SSEds

SSEds – Social and Solidarity Economy

Start to Coop

Tool Description

The workshop was created by CoopLab and it foresees 5 steps.

Step 1 Workshop description “Looking for cooperative project”(200 minutes):

  • Debate about cooperation principles
  • Find ideas of possible projects
  • Identification of the ideas to be transformed into cooperatives enterprises projects
  • Group reflection

Step 2 – Define a strategy (170 minutes):

  • Set clearly your initial hypothesis
  • How do workers and social coops respond to people’s needs? 
  • Design your coop-working proposal
  • Focus on the economic and financial plan
  • What did we learn? Group reflection, Coop-game

Step 3: Design your organisation (260 minutes)

  • Define the coop working project name and logo
  • Cooperative structure, focus on: Coop governing bodies, Double condition: workers and owners participation
  • Cooperative structure, focus on: The coop organigram, Negotiation and vote
  • Statute creation
  • What did we learn? Group reflection and Coop-game

Step 4 workshop description: Working as a cooperative (140 minutes)

  • Teamwork
  • Monitor your functioning as a cooperative: Operational functioning and Financial functioning
  • What did we learn

Step 5 workshop description: what did we learn? (160 minutes)

  • Looking back to your journey + Review of the coop-working project: Individual and team evaluation
  • Retrospective: “how” did our team perform?
  • Organisation of the cooperative movement in Europe
  • Projects in the lab: Resume and share your coop-working project
  • What did we learn? Group reflection and Coop-game

Tips for trainers for group reflection about learning outcomes

Aims

To learn how to create your “coopworking enterprise” they propose a method in 5 steps: the idea, the strategy, the organization, the implementation and the experiment’s evaluation (what did we learn?)

Recommended for

Training and start up support

Duration

2-4 hours for each step

Background and where it has been employed

Output of an Erasmus+ project of IRECOOP Confcooperative Emilia Romagna

Material needed

Toolkit downloadable from cooplab.eu (Section Start to Coop, the 6 steps) for teachers and trainers. Paper, flipchart, markers, pens, post it, annexes materials printed, laptop and projector for videos and materials of support view, internet connection.

Links and downloads

http://www.cooplab.eu

Created by

The #CoopLab is co-powered and animated by five partners in Europe and three countries: France, Italy and Spain: Irecoop Emilia Romagna, Alternatives Economique, Escuela de Economia Social, CECOP-CICOPA, LesCoop

Comments

Useful connected links: AICCON (Italian Association for the promotion of the Culture of the Cooperation and Nonprofit): https://www.aiccon.it/ Coop Starter: http://starter.coop/wp/ It is a starting point for young entrepreneurs setting up cooperative start-ups, providing information on the cooperative model, a step-by-step guide to setting up a cooperative and a list of local support points across Europe. Examples and information about worker and social coops are included.

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