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  • From: Bob Waldrop <bob@bobwaldrop.net>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] NAPC: Scarcity?
  • Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 10:41:26 -0500

This thread is one of the best discussions in the history of this listserv.

Because of work commitments I can't make it to the convergence, but I suggest looking at the cooperative model of business organization. It seems to me that a hybrid "worker-customer cooperative" would be the best choice.

Here follows a quick lesson on cooperatives.

A cooperative is a corporation that is organized to meet the needs of its customers, whatever those needs might be. In a cooperative, people control the money; the money doesn't control the people. That is, if I own 51% of the shares of a corporation, I control it, but a coop is governed on a one member, one share, one vote.

In our case, we need a sustainable way to present a convergence on a regular schedule (annually, quadrennially, whatever). That's the need that our cooperative would supply.

Cooperatives can have classes of members. A hybrid cooperative like this would have a small number of worker owners, and a much larger number of customer-owners. Or "attendee-owners".

Everyone buys a membership share to get in the door. This is the answer to the problem of "how do we raise seed capital for the event and pay one or more organizers to get this going." There could be a process for low income members to receive a share in exchange for work. At the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, such shares are funded by donations from other members. You would not have to be a member to attend the convergence, but members would presumably receive a discount on the ticket prices.

Anyone could walk up and become a customer-owner, but since there are a limited number of paid positions, entree to becoming a worker-owner is controlled by the initial group of worker-owners. Some of the worker owners would be full time, others part time, others working only at the event, either as volunteers or paid employees.

What happens if there is a profit?

Generally with a Coop, profits are returned to the members in proportion to their contribution. This is known as patronage. When a hybrid coop is set up, generally a decision is made about allocating patronage based on the classification of the member -- in this case, we would have 2 membership groups -- worker owners and attendee-owners (convergenceers?) -- and so some decision would need to be made about how surplus would be allocated after setting aside reserve funds, operating capital, etc. At this point the ability of a convergence to operate at a profit is speculative.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I've written articles of incorporation for several cooperatives, all of which have been hybrids.

Bob Waldrop, president, Oklahoma Food Cooperative (hybrid customer-producer coop)
Member, Fertile Ground Compost Cooperative (worker owned coop)
General Manager, Oklahoma Worker Cooperative Network (hybrid worker-cooperative coop, nascent at this point)



Cooperatives
On 8/9/2014 6:51 AM, Wesley Roe and Santa Barbara Permaculture Network wrote:
hi everyone
Toby this sounds really beautiful
We have learned that if you can not fund at least one or two positions of
organizing committee of any event you will not have the people with the time to
raise the resources to run a great event -Toby’s quote "how do we find the
resources to run a great event?” It takes time to raise money ask any nonprofit
what is the largest time sucker -raising money-while you are organizing any event
- this is especially hardest the first time you run any event .

RA sol who was on NAPC organizing committee came to the organizers of the
Southern Permaculture Convergence and asked us to support him financially
will he worked on the NAPC organizing. We gave him $1000 from our surplus
funds from our last convergence. This money only allowed him to help for a
short time to get the non profit status for NAPC then he need more money to
continue on

Would you be willing to put $100-$500 in a pot for the next NAPC convergence
to fund organizing positions and campaign at the NAPC event to get this money
so we can change the way we design the Convergence model as suggested by
systems thinker Donella Meadows
wes

On Aug 9, 2014, at 12:28 AM, Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com> wrote:

On Aug 8, 2014, at 8:40 AM, loren luyendyk <loren@sborganics.com> wrote:

Every system has a limit, and to bring it back to the design of the NAPC pricing
schedule, this limit (price of tix) is defined by what the market will bear- meaning
"what will people pay to join a convergence"? We could price it at $10K per
ticket, but nobody would show. The market will not bear it. The price of a ticket is
only worth what people will pay. This is a limit set by this system, which could
change over time but as it is now it may represent the reality of the capacity of the
system- ie the disposable income in the pocketbooks of our fellow permies.
Okay, a lesson in systems thinking here.

I've been trying, over and over, to point out a teaching moment on design, to get
people to stop focusing on "what is the right price for the tickets?" but we
keep going there.

It's obvious that the ticket price could set a limit to many resources:
income, number of attendees, quality of venue, all kinds of things. It's a
potential choke point. So it is essential to design so that it is not. That
should stand out instantly to any designer.

Unfortunately, because numbers seem important, and we've all got issues
around money, we're led to think that the ticket price is the place to focus.

But we should quickly see that changing the ticket price will not reduce the
number of problems. Make it lower and it causes problems, like cash flow,
burnout, crappy venue, and too few workers; make it higher and it causes
other problems: too expensive for many, only the rich attend, angry
constituents, right? And we don't know for sure what price will have exactly
what effect.

Thus, a single-price ticket isn't a good solution. There is no optimum, only
tradeoffs. Focusing on price actually creates the choke point, it makes a
problem where none need be.

The ticket price is what systems thinker Donella Meadows calls "tinkering with the
numbers," like twiddling the faucets on a touchy shower when the problem is at the level of
the pipe diameter, the water heater, or the length of pipe run. In her article "12 places to
intervene in a system," (required reading!!!!) she places tinkering with the numbers as #12,
the weakest strategy. Change the rules, change the strength of the feedback loops, change the
information flows, change the system structure, change the paradigm; change anything else, but
stop focusing on the ticket price as the place where there is a solution. It's not.

That's why I've suggested (and it sounds like some of this was considered but
there wasn't time or staff to agree or do it) multiple tiers of ticket
prices, finding donors a la Pc Voices, crowdsource, sell merchandise to raise
money, and 20 other possible ways to do what we know we need to do: make the
ticket price a non-issue. One way is to create other resource flows. We must
design so that ticket price, the obvious deal killer, does not limit multiple
key resource flows. Design an event to take advantage of abundant resources,
not so it is dictated by constrictions like how much money the average permie
has.

The level to be thinking on is "how do we find the resources to run a great event?" not
"how low a price can we charge?" There is enough money and labor in North America to
provide for an event like this, right? We can make ticket price the choke point, but that proves
that the biggest limit is our imaginations.
Design it so that ticket price is not very important; a minor part of a
multi-level solution.

This is a design issue, not a ticket-price issue. We created a limit where one did not
need to be. This specific issue offers us a general lesson in design that I think not
everyone is getting. Substitute for "ticket price" any numerical parameter
for a flow-limiting point in a system: annual rainfall, cation exchange, watt-hours,
and it's probably easier to see. Don't let annual rainfall be the limit to yield. Make
it so that a small amount is plenty. Design not to create choke points that starve
multiple, critical functions. Money brings such a charge with it that we miss designing
for it the way we would for rainfall or nutrients.

I don't know how to say this--that the ticket price, in a good design, barely
matters--any more clearly. I've seen it done. If someone else (Jason?) can
say this in a way that more people grasp it, I'd be grateful.

Toby


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