UNOCONE

United Neighborhood Oil Cooperatives of New England
Home
About Us
UNOCONE Background
Contact Us
Site Map
UNOCONE BACKGROUND

Underpinning UNOCONE is each of the participating towns’ oil buying coops.

 

What is the nature of the oil-buying co-op?

 

There are two parts to the co-op, the Organizer and the Neighbors.

 

The Organizer inaugurates the group’s start-up effort, managing the database of neighbors, spearheading the bidding process and communicating the group’s decisions.

 

The Neighbors, are residents of the given town with a local town address where the oil will be delivered. They only need decide to participate. Participation though means not only benefiting from the savings on oil but also helping in the selection of oil suppliers and in choosing the winning bid.

 

The oil-buying co-op is a "virtual" group-it only exists on the Internet. It has no assets, no legal structure, no employees, etc. Its sole purpose is the oil purchasing cycle, which will usually start each year in the late spring and terminate in the late summer/early fall with the selection of the winning bid from an oil supplier. The cycle to be repeated each subsequent year.

 

 

Since UNOCONE is not a formal organization, it cannot control the makeup of your or anyone else's co-ops, and as such is not responsible for any of their actions or inaction’s.

 

Nevertheless, as a service to each of your organizing efforts, A Guide and a Manual on How we Started and Maintain our oil-buying co-op has been prepared. The Guide, to the right of this column, represents a set of guiding principles that has helped Co-ops become and stay sucessful 

 

You can receive the manual by following the instructions on the Contact Us Page

Since UNOCONE is not a formal organization, it cannot control nor direct the makeup of these co-ops, and as such is not responsible for any of their actions or inaction’s.

 

Nevertheless, as a service to each of your organizing efforts, we can relate the following that some co-ops have followed.

 

The Guide--How We Have Positioned Ourselves

  1. Most groups are fully participatory, including all neighbors in that town who wish to join and on the same acceptance criteria.
  2. Organizers, who we are knowledgeable about, have acted in the sole role of a communication point both among the neighbors and with the prospective oil suppliers. These organizers have made no purchasing decisions, handled no money or credit, and not established any organizational structure.
  3. All communications have been based primarily on the internet, only backed up by the phone when necessary.
  4. There have been no fees to join and no income produced for the co-op’s organizer. All communications to neighbors and oil suppliers have been in full light.
  5. The only financial benefits for joining the oil purchasing co-op has been the resulting oil and other discounts that all neighbors have benefited from equally.
  6. All supplier selection decisions have been voted on by the participating neighbors. That vote has been a guide but not a determining factor on which company each neighbor decides to purchase oil from.
  7. At the conclusion of each years’ process, each participating neighbor has been responsible for selecting and executing their own contract with their selected oil delivery supplier.