Cooperative Professionals Guild

May 2023 Newsletter

Guild News, Community Events, and Announcements

May Webinar: What Your Co-op Bylaws Need, With CPA David Antoni and Attorney Todd Eskelsen

Please join us on Thursday, May 25th, 2023 at 10am PT/11am MT/12pm CT/1pm ET for our May webinar. Bylaws govern the activities of the cooperative and affect the governance of the cooperative, its capital structure, the rights of members, the tax treatment of the cooperative's earnings, and whether the cooperative qualifies for securities and/or antitrust exemptions. Attorney Todd Eskelsen and CPA David Antoni will explain what you need to know about what to include in cooperative bylaws. Register here.

Our members-only recordings library has been updated and includes links to our past webinars.

Currently, CPG offers California CLE credit for qualifying webinars. Most CPG webinars can count as CLE credits in most US states. If you’d like to help us offer CLE credit in other states, please email Sarah Kaplan at the Webinar Committee: sarah@cuttingedgecounsel.com.

Two May Coffee Chats

You’re invited to our May 13th coffee chat featuring co-op accountants and bookkeepers. Want to get to know fellow accountants and bookkeepers? Lawyers, want to connect with CPG accountants and bookkeepers that you can refer to clients? Come one, come all, and bring a coffee, on Friday, May 13th. Chats last one hour and usually start at 9 or 9:30am PT/12 or 12:30pm ET; we’ll send an event announcement and registration link to the Guild network listserv shortly.

Thank you to everyone who joined our May 5th coffee chat featuring co-op academics and law school clinical instructors.

The Guild’s Membership Circle runs the coffee chats. Got a theme to propose, a tricky professional question or a co-op project you’d like to talk about, or a co-op community of practice you’d like to learn more about? Reach out to the Membership Circle by email at membership@professionals.coop.

Save the Date: 2023 CPG Conference on November 2-4th, 2023 in Chicago, IL

The Guild is excited to be hosting an in-person conference in 2023. The conference will be held on November 2-4th in Chicago, Illinois. The University of Illinois Chicago School of Law has generously agreed to host the conference. We hope to see you there! Planning is going on now: email conference@professionals.coop to get involved.

CPG will also host its annual member meeting at the conference.

CPG tabling at the NoBAWC Co-op Job Fair

The California Bay Area co-op group, NoBAWC (Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives), is hosting a co-op job fair at an Oakland anarchist community space, OMNI Commons, on May 16th from 5-8pm. CPG will be tabling at the event to talk to folks interested in becoming a co-op professional; if you’d like to join us, please email paola@cooplawgroup.com to coordinate.

Community announcements

The 4th International Forum of Cooperative Law will be held on Nov. 29-Dec. 1 in Basque Country. The forum is co-organized by the ICA, the Institute of Social Economy and Cooperative Law, and the Faculty of Law of the University of the Basque Country. Participants interested in presenting a paper are invited to send an abstract by May 10th, 2023 to 4thforumcooperativelaw@gmail.com. Participants may apply for the doctoral thesis workshop through June 10th, and/or also submit papers for the young researcher award. Find application requirements here.

Community upcoming events

Join SELC on May 16th for an MCLE on How to Get Property Tax Welfare Exemption for Rad Real Estate Projects in California. From SELC’s Ricardo Nuñez: “We’ve found that one of the most common barriers to successfully establishing a Radical Real Estate Project in California is the enormous cost of owning land. One way to reduce that cost is by obtaining property tax welfare exemption. If you want to learn the legal basics of this solution, join our MCLE!”

The University of Louisville’s Office of Community Engagement will be hosting its first ever Co-op Summit on Wednesday, May 31st, from 11:30am-1pm, at its Portland, Kentucky campus. This summit hopes to familiarize lawyers with the co-op model and provide support for lawyers looking to integrate, or integrating, co-op work into their practices. Register here. This announcement is being shared by Dr. Ariana Levinson, who teaches at the university’s law school.
May 10-11: National Coalition for Community Capital (NC3)’s SuperCrowd 2023 conference on investment crowdfunding. Link.
June 1-3: The National Conference On Black Cooperative Agenda, Las Vegas. Link..
June 2-3: California Center for Cooperative Development (CCCD)’s annual conference, San Jose, California.
June 8-10: Consumer Cooperative Management Association (CCMA)’s annual conference, Sacramento, California.
June 7-9: NSAC Far Western Chapter’s annual meeting, Las Vegas.
Aug. 20-30: International Centre for Co-operative Management and the J. Dobrila University of Pula (Croatia)’s international cooperative law summer school, Pula, Croatia. Link.
Nov. 2-4: Cooperative Professionals Guild annual conference and member meeting, Chicago, IL.
Nov. 29- Dec. 1: 4th International Forum of Cooperative Law, San Sebastian, Basque Country. Hybrid.

Participate in the Cooperative Professionals Guild

The Cooperative Professionals Guild is a growing network of co-op professionals created by us, for us. We’re currently volunteer-run. Here are some ways you can participate:

Submit community listings for the next newsletter using this Google form;
Send messages to the CPG network by emailing the CPG listserv at members@professionals.coop;
Attend meetings or join governance circles. Circle members are also eligible to join the General Circle.

Webinar Circle: Email Sarah Kaplan at sarah@cuttingedgecounsel.com.
Membership Committee: Email the Circle at membership@professionals.coop.
Finance Circle: Email Alexandra Devendra at alexandra@aligned.law.
2023 CPG Conference Circle: Fill out this form forms.gle/ezPhbxPvRCh1Gf6r8

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