Updates for A Green Party presence at Co-operative Congress

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Post-Congress: first update

June 27th 2015 — 8 years 10 months ago

That's Congress over. The last few people have left to get their trains and buses home, or drifted back to their hotels.

Today's sessions were group discussions around the key issues chosen for this year's Congress: co-ops raising capital without compromising democracy, and (close to our hearts) environmental sustainability. Delegates tweeted the progress of the debates with the hasthtag #coopnow (check it out). There are some exciting co-op initiatives in the pipeline.

So here we are at Co-op Congress

June 27th 2015 — 8 years 10 months ago

The first day of Congress went well. Rory and I stood out a mile wearing our Co-operative Greens t-shirts and the stall was very visible. Everyone definitely noticed us.

We had lots of good conversations, meeting Green supporters and some "not-quite" supporters from various co-ops. Several people from the Co-operative Party also came over to talk to us (their stall is in the opposite corner).

How the money is being spent

June 25th 2015 — 8 years 10 months ago

Here's a list of the expenses we've incurred to date.

£480     fee paid to Co-operatives UK for the stall and delegate places
£98       trainfare to Birmingham
£110     for accommodation in Birmingham
£33       to deliver materials for the stall
£115     cost of 10 t-shirts for the £50 donors so far
£36      cost of badges for the donors so far
£30      estimated postage to send out t-shirts & badges  
£58      estimated Fundsurfer fees incurred so far

Total costs so far = £960

Co-operative Greens badges and t-shirts

June 23rd 2015 — 8 years 10 months ago

The badges have arrived! There are two sizes, 25mm and 32mm. Everyone who donated at least a tenner will get one of each.

T-shirts are due on Thursday, so I should have them in time for Congress. (I ordered them a month before the event, giving the suppliers plenty of time, but they have been unexpectedly busy and now expect to just make the deadline.)

I'll be taking stocks to Congress, so if you donated and are attending, please come to the stall to collect your goodies.

Meet the team on the stall

June 17th 2015 — 8 years 10 months ago

We've finalised who will be running the Green stall at Co-op Congress.

Friday 26th
Steve West (Edinburgh Greens)
Rory Ridley-Duff (Sheffield Greens)

Saturday 27th
Steve West (Edinburgh Greens)
Margaret Okole (Birmingham Greens)

Also helping out will be Jon Nott (Islington Greens).

Some background on who we are...

Beaten the target, let's keep going!

June 1st 2015 — 8 years 10 months ago

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this. I never imagined that we would reach the target so quickly! Now, can we raise even more?

The initial target of £520 pays the invoice from Co-operatives UK for the stall and two delegate places.  On top of this, there are the travel and accommodation costs of the delegates, plus materials for the stall and the cost of the badges and t-shirts for the fundraiser.

Adding all of these extra costs together, this would come to about £450 above the target, including Fundsurfer fees. That means raising a total of £970. Can we do it?

Our groups within the Green parties

May 29th 2015 — 8 years 11 months ago

Hi All

Thought I'd post a bit of background information about our organisations.

I'm a member of the Scottish Green Party. This is a separate party from the Green Party of England & Wales, although we work closely together, as indeed we work with sister Green parties throughout Europe and all over the world.

"Co-operative Greens" is a group of Scottish Green Party members. Our logo is derived from the Scottish Greens logo (of course, everyone's welcome to wear it with our badges and t-shirts – the more the merrier!)

What a day!

May 28th 2015 — 8 years 11 months ago

Thanks everyone. The project whizzed past the 50% funding mark today. Truly a Green Surge!  I was worried that this wouldn't take off, but it's obviously really clicked with people.

Hopefully we'll be able to cover some of our travel/accomodation expenses as well, at this rate.

I'll be going to Birmingham as the Scottish Green Party volunteer. Rory Ridley-Duff will be there for the Green Party of England & Wales on the Friday, and someone else from GPEW (not yet finalised) will be there on the Saturday.

I'll post another update when there's more news.