What is a Community Benefit Society?
Stitched Up is a Community Benefit Society, a type of co-operative. As such, our organisation has the co-operative values and principles at its core, including honesty, openness, democracy, solidarity and social responsibility. We’re owned by our members, who have a say on how we’re run. Unlike other types of co-operative we can’t share our profits with members as a dividend – instead, any profits we make must be used for community benefit.
The ‘objects’ (purposes) of our organisation:
Join as a member
We invite our community to become members of Stitched Up and have a direct input into the work we do. As a Member, you help us ensure that our work creates real community benefit. To join, you need to be:
- 16 years of age or over.
- in support of our Objects above.
- a member of our community in some way, i.e. you attend our events, participate in our projects, volunteer with us, or you are a member of our local community or our ‘community of interest’.
- prepared to take an active interest in our work and development.
What membership involves
Members are kept up to date with our plans via our quarterly members newsletter, are invited to provide feedback to the management team via members surveys and are encouraged to attend our Annual General Meeting every year to hear about our progress and future plans. At our AGM you can also vote on plans and proposals (each Member has one vote) and stand to be elected onto our Board of Directors (if you are age 18+).
We also welcome our members to get more involved with our day-to-day work through volunteering, though this is entirely up to you.
Membership Fees
We charge a small, annual fee to become a member. This goes towards our administrative costs.
These are;
- £7 Volunteers’ Membership – for existing volunteers (who’ve completed 5+ shifts)
- £15 Standard Membership
- £30 Solidarity Membership
- £45 Pay It Forward Membership – Solidarity Membership and support a Standard Membership for someone who can’t afford to pay
membership Application Process
If you’d like to join as a member of Stitched Up Community Benefit Society Ltd, please complete the application form below!
This will be reviewed by our Board. After approval by the Board, you will be sent a payment link to complete your registration.
Our Board members are all volunteers with multiple commitments and busy lives, so this process can take up to a month.
We look forward to you joining us!