Webinar: Community Shares Finance Guide in partnership with Community Shares Scotland

The Community Shares Finance Guide has just been launched as an accessible resource to cover all eventualities relating to managing community share capital, i.e. withdrawable, non-transferable share capital in societies.

This training session will introduce the key financial areas to consider once you have run a community share offer and provide an opportunity for questions and discussion with representatives from other societies who have run community share offers across Scotland.

Format

• This training will take place online on Zoom.
• It will be an interactive workshop with opportunity for discussion and questions

How much does it cost?

This event is free to attend but restricted to organisations based in Scotland.

What attendees will learn/get out of this session

• The legal requirements in accounting for community shares for community benefit societies and charitable community benefit societies
• How to manage your members’ interests in relation to community shares, managing withdrawals, interest payments etc.
• Subsequent share offers, moving to an open offer or future project delivery
• How to draft up key policies and processes such as a withdrawals policy or interest rate policy
• Further connections with societies in a similar boat and opportunities to share experiences and practice

Who should attend

This event is being run in partnership between Co-operatives UK and DTA Scotland and is focused on organisations who have run community share offers based in Scotland.

• Directors, trustees and staff of co-operative or community benefit societies who have raised capital using community shares.
• Treasurers and Secretaries of these societies will be a priority but all Directors have a collective responsibility to understand this content.
• Advisers to those societies
• Accountants working with those societies

About the trainers

Isla McCulloch is the Community Shares Standards Manager at Co-operatives UK and also works within their advice team. She led on the authoring of the Community Shares Finance Guide and SORP Information Sheet for Charitable Societies. She oversees Co-operatives UK’s work on the community shares standard mark, the community shares practitioner training and licensing scheme and all relevant best practice guidance such as the Community Shares Handbook.

Morven Lyon is Head of Democratic Finance at DTA Scotland and has worked on the Community Shares Scotland programme since 2014. She has supported numerous community organisations on their community shares journey and has expertise around community engagement, governance and business planning.

Recording the training

The training will be recorded and shared with all registered attendees.

Follow up after the training

If any questions are unanswered during the session, we will endeavour to follow up after the session and signpost to further support where required.