Year 1 Strategy Update - April 2024

Cooperation Hull just celebrated our 1st birthday! Here's a summary of where we're at.

OUR PRIORITIES

  • • Listening, forming relationships with local groups, and building trust whilst pushing boundaries and being ambitious about our vision for the future

  • • Spreading the idea and practice of people’s assemblies: building a community of people able to listen and disagree respectfully, and then work together to make change

  • • Holding at least one Neighbourhood Assembly in every postcode from HU1 to HU9 (the Kingston upon Hull authority area)

  • • Training hordes of new assembly facilitators! Everyone can be a great facilitator, and we need TONNES of them across the city. Keep your eyes peeled for details of the next training session

  • • Helping to form a Solidarity Economy in Hull. This has taken a bit of a backseat to practising the assemblies, but we always hold in our minds the need for a new economy to go hand in hand with a new democracy — one that works for everyone

WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO

  • • We’ve held over 10 assemblies with hundreds of people taking part. Every assembly features a good, free meal — so we’ve fed a lot of people too

  • • Knocked on doors come rain or shine, and distributed about 30,000 leaflets citywide

  • • We now have 20 trained facilitators and a growing team of volunteers across the city

  • • We helped kickstart Waffle — an idea that came out of the series of assemblies in HU3 we held with Giroscope. This is our first try at carrying out a practical assembly decision! Waffle is a delicious pay-what-you-can meal with a rolling menu and a live radio show every week, described as ‘the nicest, weirdest living room you’ve ever been in’. Come and check it out — the more people come and enjoy Waffle, the longer it can continue

  • • We worked with the Hull Community Pub Society to raise over £150k in their effort to buy the New Clarence and make it Hull’s first ever community-owned pub

  • • Local elections motivated us to try another experiment: demonstrating the alternative to party politics by holding assemblies outside polling stations. We learnt a lot about how to hold informal pop-up assemblies, had countless inspiring conversations, and brought the community together for the People’s Party — a night to remember at Polar Bear

  • • We changed how we talk about our vision, to make it more accessible and engaging. You can read about it on our website, or head to a welcome talk

  • • We’ve been featured in The Hull Daily Mail, Novara Media, Hull What’s On, Yorkshire Bylines and more!

WHAT'S NEXT?

Understanding our role in the national context


Plenty of groups are now talking about the power of people's assemblies — we are at the beginning of a real zeitgeist moment. In Hull, we happen to have more experience than most in actually doing people's assemblies! We don't have all the answers, far from it, but like it or not people are looking to us; we now need to think about what role we should play in this budding national movement.


Bringing more Cooperation Hull crew into decision making


All active volunteers will be invited to participate in a strategy assembly this summer, a moment which could well mark the start of becoming a membership organisation; an organised network of people dedicated to changing the world for the better.


Getting ready to launch the citywide assembly ‘The Hull People's Assembly‘


This will be a huge milestone, and we'll only launch it when we're ready to do a good job of it. We need to hold Neighbourhood Assemblies in HU8 and HU9, recruit more engaged volunteers, more facilitators, and get more organisations to pledge their support. At the moment, we're approaching small, independent businesses discussing what a partnership with the Hull People's Assembly could look like. Are you connected to any organisations or businesses who might be open to talking? We want to hear from you.


Staying flexible


We‘ve been told that one of the things people like about Cooperation Hull is how open we are to changing our approach based on feedback or new ideas. This can be tiring for those on the ground so it needs to be carefully balanced, but we‘re committed to listening to the wisdom all around us and keeping our minds as open possible.


Building the movement


We're always working on creating more opportunities for people to get involved. We'll post in the WhatsApp chat about upcoming socials, trainings, welcome talks, assemblies and outreach sessions. There’s a place for everyone, no matter your background, abilities or political opinions. Many hands make light work!

What are some things YOU think Cooperation Hull should know or consider when we work on our strategy for 2024?
Join the discussion in the natter space. Or, if you want to contact a Cooperation Hull volunteer — you can send a direct message to an ‘admin’ on WhatsApp, or email hello@cooperationhull.co.uk

20 April 2024

By Cooperation Hull