Here's a quick but important explainer on how you can watch conference, submit your questions and more!

How to join conference

Our conference will be livestreamed every day on our conference website at party.coop/conference20.

You will not need a login or password to watch: simply visit the website and from Saturday morning you will be able to view our embedded livestream and our Q&A box.

All you'll need to do is press play! This should work using any computer, tablet or mobile. You can see a preview below:

All events at conference will be professionally live captioned. If you have any other accessibility requirements, please email events@party.coop and we will do our best to facilitate.

How to ask a question

The majority of our conference events will be followed by a Q&A, and we cannot wait to hear all your questions and thoughts about the ideas, activism and policy we'll be discussing at our sessions. Best of all, it's simple: if a conference event contains a Q&A segment, you will be able to submit your questions to the speaker/panel by typing them into the Q&A box.

For safeguarding purposes, all questions are moderated by our team. Approved questions are then published in the Q&A box, where questions can be "liked" by other people watching the event.

The Chair will then choose from the pool of approved questions: if your question is chosen, the Chair will read it out to the speakers/panel.

We want as many people as possible to get involved and have a voice, and we're excited to hear all your ideas and thoughts. To help us with that, we'd appreciate if you can keep your questions short, sharp and to the point: this helps us get through as many as possible during each Q&A session.

If an event doesn't contain a Q&A, the Q&A box will be temporarily closed.

The conference will also be available to watch directly on Facebook and YouTube: however, we will only be taking questions via the Q&A box on our conference website. Therefore we highly recommend that if you wish to ask a question, you watch conference via our conference website.

How to join the policy debates

Every year at our annual conference, our members come together to discuss policy, and that will continue this year in our virtual format.

While all conference attendees – members and non-members – are invited to watch the lively debate on the conference website, as always we're welcoming Party members who wish to make a contribution to join us on the (virtual) stage and make a short speech of up to three minutes on the topic of the debate – from the comfort of your own home.

In order to more easily facilitate the technical aspects of members appearing live on video to give their contributions, we are asking members who are interested in having a say during the debate to register their interest ahead of time.

If you'd like to register your interest in speaking at one or both debates, please let us know as soon as possible by filling in this form.

We will shortly be contacting those who have expressed interest with instructions on how they can "come backstage" to give their speeches. Speeches will be recorded live using Zoom, which is very easy to use – so don't let the technicalities scare you off!

Pre-registering really helps us out, but if you're inspired on Sunday by the other contributions and want to make a last-minute speech yourself, it's not too late! Just pop a message asking to make a speech along with your email address into our Q&A box, or email events@party.coop. We'll do our best to quickly get you onto the virtual stage.

If you do not wish to make a speech, you can simply watch and enjoy the debate on our conference website, like all our other events.

How to join the AGM

Our Annual General Meeting will be held on the last day of conference, on Saturday 17th October. The AGM is members-only, and will not be livestreamed. Instead, our AGM will take place on Zoom: a private link will shortly be sent to all conference registrants who indicated they were members when they registered.

If you have not received your link to join the Zoom by Friday 16th October, please email events@party.coop.

How to conduct yourself at conference

The Co-operative Party believes that our co-operative values should be reflected in our actions as well as our policies. We want all members and all our event participants to feel safe, welcome and respected in our Party.

We want this Conference to be accessible and welcoming, encouraging maximum attendance and participation and conducted in a friendly and co-operative way and in a manner that enables all views to be heard.

Please read our rules on conduct and safeguarding before attending conference. If you have any concerns, or witness something that may be a safeguarding issue during this Conference, you have a duty to report it immediately.  Please contact Karen Wilkie at k.wilkie@party.coop or the member of staff present.

How to share your experience of conference

We want as many people as possible to share their experience of conference on social media. Feel free to Tweet, Facebook and Instagram through conference using our hashtag, #CoopOnline20. We'll be sharing some of the best contributions on the Party accounts.

If you have any further questions, before or during the event, please email events@party.coop and we will do our best to assist you.