Webinar: Co-ops – empowering arts and culture

One of a series of webinars brought to you by Co‑operatives UK in partnership with The Co‑operative Bank as part of our Business Support for Co-ops programme.

• Hosted by music consultant Terry Tyldesley, this webinar focuses on co-ops within the arts and cultural sector that are making a difference, creating opportunity and enabling individuals and organisations within the sector to flourish.  She talks about her own co-op experiences as founder of Kitmonsters, an inclusive music and tech site and as the former Chair of ethical music streaming co-operative Resonate.
• Matthew Otridge is one of the founders of Exchange in Bristol, a grassroots music venue (GMV) that ran a successful community share offer in 2018. Matt now works as Ownership Co-ordinator for Music Venue Trust, using his experiences from the Exchange to lead on the “Own Our Venues” campaign – a radical plan to purchase the freehold of multiple GMVs via a charitable community benefit society and become an ethical landlord to the operators that run these spaces.
• Pat O’Shea is a member of The Ultimate Picture Palace (UPP), a community-owned cinema in Oxford, showing an eclectic mix of independent, mainstream, foreign language, and classic films. The historic art deco building dates from 1911 and the cinema is run by a small but passionate team of staff and volunteers. Pat was instrumental in the 2022 community share offer that enabled the UPP to become a community-owned business, with more than 1,000 local investors buying shares in the cinema.

Next Steps

• Our Step by Step tool is a great free resource to help work ​your way through the steps of planning and starting a new co-op: www.uk.coop/start-new-co-op/start
• Are you planning to start a co-op? We can offer up to six days of tailored support with a co-op expert to help you get your co-op off the ground
• Discover the power of co-ops with our series of FREE webinars: https://www.uk.coop/start-new-co-op/discover-co-ops