Hey folks. I think this is something that we should try to start doing. Thinking about the warehouse cafe and red gym especially, both seem rife for it.
I have a small starting proposal of one small way that coop brum could help the cafe a lot, which would be to manage the bookshop. We don’t have time nor the money in the cafe to keep it updated and digitall organised, but it wouldn’t take too much work, a few orders a year and a spreadsheet at first.
I think it would be a really good first step if we ever plan to have a proper bookshop or similar space.
From the cafe’s side we could give members of coopbrum first access to events, or a 10% discount on alcohol or similar.
For red gym i think the advantages are much larger, red gym being part of coop brum would give it more access to funding and outreach and would give it a wider perspective than just personal self defence for those who attend. (what are we training for?)
Finally i think we should start a childcare project, even if very adhoc like the social repro team, but explicitly designed to support coop brum activities first priority, childcare for when the red gym and coopbrum events are on. There’s already some nurserarys owned by coops uk (i think?) in birmingham who want to help with the festival but want volunteers, Maybe worth reaching out to them for training/contacts?
Anyway those are my thoughts and i wanted to put them somewhere. No concrete proposals yet just want to know what people think.