Post-Congress: first update

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.

We gave out loads of leaflets and badges, and sold a few t-shirts. Again, lots of good conversations with co-operators from an incredibly diverse range of co-ops. Being a member of a worker co-operative (www.graphics.coop), I tend to gravitate towards that sector, but it was brilliant being there with housing, consumer and credit union co-ops too. A special comradely shout-out goes to members of the Radical Routes network (www.radicalroutes.org.uk).

Margaret (Birmingham Greens), who was on the stall with me today, is relatively new to co-operatives, so she found it particularly enlightening, but we all learned something from each other. Jon (Islington Greens and The Woodcraft Folk) helped us at intervals throughout the day. Rory (Sheffield Greens, Fair Shares Foundation and Sheffield Hallam University) headed off to London very early this morning to speak at another event, at the instigation of Green MEP, Molly Scott Cato.

As a Scottish Green, it's been brilliant making close links with Greens from the England & Wales party – especially getting to know Rory, Margaret and Jon. This has definitely been the start of something bigger. Co-operative Greens are Go!

Embarrassingly, I forgot to take any photos. Hopefully, I will be able to find some that other people took (anyone?).

cheers,

Steve West
Co-convenor, Co-operative Greens special interest group
Scottish Green Party

PS: The fundraiser runs for another 3 days – hopefully we will cover all of the outlay.  We have plenty of badges and t-shirts left and they turned out a bit cheaper that we thought, so I've lowered the donation thresholds for these.)