I want to tackle today what I think is quite a difficult question. It’s this: what responsibility do ordinary members of a co-operative have, if their elected directors are not making a very good fist of things in terms of governance and member democracy?
A little while back (and for obvious reasons I’m going to be imprecise and will be fictionalising some things) I went to the AGM of a co-operatively run organisation I’ve been a member of for some time. It has around 6000 members and it operates in the area where I live: let’s imagine that it’s a locally-based consumer co-op.
The AGM pulled in perhaps twenty-five members, if you include the directors and one member of staff who was there. So at least we just met the quorum, which was sensibly set very low. You can do the sums: about 0.05% of the members were there.
Read the rest at Bibby on Cooperatives
Go to the GEO front page
Add new comment