an end this time and three of those saw uncontested nominations and we will see Phil Hartwell nominated by HR Holidays in the Consumer Owned Corporatives Craft Degree coming onto the board and Nick Matthews retained his seat nominated by Heart of England Society we'll see Eddie Thorne nominated by mid-cooperative representing retail consumer co-op in Scotland and the North and I think Eddie's here today there he is so a new director joining them Phil might be here as well Phil Hartwell's just behind you as well sorry Phil and then we had two contested elections the first was for the seat for retail consumer co-operatives in the south and that contested election was won by Emma Howard from East of England Co-operative Society welcome Emma and the second contested election was for the federal's membership category and the winner of that election was Robin Thief who was nominated by the Building Society Association and I imagine Robin is waving furiously now because he's one of our online attendees today welcome Robin so we see two directors standing down at this AGM the first is Mark Leonette who was previously the federal's sitting in a federal seat on our board Mark's also leaving his position as most of you will know at the Association of British Credit Unions and unfortunately isn't with us this evening as he's literally on his leaving due today is his last day so we thought we wouldn't make him sit here when he could be out in the sun and then the other director that's retiring at this meeting as Nick spoke about earlier is John Anderson and I think Nick wants to say a couple of words about that I don't know how to start with John really John's been on the board most of my adult life with my life when I joined the board I sat by John and a couple of other old legs and I think that first year when I was just listening to them talking and explaining things to me I probably learned more sitting next to John in about 10 minutes than I did from all the induction and all the other stuff that everybody gave me but John is very strong in his contribution and his beliefs he's absolutely true to the cooperative principles and the cooperative ideal he's a man of deep integrity and honesty and if John tells you something you know that he's telling you what he believes to be the truth and I absolutely as chair of the board and as a member of the board I mean people around the table with that degree of integrity and honesty it's an incredible valuable thing to have and even when we don't agree about something which is often we still get along who work together and when we reach an agreement he holds through the agreement and I've learned tremendous amount from John John is one of my absolute all time mentors in the movement and I think John both personally as a member of the board of COBS UK and also on behalf of the board of his contribution to the movement and to the society and it's very all together I think it's over 50 years 52 years man and boy either working for studying about or serving as a board member of co-operatives I think that's an example all of us can hope to and aim for so John thank you very much for your contribution at our earlier meeting you'll be pleased to know it wasn't just applause we gave him but we did give him some shares of our advice to still help the dividends going to be paid in liquid if you'll get the golden chair from that society in the future and I hope you have more time for the heart football club and to improve your golf handicap now you're going to come 625 mile roundtrip to Manchester from northern Scotland just finally before we wrap up I just want to say quite sincere thank yous personally I had a bit of a difficult year in the overall calendar year and the support and solidarity of colleagues in the movement has been absolutely solid and I thank every single one of you for the contributions you gave to me personally and to staff and to colleagues on the board at Co-operatives UK but also I'd like to thank staff we make a big show we wave a big flag but when you look behind the scenes it's a bit like that wonderful film Wizard of Oz we make a lot of noise we've put a great show on but when you go behind the tent there are 30 people working like beavers to deliver those outputs with a mere 3 million quid turnover so what we get in terms of banks for our box as members of this society I think is absolutely amazing and I think we should thank all of our staff the people who work on our behalf to deliver those outputs for what they deliver and also I'd like obviously to thank my colleagues on the board for their wisdom, insight, intelligence and that's just Vivian and also sorry Vivian and also to everybody else on the board for their contributions to the success of the society over the last 12 months I'd like to thank Ed as chief executive Neil for his tremendous contribution during the course of the year and Zina who is a new secretary has been an absolute brick for me as you know Nugin and Bangin telling me we're getting off pissed and ISTE when I should be sticking to the script so I'd like to thank everybody for taking part in tonight's annual general meeting and I hope very much that I'll see all of you on the 23rd of June at the Congress in London and we don't go to London very often and that's why we split the AGM from our trip to the smoke or it is smoke again unfortunately into London and I hope you'll all be there and it'll be a fantastic event but before you all go I just wanted to jazz up to get you all our online listeners and members the opening the ballot is now open for the cooperatives of the year we've already had in a very short amount of time over 11,000 votes for those cooperatives we've got another few weeks to run Dorough is our IT guy who monitors these things so he reckons at the current rate of travel we should get over 40,000 votes which he hopes and I suppose we all do will be more votes than Theresa May got in her constituency of May when she was elected to Parliament if we can't beat that I think we ought to be taking outside and doing something too so vote early vote often and get everybody else you know to vote in the cooperative elections thanks everybody for your participation tonight I think there might be a half a glass of prosecco left before you all go and thank you very much for your time