As some of you are aware I was until recently the Chairman of The Crossroads Co-op, a wonderful dream by a group of medievalists to create a place to provide an educational centre for medieval and living history studies. The goals of the members of Crossroads are not beyond the realms of possibility, and would provide a fantastic resource for a large group of medievalists to play learn and teach. So why then did my Chairmanship of this group only last five months? In short, due to my lack of faith in the greater portion of the Crossroads Membership.

It is no secret that Crossroads has some major issues ahead. Amongst the medieval community there have been many rumours and stories and a lot of bad blood between members. It is easy to see that the medieval community has lost faith in Crossroads ability to provide everything that was discussed almost twenty years ago when the project started. There has been some bad decisions made and some forced that have lead the co-op into a lull in member participation. The real questions is, is this lull terminal? Personally I believe that unless there is a major increase in both member participation and member financial contributions then yes, I believe it is terminal, though I also believe it is possible to turn this terminal prognosis around however it would require the membership to actually get involved.

You know I here these voices of Crossroads Members in my head telling me “It’s all very well me having these opinions, but you are new and haven’t been around during all the hard times”… You know what… You are right, I’m not hung up on the past. I see a possible future for Crossroads… I see what it can be with support from all of it’s members both financially and personally. The fact is that whilst Crossroads is a Co-op, it also needs to be a business, it needs to make money to support itself. Both the members of the Board and the membership at large need to realise this so that the project can move ahead. Hiding behind the “Not for Profit” status will only prolong the slow rot that has already set in.

At the moment the only means the Co-op has of raising capital is through the Membership as there is not enough infrastructure in place to open as a profitable tourist attraction or camp-site, nor would there be enough business even if there where. Covering just the minimum expense of running of the Co-op is also a futile gesture as all that does is prolong the inevitable. If the membership want to actually see the project succeed they need to be willing to contribute not only to the day to day running, but to future development. Businesses need Capital to get started, and not just the capital to buy the property in the first place, but capital to be able to fund development as well as paying for the expertise that the membership cannot supply. I’m not a fan of the Co-op structure myself, as it implies that we will all contribute equally and the history of Crossroads has proven that for the project to get as far as it has, that just doesn’t happen. For a Co-op to work everyone needs to be contributing equally and this clearly isn’t happening with Crossroads.