Josef Davies-Coates

Josef Davies-Coates

Founder of United Diversity
Curator of the United Diversity Libary
Co-founder of The Open Co-op
Served on the board of Co-operatives London (and built and manage website)
Previously Campaign Coordinator at Media Reform Coalition (started the London Media Democracy Meetup, organised the Media Democracy Festival, commissioned this film, gathered these resources, and made the website)
National Organiser for Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (CPBF)

Author of Open Co-ops: Inspiration, Legal Structures & Tools
(since referenced in leading Social Enterprise text book ‘Understanding Social Enterprise‘)

Connect via Facebook or Twitter or read testimonials from great people gathered from my LinkedIn page.

Member of

FairShares Association (contributed to the development of the model rules )
Rural Urban Synthesis Society (gave legal structure & strategy advice & have spoken at lots of their public events)
Worker Coop Solidarity Fund (active member)
Greenwich Co-operative Development Agency (also made website and spoke at Housing Workshop at AGM)
Co-operatives London (served on board, made and manage the website, do a bit of social media)
Ecological Land Co-operative (Steward member)
The Phone Co-op (long-term customer and member)
Rootstock (invested £100)
Lammas Ecovillage (invested £50)
Fordhall Community Land Initiative (invested £50)
Permaculture Association (also created the first map of LAND projects)
London Rebuilding Society (won £250 of shares at their launch)

Workshop and Speaking Engagements:

2016:

March 10th

Greenwich Co-operative Development Agency AGM
Helped to deliver the Housing Workshop. Spoke about Community Land Trusts (i.e. London Community Land Trust and my involvement with Rural Urban Synthesis Society), Cohousing (e.g. Low Impact Living  Affordable Community) and Housing Co-operatives (especially Sanford Housing Co-op where I lived for 5 years).

2015:

November 20th:

Invited to join the Business Models for Cooperative Higher Education
workshop led by The Social Science Centre whose notes from the day can be found here.

October 17th:

Organised the Media Democracy Festival. See #MDFest15.

September 5th:

Gave a talk on Cooperative Commons at the UK Co-operative Studies Society Annual Conference Exploring the Common – Co-operatives and the alternatives.   Earned the slightly embarrassing accolade of being the first person to be invited to speak at the conference based on their Facebook posts.

August 15th:

St Ethelburgas Phoenix Project
Ran a session on What emerging ownership, governance and exchange innovations reflect the new economy? Began with an introductory talk on Co-ops and Commons and then led a group of 15 people on a Bike Tour of Co-op, Community and Commons-based projects around London.  Planning notes with lots of useful links here.  Rough map of tour route here.

2014:

October 18th:

Church Grove Community Self-Build – How Can It Work?
Rural Urban Synthesis Society Open Day

A talk on Community Networking and the power of the people. Spoke about some inspirational housing examples, including LILAC, Open Source Ecology‘s MicroHouse, WikiHouse, Village Homes, Sanford Housing Co-op, and more.

September 10th – 14th:

Open Everything – A Collaborative Economy Convergence
I’ve always wanted to visit Cloughjordan Ecovillage and so when the opportunity to join the P2P Foundation team presented itself I couldn’t resist. There wasn’t really a clear plan of what my role would be but after a very enjoyable rail, sail and cycle there I ended up joining a panel discussion and leading a session on housing co-ops. Huge thanks to Davie Philip for making it all possible.

August 16th:

Off Grid One Planet Community Festival
Joined a panel discussion on Common Futures with Annemarie Naylor and Alex Lawrie:

Also made the website.

August 2nd:

Green Gathering
Panel discussion on Commoning & Community Ownership with Stir Magazine‘s Jonny Gordon-Farleigh and Zoe Wangler from the Ecological Land Co-operative.

May 7th:

OuiShare Fest 2014
Gave talk on “Designing an Open Organisation” as part of a Panel on “Work, Distributed: Horizontal, Liquid & Collaborative organizations” and Co-Moderated the Sharing for Real: What Cooperatives and Collaborative Governance have to offer session, including hosting a discussion about Open Co-ops.

2013:

September 15th

Interviewed by London Permaculture‘s Stefan Geyer on 21st Century Permaculture Radio

August 2nd-4th:

Talking about Building Man Festival with Marcus Letts at Cloud Cuckoo Land Festival.

 July 14th:

London Permaculture Festival
In this talk I gave some background about United Diversity and shared some ideas for future plans.

2012:

December 8th-9th:

Spoke at RUSS event at Sanford Housing Co-op

April 11th:

Spoke at the Inspiring Minds Forum on Creating Co-operative Communities

2011:

March 22nd:

Lead an Network Asset Mapping exercise for West Lexham @ Impact Hub Kings Cross

July 16th:

London Permaculture Festival
Ran a workshop on Community Scale Infrastructure

June 4th:

London Green Fair
Ran a workshop on Community Scale Infrastructure

July 21-24th:

Secret Garden Party
Ran a workshop on Community Scale Infrastructure

2010

September 3rd – 5th:

UK Permaculture Convergence
Lead two workshops.  One on Making Websites with WordPress and another on Community Scale Infrastructure:

2006:

January 24th – 29th

As part of the Caracas Trollparty, I spoke on National Venezuelan Radio, gave a talk on Tools for Open Co-ops, and generally helped to find and organise an international team of Free Software practitioners to run a huge programme of activities as part of World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela.