The Federation is the peak representative body for co-operatives in New South Wales.
A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations, through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise.
In February 2008 the Federation was privileged to be part of a consortium that presented a conference to consider co-operative living alternatives. Gun-Britt Martensson visited from Sweden to bring her knowledge and advice from a country where co-operative living has been a way of life for generations.
Here are links to the Symposium programme and speakers, and available papers can be downloaded here.
One of the outcomes from this conference was the continuing work on the Petersham Model, an early version of which was presented at the 2008 Co-operative Progress Conference. Time has been expended on developing this model for co-operative housing but lack of funds currently means no further progress is possible until a group can be identified to implement the ideas. .
