Instruction Book

A beadword jewelry co-operative (co-op) is a group of people who use their combined time and money to buy beads and jewelry stuff in bulk to be sold to its members as cheaply as possible.  It’s an organization that chooses specific members (depending on their talents and knowledge) to take care of purchasing, advertising, marketing, and bookkeeping for the rest of the members.

One effective way to advertise your beadword stuff is to build a website.  Be sure to have a member of your co-op who has a computer and access to the internet. A person who knows how to build a website is a valuable treasure, so try to get one of them to join your co-operative.

Some orders will be more lucrative than others, so to avoid favoritism I thought up the following way to distribute orders equally among the members.  Each member should be given a number.  For example:

Johnny Bee	1
Ruthie Carol	2
Dotty Dacshle	3
Sunny Dae	4
William Winky	5
Evelyn Schmevelyn	6
Betty Beads	7
Jewells Galore	8

Make as many lists of the members numbers as there are members, like this:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
2	3	4	5	6	7	8	1
3	4	5	6	7	8	1	2
4	5	6	7	8	1	2	3
5	6	7	8	1	2	3	4
6	7	8	1	2	3	4	5
7	8	1	2	3	4	5	6
8	1	2	3	4	5	6	7

As the days orders come in they should be numbered consecutively.  A list of the members numbers should be picked from a hat and the orders should be matched to the members.  When the list is used up, put is aside and pick a different one the next day.  When they’re all used up - start over.

One way to get a co-op started would be to advertise in your newspaper or on local bulletin boards.  Another way is to send me your name, e-mail, phone number or address, and I’ll put them on my website under CO-OP's.