Island or Continent? You Decide.

Co-operative work has always been at the heart of our business model. This goes further than a personal affinity with John Donne’s famous words: “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Although we agree with him, and with Benjamin Franklin too¹, we have found over the years that co-operation actually makes business sense. Napoleon Hill said, “It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.” As Ralph Charell put it, “It is through cooperation, rather than conflict, that your greatest successes will be derived.”

Here are two stories that have captured our imagination.

Just over 34 years ago, in August and September 1977, NASA launched two little spaceships: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. These elegant machines are still travelling today, clocking up 530 million kilometres per year — a tribute to design, build quality and above all to vision. As Jeffrey Kluger wrote recently for Time magazine, “the ships’ primary mission succeeded beyond the giddiest predictions of the engineers who built them.”²

It took more than engineers to put the spaceships together, of course. A project of this magnitude drew on the expertise and passion of a great many people. One example will have to suffice here. The information stored in the ships’ famous “golden records”³ was chosen for NASA by Dr Carl Sagan of Cornell University in consultation with a committee that he chaired. This group of enthusiasts had the happy task of assembling music, pictures, natural sounds, and greetings in 55 human languages. Why? To convey “the diversity of life and culture on Earth” to any life form that the spaceships might encounter en route.⁴

The on-going Voyager story is an evocative example of the amazing power that can be unleashed when resourceful people join forces to achieve a shared goal.

The second story we have for you today comes from the north of England and began in 2001. Since then, life in Alston Moor, a remote part of north-east Cumbria, has been transformed by Cybermoor, the UK’s first community broadband co-operative⁵. So successful was this venture that its founder, Daniel Heery, went on to be appointed one of the government’s 25 Social Enterprise Ambassadors in 2007. The role of these ambassadors is to increase public awareness of social enterprise as a viable business model.

Cybermoor is the brainchild of a true visionary. From the outset, it was deliberately structured as a community co-operative rather than a top-down organisation. “Residents who use the broadband service can also become members with an equal say in how the service is run. As Heery explains: ‘providing broadband at a local level is much more democratic than broadband provision by distant, commercial companies. If Sky decides to raise its prices or alter services, for instance, there’s little that the users can do. With Cybermoor, members are on the board of directors and so have overall control of the service.’”⁶

In an area with limited public transport, Cybermoor has made a huge difference to local residents’ lives. They can shop online, organise lifts, join discussion forums, and access innovative healthcare solutions. “One of these projects, funded by the Department of Health Social Enterprise Pathfinder fund, is looking at how internet services can reduce the need for hospital visits.” For instance, ‘telehealth’ equipment would enable patients to take their own blood pressure “with data fed back to a control centre where nurses are informed if the readings look as though a patient needs attention.” This would enable nurses to “spend more time with patients who have more demanding conditions,” and make it possible for everyone to avoid unnecessary journeys⁷.

In our own small way, we at Giroma are passionate about co-operative endeavour. Over the last few years, our syndicate participants have made solid returns: 18.84% p.a. from the Cottages Project in 2005-06, 18.01% p.a. from the Lydney #2 Project in 2008-09, and 9.06% from the Llanbradach syndicate in 2010-11, to name only three programmes.

Our current refurbishment opportunity in Wales requires a commitment of 6-9 months and offers a choice of terms. You can choose either a fixed return at 1% per month, or a profit share. If you opt for the profit share, we estimate that your return will be 1.1% per month if the project runs for the full 9 months, or 1.66% per month if the project completes in 6 months. Whichever terms you choose, we can accept any multiple of £1,000. If you like the sound of this project, let us know and we’ll prepare the paperwork for you.