Meeting Minuts 20/07/20

Coop Cycle
1

Coop Cycle Birmingham General Meeting

Minutes of the general meeting held online on 19/07/2020 at 5 PM.

Present: Sylvia, Xenia, Richard, Seb, Sean

DIRECTORS: all present

QUORUM: yes

Action points from the previous meetings

  1. Sol Kitch. They were introduced to the CC platform. There was no feedback yet.

They were told they didn’t need the full access as it could mess up our operations.

The Routiffic licence was extended for Sol Kitch until September 30th.

  1. Rich talked to Matt from Bartleby’s Brewery

  • If sbd orders straight from the brewery they can redirect it through the cc platform.

  • Rich is gonna play with numbers to see how it’ll work for us.

  • The money from the different businesses can’t go through The Warehouse Cafe (WHC) bank account as CC can’t invoice the cafe for the services which were not delivered to the cafe (CC Brum Starling bank account still not active)

  • Tide needs Seb’s proof of address

  • The brewery delivers a lot of beer in Stirchley.

  • We need to decide on different delivery fees and rates for different clients (differences in distances and amount of load).

  • The Store function of the CC platform needs testing.

  • In the ‘preorder world’ platforms quite often offer free delivery so we need to think about how to price wisely.

  • We need to check about the legality of The WHC selling alcohol off-premises, and the CC Brum delivering it, for example, to the park.

  • Seb actioned to talk to Mani about WHC licence

  1. Cargo bicycle was moved the Bike Foundry to be fixed.
  2. Xenia and Mex on an access to CC platform traffic analytics.
  • No respond from Mex yet on that matter.
  1. Socials

  • Seb was actioned. Good response.

  • Remember to paste the CC Brum website address into every fb post.

  1. What are our goalsl? (VEGAN discussion)
  • Is it pushing the Vegan idea
  • Is it pushing the Coop Cycle (workers-owned democratic logistics co-operative) idea
  • Can we allow ourselves to be only a vegan business?
  • The market for vegan delivery is too small for us to survive, to make money
  • The cafe’s bags are not sealed atm so the risk of cross-contamination.
  • Sean: we’re a logistics coop, not a food coop.

(pasted from WhatsApp) “…how do we deal with the veggie / vegan issue? Imo by offering warehouse we are halfways already – we could have a vegan discount or something like that to providers – we will run into so many issues though with beer as well and pastries if we go full vegan. Maybe we should say to people they need to offer a vegan option? Not sure (…)I think a good way to look at this though is that the service coop cycle will offer is vegan – no animals harmed in the process of transportation, no oil burnt etc and we raise and profile co-ops and ecological businesses by existing. I don’ think we will exist on a large scale without negotiating existing meat serving food businesses in the city.

(End of the previous meeting’s action points evaluation)

  1. Each meal / bag should be labelled by the cafe so a courier knows who to distribute the meal to (when several bags in the delivery bag).
  2. What kind of contracts are we gonna offer to couriers? Flexible contracts? Autonomic, where Leo works, has self-employment contracts. Needs a research
  3. Hive application.

  • Sean: we should wait with this. We haven’t got enough data and customers yet to write a proper business plan. We should focus on onboarding atm and reaching out rather than think about paying Phil Beardmore for consultations.

  • Sylvia: Will reach back to Phil.

  • Sean: wait with these consultations until there are more groups set up across the country and organise them on the national level.

  • The last round for the Hive application’s closing in December, we need to start to work on it already.

  • (this point needs checking as I didn’t entirely follow) August 16th - the deadline. Application project. We need a video

Rich and Sylvia will look into this one.

  1. Rich messaged Mani about the VAT drop.
  • We have to make sure our prices go in hand with the drop for the books
  1. Xenia: What’s the strategy to get more places onboard?

Sean: we need a strategy.

We should already start approaching ppl / businesses. Better to do as much as there’s still fresh energy. “I think there are quite a few things we could do to try to expand in the near future, I think the main thing to focus on for that is actually around opening lines of conversation with partner organisations and training them / onboarding them properly. I think the business plan and model really hinge on these connections being developed and now that we have proof of concept with the system we should really focus on them rather than continuing to refine the business plan”. (pasted from CC Brum WhatsApp group)

Not just restaurants, but also ppl who do arts/printing etc.

Places to approach:

\ 34x116 * old patty men

  • digbrew

  • ngopi \ 33x157 * stirchley 2nd zone

  • loaf,

  • eat vietnam

  • bartleby’s brewery

  • attic brewery

  • glasshouse brewery

  • stirchley wines

  • isherwood & co

  • Rich: This is a full-time job. I can do it but it means there’s no more time for anything else.

  • Sean:

  • First-time approach, getting to know a person

  • Explaining the platform

  • Discussing/Agreeing a contract / onboarding