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Helping you thrive
for all businesses, individuals and initiatives
Greener Huntly is a project of the Huntly Greenspace Collective, a dynamic community of individuals, businesses, and groups. Our shared love for green spaces and its transformative potential is what connects us.
For us, land is the means as well as the end. We generate profit and other resources through using what nature provides, and use these resources to regenerate the land where nature and people live in harmony. If you are a business, individual or community group that relies on nature, land or outdoor space for your products, services or activities then our collective can help you thrive.
Our community is built on diversity and chaos. The more members that join, the more resilient and productive we become. Find out below how we do things. It is a little different. For good reasons.
Emergence occurs when a complex group has properties or behaviours that its individual parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole. Similarly, we believe that the Huntly Greenspace Collective can only provide our quality and range in products and services because of our members.
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Because the benefit to us is the simple fact that you are a member, we do not charge membership fees. We can offer clients quality work because of our member businesses and their collaborative approach. In return we provide our members by directing work to them, and through supports, access to the shared tools, land, expertise and more. And most importantly, we support one another.
Building local community wealth
Ìn all we do as a collective, we want to build community wealth and ensure that this wealth goes to the places the community wants to see it. To us, that means we need to be able to trade. So instead of setting up a community group or charity, we set up a business. More specifically a collective. One that is open to anyone from the community including other land based businesses.
Keep profits local
We believe in keeping the pound circulating within our community.
By working together and supporting the creation and growth of green and fair local businesses, we aim to ensure that profits stay here, rather than flowing to distant corporations.
Fair pay for these businesses and comprehensive support are central to our purpose.
Open member policy
Everything we own is owned by our members.
Anyone can become a member simply by joining our conversation. This includes businesses and initiatives.
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Members make decisions around our shared values, how we operate, and how profits are spent.
Fair working conditions
As our collective grows, so will opportunities for meaningful employment. These jobs will offer flexibility, fair wages, and supportive working conditions.
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Some people enjoy being self employed, giving them flexibility and ownership. Others prefer a regular predictable working environment. We stay responsive to what people prefer, providing both employment and business to business contracts.
Care for the environment and the community
For us, price isn’t the only factor when choosing products and services. Our member businesses adhere to high standards in environmental sustainability, fair employment practices, and local sourcing. We apply these same principles when seeking external suppliers, ensuring our decisions align with our values.
Share what you have and use it wisely
And finally, the green spaces. Every asset we have access to, including land, is used to maximise benefits for both the community and the environment. What particular benefits we focus on depends on what our members tell us. So becoming part of our chat gives you the power to shape a greener future for Huntly.
Our members, their collaboration and conversation, are the essence of the collective. In the same way a woodland is a complex, ever changing mixture of innate and living things that live together in a community. To develop such a community, we embrace structural complexity. This ecological principle teaches us that sustainable, self-organised systems require complexity - the range of unique elements within the system. And they require chaos - unpredictable co-evolution driven by changes in the environment.
The more members, and the more diversity in our type of members, the more complexity. And removing hierarchy allows for the required degree of chaos. Our directors are just there to ensure that support is given where needed. The result? According to ecological experts, it will be an ever changing yet robust system that can weather changes.
how we do things
We are a social - not for personal profit - company limited by guarantee. We have an asset lock in place. We are governed by our members, who decide on the framework in which we operate. This includes our company objects, governance, membership, and our shared values.
Because of this legal setup, the HGS Collective is eligible for certain funding and for donations, while also being able to generate profit and attract investment commercially.
Grant-funded projects will always directly benefit one of the existing or new community projects of the HGS Collective. Any profit made through trade will either be used to grow the collective or will be used to fund one of the existing or new community projects, elevating the scope and impact of grant funding.
All community and commercial projects help us achieve our company purpose.
company Purpose and objects
The purpose of the company is to build community wealth for the benefit of our local natural environment, people, communities, and land based enterprise.
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Therefore our work falls under the following objects (currently under revision by our members):
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To attract assets and grow social capital that furthers local, sustainable enterprise across, with and from nature based sectors - helping to contribute to plural ownership of the economy locally.
Open membership
We have an open, free of charge membership policy, welcoming everyone that shares our vision of a greener Huntly and AB54 region based on their personal and/ or professional interests. This includes people, initiatives and enterprises.
Members decide on how profits are spent, on the governance, company objects and on the membership policy.
We do ask member enterprises that their work and their policies align with our collective values, which are continuously developed by our members so that they reflect the current member base.
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Support training and education
We will support and signpost to opportunities that help with the development of green skills and business skills through work experience, training and education opportunities. This includes connecting enterprises with a range of experience in that area, and encouraging conversation about best practice and materials amongst enterprise members.
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Asset sharing
All member enterprises can share their assets, if they wish, to enable peer enterprises and community work. All assets owned by the HGS Collective are freely shared in this way.
The HGS Collective represents a social capital that has the power to leverage the benefits of these assets through fostering connection, conversation and collaboration.
We put insurance in place to allow for low risk asset sharing.
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Remove barriers
We actively remove barriers and red tape that our member enterprises experience through collaboration, through finding external support and through leveraging our collective assets.
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Funding
We attract funding for projects that address community needs emerging from our conversations with the community. This includes our enterprise community.
To attract investment, contracts and trade that generates employment opportunities across, with and from land based sectors - in order to contribute to a fair employment and a just labour market.
Profit through trade
Because we are a profitable company, we can attract investment, contracts and trade. We ensure that this money flows to our member enterprises and other local enterprises that align with our shared values through business to business contracts.
Benefit our enterprise community
Member enterprises that are matched to available work will get first refusal to the work.
To attract, support and create a local supply chain around local land based sectors - in order to contribute to progressive procurement of goods and services.
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Green and fair procurement
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We streamline the procurement process through clear and transparent protocols that consider the enterprise’s environmental, transparency, and employment policies besides their competences, availability, and price.
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We favour local procurement where possible.
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Short, dense supply chains
We strive to find and develop shorter, localised supply chains through collaboration and connection. Where products and services are missing, and when it is financially viable, we will endeavour to create these products and services, creating an income stream for the collective in response to demand.
structure
Members have chosen to have no hierarchy in our organisation and to make decisions asynchronously. We strive for a robust, dynamic, and evolving collective that works in response to its members, clients, and to the community. We do this through facilitating an inclusive platform for conversation and fostering authority amongst members, empowering them to lead on projects from idea to realisation.
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Founding directors
Until change in governance or until expulsion, the founding directors remain in their role. This will ensure drive and continuity of vision.
During the development of the collective, founding directors have organisational duties that include administrative duties, accounting duties and mycelial duties. Mycelial duties are facilitating the conversation amongst members and encouraging conversation in their extended network, enabling decision making, supporting/ signposting support to all projects and to maintaining an overview of all activities.
Any project work founding directors carry out, they do as members.
While the role of founding directors is not remunerated, we aim to be able to remunerate any duties carried out by founding directors as soon as financially possible.
The founding directors are Abigail Ahston and Katrina Flad.
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Board of Directors
Our board of directors is responsive to the needs of the collective as well as to the ambitions of the directors. Founding directors are part of the board of directors and can also have additional director duties.
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Members
All founding directors and directors are also members with the same voting power.
Membership is not formally arranged. Instead, there is an open invitation to join our conversation around governance and projects of the collective. Members choose to listen in. Core members choose to actively participate in the conversation and, if they wish, to get involved in projects.
Members and core members can be individuals, community groups, initiatives and businesses. There can be an overlap, with for example members joining both as an individual as well as representing their businesses. It is important to us to reflect the complexity of individuals, acknowledging that their various roles and interests are interconnected. We do ask for people to declare any conflict of interest relevant to specific discussions and projects.
Members get to decide on governance, company objects and the membership. Directors enable this decision making. Members can ask for changes in governing documents at any time. Directors will pass these proposed changes by all members. Directors invite all members to have a voice in decisions surrounding these key topics when timely.
membership
We have an open membership policy. Our invitation to listen in (members), join our conversation (core members) or to join the board of directors is open to anyone at any time. Anyone that joins our conversation automatically is a member. There are no membership fees. As a collective, the benefit members bring is the added social capital.
When joining our conversation or board of directors, we do ask people to commit to our vision for a greener Huntly. And we ask people to uphold our collective values in all their actions associated with the collective.
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Expulsion​
Members have the right to choose expulsion of a specific core member, if this member’s actions do not align with the shared values of our collective. When directors have been made aware of concerns regarding the actions of a core member, they will contact the relevant core member and give them a warning. If any further action(s) that warrant expulsion occur, directors will communicate concerns to all core members. The majority of an anonymous vote is needed to proceed to expulsion. A quorum of 40% of all core members needs to be reached before asynchronous voting ends.
directors
Any member can nominate themselves to become a director. They can choose, based on their ambitions and on their competences, what duties they would like to take on within the collective. Directors can also be actively sought when a specific vacancy has to be filled. Directors stay in their role for 2 years and can then choose to self nominate for the same duties, or for different duties, if they wish.
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Nomination
The nomination process is a two step process:
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Members communicate the desire to become a director and what duties they wish to take on for the next 2 years to the board of directors. This will be circulated amongst the core members. Core members have 2 weeks to express any reservations they have.
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If no reservations have been expressed, the person becomes an acting director after 2 weeks of their nomination.
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If reservations are expressed, these will be communicated amongst the core members, and the person needs a majority vote to become an acting director. A quorum of 40% of all core members needs to be reached before asynchronous voting ends.
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At the next yearly online, asynchronous election, the acting directors will become directors through a vote and a secondment. All directors are to step down after 2 years within their role, but can be re-elected immediately for the same duties. If they wish to take on other duties, they have to express this two weeks in advance of the meeting.
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Expulsion
Members can choose expulsion of a director (including founding directors) if the director does not uphold their duties and/ or their actions are not in line with the shared values of the collective. If the board of directors have been made aware of concerns regarding the actions of a member, they will contact the relevant director and give them a warning. If further actions that warrant expulsion occur, the other directors will communicate concerns to all core members. A majority anonymous vote is needed to proceed to expulsion. A quorum of 40% of all core members needs to be reached before asynchronous voting ends.