It’s that time of year once again, when one year of membership passes onto the next. And with that comes a choice for you all – whether you sign up for the year ahead.
We are all incredibly grateful for your support in the last year – and for many of you for all those years before. So, we want to share with you some our experiences over the last year, and what you can expect from us in 2020.
This year, the price remains the same – £10 for the year. Plus, bring us back your old Membership Card and we’ll throw in a free coffee for your trouble. The Co-Op has never been about money for us, it’s always been about development and hopefully the pricing helps reflect that.
This year, there’s additional perks and we’re placing great focus on developing the Membership. There’s plenty of information in the revised handbook so please let us know if you’re interested and that we’ll send all the information to you.
Conscious that we (David) can be a little wordy at times, we’ve tried to keep it brief, but for those of you who want to know more, you can click through on each section (including this one) for more detail. For anyone still wanting more, please do get in touch with David directly. We are always happy when people bring their queries to us directly – that’s what being part of the Co-Op is all about.
In the beginning we didn’t allow ourselves to imagine that we’d be stronger than ever, still making a difference on our 6th birthday. And yet here we are. In no small part down to the unswerving commitment of a dedicated few, a community of active, engaged and socially conscious folk and an army of awesome young people.
We’ve been a Co-Op since 2016 and we cannot stress enough how committed to the concept we are. We created the Café to solve problems locally. That it developed such a large, wonderful community took us by surprise, but that’s why when we had the opportunity to change our governance, we chose the Co-Op structure. We believe the Café belongs to everyone and is a resource for all. We’ll hold our hands up and say that we haven’t developed the Co-Op element at the pace we would like, but we are committed to progressing your interest and engagement into active participation – if that’s what you want. You don’t have to be active; some folk just want the hot drinks discount and that’s absolutely fine, but please know, you can play as a big a part in the Co-Op as you would like.
Our Co-Op is a Multi-Stakeholder one. This means you can, should you wish, join the Board and get involved in the strategic decision-making side. For some, this may be really boring, but for others, it’ll give a more detailed insight into the work we do and the reasons behind it, as well as an opportunity to influence our future. But, please remember, we love evolution but signing up to the Co-Op means you subscribe to our values and ethos (as outlined in the Handbook), and those things will never change.