Some background and thoughts on co-operatives

By the way Chickenshack if you dont know is the name of the housing co-operative that owns the hill farm/ small holding where i live. its a company that a nominal group of 8 of us registered in December 94. Since then we bought a hill farm that had lost most of its land and had been half turned into a kind of holiday let business. the co-op has always been insipred by permaculture and the idea of firstly building a solid base for ourselves, and secondly oh i dont know, to hopefully make a positive and active contribution to formation of a concious, global and sustainable society.
So we are now into the 11th year of the plan and I guess the stable base has been built, and now the challenge of taking it onto the next level as it were lies before us. That being to me, making more of a living using the land and other assets, and realising that there has been and continues to be a very interesting process unfolding here that can become an important learning resource. ANyway, thats the permaculture side of it, well I guess it all is, but the thing I am considering now is the possibilty of what comes next.

From its inception just over 10 years ago i was never able to see any further ahead than the first 10 years, the establishment phase I guess. During that time there have ben 40 different co-op members we have all undergone huge life changes and developments etc etc so its not like it has been continuous project, like a job. except well, that it has. it has grown consistentely and we have slowly scrimped and saved, and bodged and borrowed and got grants and gifts where possible and worked the mortgage to get over £70k worth of work done on th place. all of this is not bad for bunch of people who have never had any cash to work with. so here we are, it is slowly coming together, it has been loads of work, and of course there is still loads more to do, but we are finally getting a chance to think about the more interesting bits, like the land and gardens and livlihood.

My other line of thinking though is this, that although we haven't actually paid off any of the loans, the property has of course grown in value through house price inflation and all the work we have done on the place. Which leaves me wondering if we should try and work with that equity and grow the co-op by buying a second place. Now i would not ever do this for the sake of it but I have spotted a property in Machynlleth that is potentially ideal and there is an interest group forming around that notion, so folks watch this space for details of what happens next!