[fimdomeio]

I'm currently part of the administration of a co-op. It's in Portugal and it's a Multisectorial co-op, meaning instead of being focused on one type of activity we do anything as long as we have a member with that skillset. We are an agregation of freelancers and small businesses that go from small scale farming, to web development or architecture. The coop serves as a way to have a lot of the nice things of a bigger corporation like someone to help you with burocratic processes while allowing people to keep their independence. People can be very involved in the decision making or just financially contribute to the central structure. We have both general assemblies where all members vote in a very horizontal process but the day to day work has hierarchies to keep processes going smoothly

The biggest thing I've learned from being part of this process is that co-ops vastly destroys competition among peers and replace that we the mindset of "what's the best way to benefit the collective". Best thing to make it work is that it's not just altruism, benefiting the collective benefits yourself. Kind of like OSS works.

[rpastuszak]

Mind sharing the details? I'm based in Porto and I've been trying to learn a bit more about working in a co-op.

My contact details are in the profile, alternatively feel free to come and say hi: https://sonnet.io/posts/hi/

[ranguna]

Hello!

Mind sharing the co-op name?

I'm living in Portugal right now and I'm thinking about switching careers, so I might give that a look.

[fimdomeio]

I'm part of Cooperativa Integral Minga in Montemor-o-Novo. We we're the first one in Portugal in the concept of Integral Cooperative (took some inspiration from Cooperativa Integral Catalana). In Portugal there's now a few coops based on the same general principles. Rizoma Coop In Lisbon, Regenerativa in S. Luís, Cooperativa da Terra in Aljezur, A Geradora in Trancoso, Coop. Cápsula in Leiria, Húmus in Madeira (in process of forming), Coop. AlmaOhana in Odemira and Estação Cooperativa also in Montemor. Feel free to get in contact if you want to know more.

[ranguna]

Awesome!

Will look at all those, thanks for getting back to me!

[vernon99]

I’m also very interested to learn more and also super curious to brainstorm about your governance protocols since we are building a community platform and I wish we support these cases better. If you have 30 minutes sometime, can you drop me an email to mikhail at peerboard dot com?

[sitkack]

That is neat, so do members barter between each other? Or would that hurt accounting into supporting the central structure, or does it support direct barter?

[fimdomeio]

Members do barter between each other, and members sometimes organize micro-credits between each other the central structure takes no percentage from those transactions. We encourage them to happen even if they are a bit more work with no moneraty compensation to the central structure. Whatever makes projects and cooperators thrive in the coop the management will very likely support it. It makes the whole ecossystem healtier and gives more reasons for people to want to be a contributing part of it.

We take 5% from goods and services sold through the cooperative to the outside world and that's what mantains the whole central structure.

[BbzzbB]

How does it work from a commitment standpoint? Do you have to give something like a full time equivalent once you're in, or you're free to do how many hours you want (I presume with some minimum) while there is available work overlapping with your skillset?

[fimdomeio]

No commitment. People enter because they are already freelancers looking for more of a business structure or they enter to join some specific project. People manage themselfs either alone or in small groups like for example the architecture studio, or the biocosmetics lab.

People directly earn the money they generate so they choose how much they want to work.

[pkphilip]

Will be very interested in hearing the details. We are setting up a coop for small farmers and those in the agri-tech sector

[kybernetyk]

>The biggest thing I've learned from being part of this process is that co-ops vastly destroys competition among peers and replace that we the mindset of "what's the best way to benefit the collective".

Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

[larksimian]

Does it? Isn't that literally what being part of any well-functioning organisation is supposed to be like?