It was a good proposal in my opinion but was never really put into action for the reasons you identify. Our previous organisational model wasn’t really working post-lockdowns for a number of reasons. This came out of a situation where a major project had drifted away from oversight of the organisation to the extent where CB resources basically ended up getting enclosed/privatised in order to support someone’s career plans. The idea of the proposal was that it would allow people several options of different levels of engagement with CB so that those who wanted to do their own things could have a more arms-length relationship (affiliates) but those who wanted to draw freely on the resources of the organisation would be more formally accountable. We wanted to ensure that collective resources could never be carpetbagged in the event that we came up with a really good idea that took on its own life.
Anyway this is mainly moot now. We just have, in the terms of this proposal, one division and one project. Athletic Community Action Birmingham https://brumsports.org.uk/ is a division, running Punch Up independently under the control of its own membership but with finances fully integrated with CB. Equaliser Equaliser Soundsystem Co-operative – Cooperation Birmingham is basically a project which means that if we wanted to grant more money to it or make other big decisions, that would be voted on by the whole CB membership.
The lack of engagement is the real problem but I think this structure is scaleable in a hypothetical future where we want to do more new projects, Equaliser goes great and becomes a equipment hire worker co-op, Punch Up shrinks and gives up its autonomy, becomes just an occasional event we run or whatever.
The decision-making process is here Proposal: Co-op Brum Decision Making Process
and decisions are stored here
Decisions - Cooperation Birmingham