as they arrive, that would be great. Welcome everyone, lovely to see. Oh, just glad to have you joining us and lovely to see people join us. We've had a really good interest in this event, so maybe with hindsight should have run it as a webinar, but actually really happy to have lots of discussions and have people ask questions as we go along and to hear from people in terms of your experiences and things as well. So happy to have it with everyone here, it's really good. I'm Ayla McCulloch at Co-operative UK and work as the Community Shares Standards Manager. I've got a few in the team from Co-operative UK here as well. Emma Laycock, who's the Head of Advice. John Dawson, who's the Head of Market Development and Investment for Community Shares. Alice Wharton and Rose Seagroof in the Community Shares Unit as well. And I recognise quite a few other people around. I'll be primarily leading from our side and I'm really delighted to be joined by Mufti Faraz-Adam as well, who's been a close partner on this project for the last 18 months now. I think it's been quite a long time. We've been working on this, so it's really great to kind of bring some of this work into light and share experiences and hear what people have to say as we get excited for next steps. Like I said, the session is being recorded, so you can share it later. I'll make sure to share the recording and all the follow-up information afterwards as well. Hopefully you can share it with your friends and family in contact if they're interested. So, Sharia Complaint Community Shares, before we get too stuck into the detail because we love the detail. Just going to go to the next one. Just a brief overview of what we're going to cover today. So obviously, who's involved with this? We've also got Ruby Franklin here from the Connect Fund who funded this project and have been really supportive today. So Ruby's going to give a quick bit of context from what they're up to at Connect as well. We'll then chat through what was the project, what was the gap sort of identified and what we are aiming to complete with this phase of the project and then what comes after it. Faraz will chat through some of the guiding values and principles that underpin the work that we've been doing and then we'll go into some of the detail around the models that we've created and some of the opportunities. We'll think about other areas of consideration that come out of this and then we'll go into a bit more discussion on the business models, what kind of trading and things we think are potentials and then take a lot of questions at the end. If you have questions as we go, please feel free to pop them in the chat initially. If we think we can address it in the moment, we might invite you to speak to it and introduce yourselves or we might say we'll come back to that in the discussion and we'll just work it out as we go along. So feel free to comment along in the chat as we go and if we can cover at the time, we will. If not, we'll come back to it at the end but either way, we'll make sure it's covered. So I'll pass over to, wait, hold on one more. Just, this is just a quick introductory side of who we are. So maybe let's hear from Ruby first and then I'll come back and then I'll first to introduce myself as well. Great, thank you. I will try and share my screen, see if that works. Can you see that okay? Okay, so yeah, hi, I'm Ruby. I'm from the Kinect Fund and we are a little fund which is a partnership between the Barrack Habri Trust and Access Foundation for Social Investment and our aim is to basically ensure that the social investment market is more fitting to the needs of social enterprises and charities. It's more diverse. It's more able to provide for the needs of finance that currently the financial model is so set up towards traditional business and we're really trying to find those avenues to make it better suited. So we've got different program areas. We look at a quality diversity inclusion. We look at the post COVID recovery and cost of living crisis recovery. We look at peer network programs and also we have a challenge fund around participatory investments and also designing new financial models that are better suited to the needs of charities and social enterprise. So we're really excited to be supporting this project. We've also supported lots of other different projects around the quality of diversity inclusion and embedding that into the way that we do social investment because I think the heart of social investment is around participation and inclusion. So we're really happy to have also funded the Quality Impact Investing Project Diversity Forum, the addressing and balance part of good finance. So if you're interested in this area and you're looking at projects that can do something different and seeking to kind of evolve that agenda, then do come and chat to me. I'll put the link to the Connect Fund in the chat. And if you have any questions around what that means, yeah, just reach out because we're really excited to hear more about this project today because I think it's really pushing the boundaries of what inclusive finance is and looking forward to hearing more of the details. So thanks very much, Ida. So I'll stop sharing my screen. Cool, so you're being... That's great. I think before we go back to slides, Faraz, do you want to jump in and chat and introduce yourself? Yeah, sure, thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. It's an honour and a privilege to be here with you all. Some familiar faces, so really nice to see those faces every now and then. Yeah, look from our side, as the exec of Amanah Advisors, an Islamic finance advisory firm, it brings a great pleasure to work on something which is really, I would say, groundbreaking. It's really at the heart of the Islamic values and principles. So we're very fortunate, very happy to be with you all on this journey. And I think there's so much potential in what we've been working on over the last two years. They can really bring about change and bring more kind of social, I would say, social impact at the grassroots level. Many communities in the UK are struggling. I think this will really open up new doors, new avenues and bring different communities together for the betterment of everyone. So it's been a great journey and I'm really looking forward to where this leads us next. Thank you for us. Yeah, it's really been really fascinating and interesting. So I'll just give a little bit of background on the project then. Let's get started and get into it. So like I said, I'm Isla and I work as the Community Share Standards Manager in the Community Shares Unit, which is part of Cooperatives UK. And I'm Emma, my colleague, Emma Lachock, who's the head of Corporative Advice has been very involved as well in this project as well as other colleagues. So let's see, for those who maybe aren't so aware of community shares, let's start there, where did this come from and where are we now? So the stage we're at now is Community Shares. We're also a real source of sort of market knowledge and insight on the Community Shares market. This is quite niche, but it's a really growing niche, right? So at the moment, we've seen about 210 million pounds has been raised through Community Shares by over 130,000 investors across the UK. And this is backing projects that they really care about. This is very mission-aligned finance and investment from most of the time normal people who really care about a project or a business in their community and are able to provide a source of finance to that business, which works for them as the business, but also works for the investor as well. So this is a big movement that's UK-wide. So while the Connect Fund is actually focused on England, like I'm based up in Scotland, Cooperatives UK works UK-wide and the model is widely used. But what are Community Shares for those that don't know? So this project is funded by the Connect Fund who work very much in the social investment space. Community Shares are very unique in that social investment space, which is all about the right kind of finance for charities, social enterprises, and we include cooperatives in that bracket as well. But a lot of the finance available to what you generically call the third sector, community sector in the UK is often around grants and donations as loan finance and lending. Community Shares sits in that outside of that kind of options as a sort of equity for charitable community-based bodies, which is very unusual, but really quite useful. Like it's very practical and it's often what organizations need as they're developing and growing their business. So it's a form of patient and flexible finance. So the withdrawal terms, when the money is repaid back to investors and any financial returns are at the discretion of the society and have to be when the society can afford to do it, but also have to be in keeping with what the society's expectations were when they offered that investment to investors. They're very much a crowdsourced form of investment. So the statutory maximum for investment through Community Shares for one individual is 100,000 pounds, but quite often we see minimum investment levels in Community Shares offer start at 10 pounds as well and a range in between generally around a minimum of about 100, 200 pounds as well. So this is about a lot of people coming together. When we look across the spectrum of Community Shares it's around 400 people on average to invest in a Community Share offer. So it's a big group of people and it's often lots of people coming in at the minimum and then a smaller amount of people putting in more of what they can afford to make it all add up. This is about crowdsourcing finance. This isn't about seeking private investment from one or two individuals as you might do in a more traditional company model. On that note, they are unique to cooperative and community benefit societies. So that's why the Community Shares unit sits at Cooperative UK. I think this has been a really interesting learning curve with Farrs as well who's worked a lot with company models but we're working within society legislation. So the Co-op and Community Benefit Society Act 2014 it's a sort of key body of legislation that the societies are sort of regulated by and all Co-op and Community Benefit societies are actually registered by the financial conduct authority not with companies else. So that's quite a crucial distinction but all the information is publicly available as it is in companies house through what's called the Mutuals Register on the FCA's website and I've linked to that there as well. So while the society model might be a bit unfamiliar to people, I think it's important to provide that reassurance in terms of the registration function and the transparency and accessibility to information on Co-op and Community Benefit societies because they are unique structure and Community Shares is only available to them. So just to go into that in a bit more detail like I said they are withdrawable shares so they are considered repayable finance it's not a donation to an organization but they are not transferable shares so they cannot be sold to anybody and they are issued at sort of par valley so they can't go up in value. This isn't about trading shares this isn't about speculative capital gains at all these are non-transferable shares they can be inherited though and we do see that quite often a lot of the investments are in businesses where people are saying I'm investing in this for the next generation this is not just for me this is for my children or my children's children these are the reasons I'm investing so inheritable shares forms part of that as well. Really importantly compared to company shares they confer democratic ownership so while most company shares exist in the world of one share one vote all community shares are aligned with the one member one vote that is the basis of cooperatives and community benefit societies as well and that means that no matter how much someone can afford to invest they still have the same say in the running of the organization in the same rights as other members. A really important part of the community share space as well and that we kind of are keen to retain is that they're unregulated by the financial services and markets at 2000 so all that money that's been raised over 200 million pounds they aren't having to jump through a lot of the hopes and financial advisory kind of mechanisms of public share offers that are regulated by the financial services and markets act. We have a voluntary regulation scheme within the community shares unit that we have a sort of best practice standard mark we have a lot of guidance and information and we have trained and licensed practitioners who really understand the legislation and best practice around the community shares that voluntary regulation is sort of an agreement we have with government and the FCA etc and that enables it to be much more affordable way for communities, community businesses, cooperatives making a real impact in their community to raise this finance in a supportable way. As I've said they cannot go up in value but they can be reduced in value depending on the business and this is something we talked a bit about with the Sharia staff as well and you know alongside that they are therefore capital at risk so from an investment perspective investors need to understand that they might lose all the capital that they've invested and they have no recourse to the ombudsman and or any security on that regard. However, they are a member of the organization and they have direct accountability and the societies and businesses have that direct accountability to their investors. The nature of the capital being at risk as well also enables, depending on the business model investors to access certain tax relief from their investment and we can talk about that a little bit later as well. So those are some of the sort of key features of community shares for folk who may be not so aware of it or just a useful kind of context setting on what our community shares. We did a big survey of community shares investors quite recently and this is just to evidence, you know, this is very much an investment driven by the wider social or environmental benefits of the business. People primarily see it as a social investment. That's why we're in the social investment space but almost half of the investors as well invest because they become sort of co-owners of the business. So that ownership aspect and sharing risk and reward alongside their community, taking some responsibility in terms of the ongoing running of the business was an important driver as well for people. So that's quite an interesting, you know, differentiation for maybe traditional investment. So in terms of the project for a little bit of context, we were approached by Bradford Community Energy, a community energy group in Bradford a couple of years ago, and they'd already launched their community share offer to invest in solar panels and a ground source heat pump and energy efficiency measures for a community centre in Bradford. And they were hoping that their share offer could be made chariot compliant so it could be more accessible and inclusive to their own local community. At that point, we funded a little bit of far as this time just to look at it was already live. The governance models were already in place. The share of a document was already published to go, is this a chariot compliant offer? Is that possible? Like we hadn't I think there'd been abstract conversations about it before, but we hadn't taken the time to really get under the skin of it and really understand and bring somebody like far as who is a mifty and very well qualified to make that decision instead of somebody going, oh, that sounds about right. Far as was able to come in and do a really thorough review of their governing documents and their share offer document and identified where it was and wasn't chariot compliant. At that point, it actually the Bradford one wasn't chariot compliant. But out of that process, we went, oh, there's actually a lot more confluence here than we thought. Far as as well said that he was quite interested learning about society models, which was quite new. How do we find out more about this? And that's when we sort of kind of just knocked our heads together and said, oh, maybe there is something in this and if it's not Bradford Community Energy Doffer, sounds like there could be other offers down the line that could really be aligned and be compliant. So at that point, we approached the Connect Fund and we worked to develop this project. So so far, we've done a fair bit of work scoping out the theory and potential. So sort of reviewing the Co-op and Community Benefits Society's Act in light of chariot principles, looking at our existing model rules as cooperative decay and the governing documents to underpin everything being really, really, really vital. This is the bit where we are now a lot of what can you do and what can you not do for the offer in the society and its ongoing management to be chariot compliant. We then went through a process of developing a couple of our model rules, which are the governing documents for cooperative and community benefit societies to make them chariot compliant and lodge them with the financial conduct authority. So we made our own amendments that we were pretty sure we're compliant with the legislation and chariot. But then we also had to bring it past the FCA and have discussions with them about what would be eligible and what we needed to include or not. We've written some associated registration guidance that sits alongside the models as well, because we want to ensure there's enough flexibility in the model so that the models themselves are not so prescriptive, but the registration guidance that sits alongside it is there to provide for the detail in depth. We're necessary and then just in the last few months we finally received the FCA approval of the new models and those are now being registered with the financial conduct authority so that we can start to take this out to the big bad world and see what we can do next. And so the next stages are exactly that. We've got a couple case studies lined up, but we're open to more groups working in different sectors. But with the same, you know, it's the same passion. It's communities trying to secure an asset that's important to them, run a business that's going to be of benefit to the community or secure the long term livelihoods and futures of an existing organization through collective ownership, but also through collective investment in the organization. So we're working with those and then once they've registered and that's the important stage one, it's about actively supporting them to consider the share offer. What's the business plan look like? What do the returns look like? Et cetera, et cetera. How will the business continue to operate? And part of that will be I mentioned the standard mark and the best practice standards that will be about creating, ensuring that any Sharia compliant share offer is also in line with our best practice standards as well. So ensuring that confidence in both sides. So that's a sort of brief overview of the project to date. And while the Connect Fund funded the project for a set period, that period is actually just about finishing, but we know that this will just be an ongoing piece of work. So as Corporatives UK, we have access to what we call our Brewster Fund, which is an institutional investment arm of Corporatives UK, which provide development grants for organizations wanting to run community share offers. But there are other sources of funding as well to do this kind of development work. So while this phase of the project may be sort of wrapped up with Connect, I think it's really just beginning in many ways, is actually getting things going and working with organizations on the ground. So I'm going to hand over to Farzana to chat through some of the areas of alignment. Yeah, no, sure, thank you.  I mean, just to give you some numbers like globally, Muslims give at a minimum three hundred billion US dollars in charity annually, right? Three hundred billion per annum, right? Then that's a conservative number that's been used as part of this data, which is in Zakat. We have this kind of annual payment that we make, which is 2.5 percent of our wealth, right? So Islam is all about supporting, helping others and really about social impact. That's at the heart of our beliefs. We have obligations to God and then we have obligations to people. That's the kind of foundation of our faith, those two pillars, right? And that's why as Muslims, this entire area of solidarity, supporting others, equality, equity, responsibility, these are part of our core values that we abide by and we live by. And these are the same values of cooperatives, right? There's a lot of alignment there. In fact, there's insurance in Islam. We don't have the same kind of insurance as practice in the traditional sense. We have our own insurance products which are structured very closely to mutual insurance and are in all like for all intents and purposes, cooperatives. That's how they typically function. So the cooperative model and this idea of community which sits behind these structures that we're talking about is at the heart of Islamic practice. Community is such an important element in Islam. That's why five times a day, we Muslims, we gather together and pray together five times a day. We fast together every year for 30 days. It's a community driven thing, right? As many of you know, Muslims go for an annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. That's also a community driven, a global community now coming together. So all our practices are very community driven. Even our finances are community driven. And underpinning that as part of the entire spirit is one of the reasons why lending in Islam, you can't lend with interest. Interest is prohibited. One of the key hallmarks of Islamic finance. That's because giving loans to one another is a charitable contract to support the community. Lending, which is part of the Abrahamic tradition anyway, lending is something which is there to support one another. And that's why this idea of community supporting each other in the market or in the community centres or at home personally is at the heart of what we do. And when I started reading about cooperatives, I really found it interesting that how there's so many overlaps between what cooperatives seek to do and try to bring some kind of community spirit in the society and what Islam already has as a vision for the community. And so it's just about putting two things together, really. How can we make sure there's maximum impact here? How can we bring our Sharia kind of like values that we have and bring them to cooperatives and further grow this area not only to support what cooperatives are doing, but really because there's so many Muslim SMEs out there in the UK where so many Muslim SMEs, which are underfunded, they don't have access to capital. Islamic banks don't offer, many of them don't offer SME financing. And the only other option they have is traditional finance, which is interest based, which is also, again, it's not inclusive for us. We can't access that and tap into that finance. So if they are structured on a cooperative society model or community benefit society model, they can definitely take benefit from this. And many of the, I would say, businesses and SMEs, which are run by Muslims, they are more to do with social impact. So you have nurseries, Islamic schools, sports clubs, your local grocery, local store. These can function as community benefit societies and co-ops, right? So there's a lot of like scope here for these SMEs to tap into this kind of stream of funding and then make the community themselves feel part of what's actually happening. And that's, I think, the game changer in terms of the finance that we're bringing to the table. It's not just about profit anymore. It's really about how does our profit work for everybody and how do we ensure that this business continues to function and serve the society? So it's really an innovative and an eye opening kind of venture. And I do believe there's a lot of like hope in this. Once this is rolled out in the UK, I believe there'll be a lot of uptake from the Muslim community because it's just so natural for them. It's just so natural to us when you read this kind of text. It just really talks to our spirit and our souls. That's amazing. Thank you for us. Shall we get into the detail then a little bit of what we've been doing? I think you've covered a lot of this already in terms of the insurance mechanism that you discussed. So do you want to go a little bit? So we talked about the guiding principles underpin it. And how they relate to co-ops because I think people are here because they want to hear some of the detail as well, right? So absolutely. So the the the community shares that we have, the traditional conventional ones, they pay interest on your shares. Now, this is one of the key areas because in Islam, you're not allowed to receive any interest. So we have to structure and develop a mechanism whereby your investment is not guaranteed a return. That's the first thing. There's no interest that's paid. And any return is reflective of economic output and productivity in the business. So it's not just a liability owed by one party to another. Rather, it's something where all the members now come together and they're profiting as a result of actual productivity. So in Islam, we're not allowed to profit or take a return from somebody purely as a liability on them, unless it's a trade. Right? If I sold something with a markup on credit basis, then of course, I can earn that extra profit. However, if it's an investment, I have to bear the risk and I can't demand a return from the counterparty purely because I've given money. Rather, it should be as a result of underlying economic activity and productive output. So this is one of the key things, which I know it sounds very easy, but to drill that into the documentation to make sure that's exactly what's happening was a challenge and we did get over that. So we removed interest and we put in this kind of profit mechanism, which was great. I think then the second thing was about equitable and just treatment among shareholders. So there's many areas in the community shares where there's things about asset locks involved issues about what happens if there's liquidation, the residual assets, how is that treated? These are many areas which we then looked into to make sure that they are also aligning with Sharia principles. So Sharia is not just about the cash flows and what payments are due. It's also about governance. Governance is key at the heart of Islamic principles. So how do we ensure that the members, the shareholders, they treated equitably? Because that is one of the key principles in business that all counterparties, all investors, shareholders, members they are at an equal footing, a level playing field. No one shareholder has greater power than the other. That's why in Islam, we're not a lot of preference shares. So in your normal company shares, you have things when you invested like a venture in private equity, in the venture phase or in the growth phase, they typically give you convertible preferred shares. Now, preferred shares, because they give you preference and superiority, you're ranked senior to others in terms of profit, if there's dividends in terms of that, only in terms of liquidation. Right. And that creates an imbalance amongst the shareholders because some shareholders have more right and more power. So Islam doesn't even favor that because why should you have more power preference and more kind of protection from somebody who's also at the same rank really, they've you both given capital just because you have more money doesn't make you more worthy, right? In Islam, because money comes from God, that's what we believe. So it's not because of my doing, right? It's a blessing from God. Therefore, I can't demand and impose myself on others. So this philosophy was we ensure that it's also reflected in the guiding principles when it came came to asset locks, when it came to the residual distribution when it came to liquidation and then, of course, bearing risk proportionate to capital, which was another driving factor that your risk, the capital that you have in the company, this co-op or this community benefit society, your capital must be at risk, right? Proportionate to how much you've invested. From an Islamic perspective, I can't be liable to bear more risk because that's not fair, right? Your your risk and your investment should be commensurate. I shouldn't be and shouldn't be enduring more risk than my capital and I shouldn't be bearing less risk than my capital. So we also ensured that was reflected in the guiding principles. Yeah, I'm going to let's chat a little bit about this point of interest and a little bit more detail, because I think it's really interesting that you say that the return on capital cannot be that was really important because in a lot of community share offers that offer interest, there already is a mechanism where it has to be based on the economic productivity of the society and it's not considered a liability. So if a society cannot afford interest payments in the year, it is not legally bound to pay any interest that it might have offered. So there was all there was already a mechanism happening with community shares to try and protect the society and share risk in that kind of equitable. Well, what was expected? So if you can't afford to pay interest to your members, you shouldn't be doing it legally. But I think the addition to that. So there's that kind of shared risk and shared reward part of it that it's not it doesn't incur liability on the society being a core principle. But on top of that, I think the point that you made, which is crucial to the new models is that the return is not proportionate to the capital provided.  Just because you have more money doesn't mean you deserve more return. That sounds alien to a lot of people in the sort of Western finance world. You know, it's so common now to be like, well, I invested four thousand pounds. So therefore, I deserve the percentage of the capital that I've invested. Like that is bread and butter kind of financing where we are. So I think. And that's why we're in a mess. Well, exactly. Like that kind of that's capitalism at its core is like discrimination. You start access to capital. So it's it's really interesting. I think that extra level that you bring in that says it's not just about sharing the risk and reward or not incurring liabilities to society. It's also not rewarding people just because they have higher access to capital. And that's why the cooperative dividend, which we'll go into and actually in the model rules is not that defined. There's a lot of scope with the dividend to be used and a formula to be devised that is appropriate to the business and appropriate to the members to decide what is the most like ethical way to distribute the surfaces of this society and some of that. And that the red lines are that it cannot be a proportion of the capital invested. Yeah, exactly. I think that's really important because I mean, in the entire interest discussion, we did discuss how they may be scope that although in form it says interest in substance it might not it's not reflecting the same interest as paid in traditional finance, right, in the way finance works today, because interest in community shares is a discretionary operating expense, right? Yeah, or discretionary cost of capital. It's not guaranteed per se. But even then, which I highlight in our discussions, what the fact is the interest is there. The word interest, right, from an Islamic perspective, we don't want to even be near that hood, right? We want to make sure in substance and in form it's profit and it's coming from the economic activity of a company. And further, it's not because I've given you capital, it's not a percentage of capital, rather it's a percentage of profit, which is a key from an Islamic perspective, because if it becomes a percentage of my capital, then from a Sharia perspective that creates risk, it really should be because then it means I have a certain amount due to which is known, rather it should be entitled to a percentage of the output and productivity of the business. That's profit. So we made those changes and we made sure that interest, it's at zero percent. And as you mentioned, that to be left the kind of like rules, somewhat flexible in terms of how the distribution takes place. But what we want to do is support any kind of Sharia compliant community shares that's offered and issued to help them and show that the way they're doing things is Sharia compliant. And there's a lot of scope still to learn as we go because it's such a new product, I think the Bill of Learning. But we've placed the entire foundational framework there now for really this to launch from and to grow from here, hopefully. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I think it's useful to chat about some of the other areas. So for people who are familiar with our model rules already to kind of have a little bit of illumination on that. So other areas we've amended that we go into in the guidance is around borrowing. So there's obviously conditions for borrowing in the rules, and those have to be amended to be Sharia compliant as well. There's also in our rules, we have a membership share that's a norm with drawable share. Like this is a pound, but this is the detail that Farras was taking, that this cannot just be a norm with drawable share. It has to then be agreed to be donated back to the society at that point, and that consent is really important. I mean, let me just highlight that. I know you might be right. In mind, I'm just putting in a pound, but why was I so like dogmatic about this? Because if you have a pound in there, which is withdrawable and is guaranteed there, right, that you can withdraw it, then it just becomes a loan from an Islamic perspective, right? So from an Islamic perspective, it's treated as a loan. Just how you have like accounting principles, which will review things from an accounting perspective. And certain things can be treated differently from an accounting framework, from an Islamic framework. We also have a similar kind of analysis and forensics of things. So because one pound was potentially withdrawable, it created a risk that this could be deemed as a loan from an Islamic perspective and that would attract its own kind of risks. So we structured this kind of pound in such a way where it's donated almost, right? It's not something which you can withdraw then to kind of like mitigate that risk of it being a loan. And honestly, that's the detail. It may be a pound on paper, but for us to make sure this is really, truly a genuine model and the level of governance towards whether it's a pound or whether it's 10,000 pounds, the governance is the same. But we take it very seriously, right? And that's why we ensure that this one pound was treated accordingly. And just before that, we had also pioneer shares, I think, which is really important, right? Pioneer shares, we also removed them from the model rules. I mean, I'll leave it to you to discuss about pioneer shares and why we remove them. Yeah, I think, I mean, it's not something that necessarily is in the rules, but it's more in the guidance, but it's related to this idea of preference shares and having members with different terms and conditions that in general, we would never, to be fair, in the market at the moment, I see so few pioneer offers. While it's a nice idea, it often creates more problems down the line. We've seen that several times. So offering shares or investment on certain terms at the beginning and then following up with subsequent offers that are on different terms. One is an administrative headache for a lot of societies, but also far as it's touched on this like that conflict between members and how do you give that preference to different members instead of others? And what if they invest in both offers? It's just it actually makes things less equitable and it kind of shakes the underpinning values around it. So we just thought it was easier. It's not in the model rules because you don't have to explicitly state it in the model rules, but in the guidance, it's clear that we don't have the offer. We would not recommend. Well, pioneer shares would not be considered sugar compliant for that reason. The other thing that was quite interesting, we talked about, was in the reduction of share value and the assessment of the business and the business valuation. It was quite a useful process for Emma and I as well, because we realized that the wording in our own models wasn't that clear. So actually, we went through a whole process of making that clearer, which while we've done it for Sharia compliance, I think we'll make it much clearer for everyone who uses our models going forward. So that was something that was just a really useful exercise and learning to see it through another pair of eyes. And then this last bit, I think, is really important. And we'll come on to this a bit more. Sharia compliance is not a sticker that you can stick on a share offer. And that's it done. Like as far as the governance underpinning these models is everything. And for this to really work, there really has to be that dedication to the Sharia principles across the whole management of the organization and the business indefinitely, you know, for the whole running of the business. So while we can do as much as we can in this governance and registration process, which is really interesting, things like, how do we devise an equitable formula for the dividend for the financial return? That's going to need ongoing support. That's something that any society should be engaging with a Mufti, whether it's Fars or someone else to really look at that and agree that it's in keeping with the values and principles. So we've built it into the rules. Just this one sentence about that ongoing share management, but I think it's really important to bear in mind. Like this is not an afterthought for existing community share offers. This is for as far as like existing businesses in the UK who are struggling to access SME finance or community based organizations that are underfunded. What are the opportunities for them to really grow and develop in a compliant way and with Sharia at the heart of it, with the team committed to it from day one, etc. So this feels really, really important for us. Just just on that, right? I just like to tell you, as you mentioned that the Sharia thing is not just like a mark or a sticker and a badge, rather. I tell all my friends and clients that when it comes to Sharia governance and Sharia compliance, it's really an organ of an organization. It's a department within an organization which really speaks to marketing, HR, customer service, strategy, vision, everything that happens in a business has some Sharia guidance, right? And these guidance that we have from a Sharia perspective is empowering its value adding because Islam has guidance on how to treat customers, right? Islam has guidance on how to market, do marketing. Well, how do you set up a strategy for an organization? They are Islamic principles which drive that. So when we talk about ongoing management of Sharia compliance, one is ensuring that the rules are there and we're ensuring that this SME is functioning in the correct way according to the rules. But more so, how do we ensure and empower this SME? And that's why, instead of the word Sharia compliance, I like using the word Sharia-powered because Sharia powers people to more optimal practice and better governance. Yeah, that's lovely. That's, I think, I think it's so crucial when we're looking at this, not as just a defined project in community shares as well and how much it is part of the wider cooperative kind of movement in terms of running successful businesses and more equitable and just businesses across the UK. We've covered some of this stuff. I think one little bit I want to pick up on is around. So these are the two model rules and some of the specific features that differentiate them. So both of them, there's no interest payable. And I think from a philosophical perspective, the Community Benefit Society doesn't enable a dividend, right? So this, when you're looking at the spectrum of investment and financing, etc., the Community Benefit Society enables shares. So they are still withdrawable in the future, but there's no direct financial return available through that model. So the motivations for using this model and this type of investment here would be around community ownership, collective ownership. And that's really a powerful motivator for a lot of organizations. We've seen a lot of community organizations already offer community shares at zero percent interest. But the motivation is you get to rescue and save this building or this business that really matters and you get the social return. So you get to shop here every day and you get to benefit from the services. So the return is less tangible, but, you know, anecdotally, and we've supported hundreds of share offers now. It's really not uncommon to have an offer that has zero percent interest and the investor say, but the social return is worth far more to me than any financial payment that could receive on the share. And I know I can withdraw in the future. And I know I can pass the share down to my grandchildren. That in itself is a motivator, but it's definitely more the more charitable giving philanthropic end of the spectrum. Whereas the cooperative model has the opportunity for sharing of profits. You know, that's much more at the investment end of the spectrum. And I think that that's going to be a core difference. So if you're working with a group or you yourself representing a group, you need to think about what's the motivation for this investment? Which end of the spectrum are we sitting at? Because that will be the core difference in choosing the cooperative or the community benefit society model. The community benefit society model as well generally has an asset lock and a restriction and distribution of residual assets. So once the if a society that's a community benefit society winds up and it has to maybe it can return, say it's a solvent dissolution. So it's still got money, but it's winding up. It can return some share capital to members. It can pay off any other debts it might have incurred. But because it's a social charitable body, not a charitable body, but like, you know, I mean, like a public benefiting community benefiting model then any other residual assets after the share capital have returned has to go to a body with similar objects. So another sort of social purpose community benefit organization for this share distribution of residual assets in that way, where they go towards another community benefit social impact organization, the members have to consent to that at the point of their investment. So I think today that sort of happens in a de facto way, like a lot of community share offers use that as a motivator. You know, a lot of people want to invest in something if they go. Well, that means that any of these residual assets are kind of hopefully for perpetuity used for community benefit, even if this society itself winds up at some point in the future. But maybe they don't actively consent to that or they don't fully understand that. So for the community benefit society model from a Sharia perspective, the members have to consent to that distribution of assets to be donated elsewhere in that circumstance. Whereas in the cooperative model, you've got you still have the option of the dissolution where the assets get passed on. That's called a common ownership dissolution clause where you can the co-op can say any residual assets go to a similar co-op or go to a similar body. But from our discussions, it came out that actually with this idea of shared risk and reward, we also have a co-ownership dissolution clause in our model rules, which would be the preferable option because then actually members can share in those residual assets as well. But we've left it with the co-op model that the two options still exist. So it would be the same thing as the community benefit society if they went for the common ownership dissolution clause, where the members consented to residual assets being shared with a similar body in the future, if in the case of dissolution. But actually, yeah, maybe let Farz elaborate a little bit on that, but that idea of shared risk and reward is more aligned with Sharia. No, absolutely, because that's at the end of the day, that's the kind of like membership and the shareholding. So they would have, from a Sharia perspective, most entitlement. So there should be some mechanism for them to also access into that. And just to add or not, you were saying about the on-onward investment or transferring the funds to another kind of co-op or community benefit society. We put into the rules as well that when it's a Sharia compliant one, the funds must be transferred to something which is Sharia compliant as well. So the funds then cannot be transferred to a pub. Because as Muslims, we don't drink alcohol, right? We see that as harmful to ourselves. To our souls and to our bodies. So we're not permitted to drink alcohol. And therefore, if you had a Sharia compliant co-op or community benefit society giving the funds, you cannot go to a pub, right? It has to go to something else, which is compliance. It could go to like a nursery, a co-op or another store, which would feel similar social benefit. But it should be something which adds value to society, which is ethical and adds value to society. Yeah. And I think that's crucial when we talk about like the actual objects of the organization. So we'll come on to that now. It's a good segue in terms of the actual trading and sectors. So for a bit of context, for community shares, about a third of offer community share offers are a bit less have actually been in community pubs. So that's why that's kind of come up, you know, like that's quite a popular model for communities to take ownership of their pubs, which they, you know, they see as much more than a normal pub. It's often seen as like a community hub and meeting point and all of that. But that is a common use of community shares. But apart from that, we've also used a lot for community energy. We see a lot in retail, kind of different shops, community centers, farming and food, care, support for others in the community, well-being, sports, activities. So there's a whole range of sectors that community share offers have been used into date. So it's useful, I think, to hear from far as around some of the prohibitive business sectors, just for context. But from our analysis, it doesn't feel like it's prohibitive at all in terms of the small overlap with the community share market to date. Yeah, I mean, as a rule of thumb, wherever you see a warning sign in the products that you buy, so you see a warning sign on tobacco, right? Islam says the same thing. You would say this kills you, right? Like pornography, we see signs all the time, saying 18 plus and it's something to avoid, whatever. There's so many studies on this. Islam says the same thing. When you talk about gambling, there's always warning signs, right? For gambling, so Islam says the same thing. When it comes to bars, pubs, clubs and all these types of things. Again, any activity which can undermine society or is unethical. If we just look back 100, 200 years ago, maybe many of these things were not being practised. So Islam still has a tradition kind of thing where these things are, from an Islamic sense, harmful for the society. So whether it's harmful for the society, for you as an individual, to your body, to relationships and families, or to your faith and to your soul, then these things will be prohibited. So the World Cup is a brilliant case study, as you all know what the World Cup, right? About alcohol, how Qatar has kind of said you don't drink. And it's there to kind of create a more positive, plausible atmosphere. So anything which harms you at a social level, societal level, physical, physiological, family, soul, spiritual is prohibited. And these are the typical business sectors then from an Islamic finance perspective, where funds cannot be channeled towards because they seem to amplify negative activity in the community. So we want to reduce that positivity to increase in spread. That's really interesting. Wherever there's a little warning sign, just keep an eye on it. Exactly, it's like logical. Jim is asking a very good question about armaments, right? And I think it's right, yeah, armaments. So there is guidance on that because this doesn't really happen in what we're doing, right? Armaments, that's why I didn't put it in. It's something way beyond our discussion and conversation. But yeah, even investing in things, so it is a filter. So if you look at Sharia filters, that's also something which is not acceptable, because then you're just proliferating and promoting violence. So that's also a problem. Yeah, I mean, I don't see us starting a community shares club. Not in the UK anyway. Definitely not. So yeah, just before we go on to some questions. So these are some of the opportunities that we've sort of identified and spoken around. So while, of course, those are the prohibited ones, I think we all know from working in the sector that is very apart from the pubs and the alcohol thing, which is very much part of Western society. And there's so many other great sectors and business sectors that this model is applicable in that we think could work. So grocery stores and retail outlets being quite obvious one in the community shops as well. There's loads of community run shops across the UK. And there's a lot of SMEs, you know, that actually may be aligned really well with this model. And we've seen quite a few sort of independently run community shops recently use community shares to transfer into community or cooperative ownership. So that's a relatively well trodden path that we could take this model and apply it to. And nurseries and daycare facilities more and more. I think it's still quite a small sector in terms of community shares, but we have had quite a few inquiries. So this could be a way in to look at that in more detail. Renewable energy. And it's a really big one, like I said, lots of community share offers and renewable energy. And we've had some inquiries through Michael, who I think is in the room about an interfaith organisation as well that's bringing together local churches and mosques to maybe look at a model, a cooperative model like this to invest in solar panels or heat pumps and energy efficiency for what are generally quite cold buildings. I think they should about in common. So I think that could be really interesting. And we know that there's already, like I said, there's a sort of well trodden path in the way there's business models there that we could run through this. Evening schools. We've had some approaches from educational facilities and evening schools, sports facilities. Definitely, I think is a great opportunity because it's all about health and well-being. And we have supported quite a lot of sports-based community share offers. You mentioned the World Cup. There's lots of energy around football. We've had lots of football clubs use community shares as well. So I'd be interested to see that as well. Care homes, social care businesses, we're seeing more and more use in the cooperative model, partly because of the level of exploitation in the private sector care services. So I think that will be quite an interesting one and that takes a bit more effort to set up. You've got other regulatory bodies in that space as well that we need to be mindful of. And then the sort of general, I think, community hubs and multi-purpose facilities is a great opportunity. We've seen even before the pandemic and now communities really coming together to provide safe spaces, warm spaces with lots of different activities, lots of opportunities for their community to come together, maybe in a non-religious space, but to do crafting together and eat together and do all the other things we need to do as a community. So I think that's quite a decent sector for community shares already. And there's no reason why this model wouldn't fit that really well. Any other thoughts on that for us? And then I'll stop sharing and we can answer some questions. Oh, you're on mute. Hold on. Apologies. No, I was saying you've really summed it up really well. I don't think there's much to add from my side. I'll stop sharing. So this might be a good opportunity. I need to catch up on the chat box as well. Where shall we start? So Andy had a question about would there be a cap on the dividend? And I think the answer to that is we talked about this. This is going to be something that would be different, depending on the business and the organization. So that's where that Sharia guidance would come in at that point in devising what the formula would be for the dividend. And inevitably there would then be some sort of cap because we want to ensure it's equitable for all members. And it might well be that the dividend is just total surplus divided by total number of members. It could be as simple as that. But I think we would be looking at the different business models and the different way the members may be engaged with the society. That's right. I mean, we just left it flexible. And once we start dealing with some actual case studies, we can then decide what's best and they can decide really what's best for them. And then we can just look at is it as if all the guidance? That's all. But yeah, we've left it pretty flexible for now. Yeah, there was another point about how the co-ownership of the solution is maybe opposed to the definition, which is our own invented definition of community shares in asset locked organizations. So we would need to look at that in terms of the standard mark compliance. But that's exactly what the next phase of this project is, is applying it. And we oversee those best practice standards internally. And so I'm just flagging that Emma as well for us to have on our agenda. And Michael's asked with the dissolution clause, members presumably can offer to waive this right. And I think that's fair. So if, in an example, the society's winding up and the members receive a share of the residual assets, they could actually say, I don't want my share. I'd rather donate it to somebody else. I'd rather donate it to another organization that's similar. I think that that's fine. I don't see why they couldn't waive that right. It becomes theirs and then they can do what they want. I think it's the way to do it. And our moments, we've covered that. I was screaming at me when I was speaking. Hannah has asked if a community shop sells alcohol. Is that an absolute no no? Or does it depend on the proportion of sales that are alcohol? Yeah, it's a brilliant question. And at the end of the day, we haven't put that into the guidance, but yeah, it does work based on proportion. So we look at what's the kind of like income from alcohol. And so we have some thresholds there to capture that. But it's not an absolute no no, but we try to keep it as pure as possible as well. So there is like a threshold of tolerance. And then and even that, if they are mostly members, part of that, they'd have to purify any gain that comes proportionate to alcohol sales. So there's a purification payments. So I can't benefit from the sales at all. I'd have to give it away and dispose of it in charity. That's like purification of that money. That's how that works. So if like five percent of the sales come from alcohol, maybe when you're looking at distributing any returns, at least five percent of that profit would have to go towards charitable causes before any residual profits could be distributed to members. So five percent is the threshold. So once you breach that threshold, then you can no longer invest in that particular business activity. Right. This is very fine. So if it's two percent as an example, I'd have to give two percent of any returns that I've earned away in charity. So this is what we do. And we just. Yeah, that's really interesting. Hannah, that answered your question. Are you happy with that? Yeah. Chris has asked. Interested to hear about what the guidance is regarding new tech or data driven businesses where certain communities are more at risk than others. I know you do quite a lot on tech stuff already. Yeah, I mean, it's fine. As long as the business activity is most tech activity is fine. It's it's not a problem. Yeah, if there was something specific, maybe first tech specifically for a gambling industry, how to proliferate, grow the gambling platform. That's when it would be problematic. But this is generic services, which can have different customers with books of life. It's not a problem. Yeah. Chris, do you want to elaborate on that? If she's there. One minute. Yeah, we'll keep going. Just jump in when you're ready, because it would be interesting to see what examples you were thinking on that from. Andrew has asked whether a recovery house for alcoholics who have stopped drinking and then undertaken to give up alcohol permanently would be acceptable. So it's almost like a health care facility, I would say. Most definitely anything which brings people and enhances people, it's always acceptable because Islam is about improving people and enhancing people. Right. So if somebody is looking to like. Improve themselves and kind of like become sober and stop like the leaves drinking alcohol, then I'll be absolutely fine. And it will align with Sharia principles. Yeah, that's great. I think it totally fits under the sort of more health care approach and a compassionate approach as well. Absolutely. Yeah. And Mithas asked, is this model already available? I would love to be one of the case studies. Yes, come talk to us. We can just arrange a catch up and we can check through what you're doing. Do you want to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your project or do you want to catch up separately? Feel free to let us know. I wasn't sure if you wanted me to speak or should I just. Feel free. We've got a bit of time. So if you don't mind. Yeah, thank you so much. Just first of all, I'm just so appreciative of this space because this is something that I've been struggling with for the last year. So I'm leading a project where I'm trying to bring community together to be able to purchase some farmland and be able to kind of support either new entry farmers or anyone who has an idea of maybe any land base land based work and wants support to be able to to, you know, try out in a safe space. So this has been quite hard for me because a lot of the cooperative models is very set around interest base. And yet I've just been finding it very, very difficult in terms of where the line blurs and especially speaking to other people in the community. As soon as they hear interest, it's just like a shutdown. So, so, yeah. OK, yeah, let's definitely catch up. And I think it hopefully is reassuring to you because, you know, the reason we started this project was exactly that there was other people in your situation who were going, I know this model kind of fits, but I don't have the authority to say that it definitely fits or the exact understanding of how do we tweak it to make it fit. So hopefully this project through working with Amana advisors and far as is all about giving that authority to the and reassurance to the community as well, that this isn't just like an alien idea. This is something that's gone through like a rigorous assessment process. We've really looked at it in a lot of detail. It's not just a whim of an idea, you know, it's taken time to kind of get to this stage. And from in terms of like farming and access to land, there's quite a lot of other community share offers that have worked in that space before. So I think there's there's learning that can be taken from them, but then applying it in this model to provide those reassurances that there's no interest paid and that it's very much in keeping with Sharia or Sharia powered, as we will say from now on. So yeah, please feel free to contact us directly. And then we can catch up on that. It's interesting to hear feedback as well, that like people know of the cooperative model, but then they go, oh, but it doesn't involve interest. That doesn't fit us. And that's really useful feedback for us to hear as well, I think. Thank you. I'll give you a private message. Thank you. Thank you. Just just a thing up here. To be honest, we don't even have to market the Sharia compliant, right? Yeah, it's an interest free model, right? And it might it might attract many other people from different walks of life because it's Islamic finance, it's inclusive finance. It's not just for Muslims. Anyone can access this if they align with these values and they believe that we don't want we want profit, not interest, right? Or they want to benefit and be a member of something which is maybe not a pub or something else. They want to have it's more aligned to their values. Then it's open for them. It's inclusive in that way. So it doesn't have to be called Sharia compliant financing or Sharia powered. Interest free community societies or any name for that matter, ethical. Yeah, really fine. That's a really good point. It's like we already kind of struggle with how we market the model. So I think making it more complicated is like, yeah, like you say, let's make it really simple. It's about values and and take each case as it comes, definitely. There was so Michael's mentioned about the energy saving co-op. And I think from an energy saving perspective, it's just on everyone's minds right now, like better intubation, LED lights, smart meters, whatever it is. I don't see anything from a prohibited sector's perspective that would constrain this. But yeah, it would just come at the governance is really the crucial thing here. But I think from an if the model is around energy saving, whether that's like supporting individuals or institutions, I think it would fit. Yeah, I don't think. And Chris is talking about biometric ID tech. I just don't see that happening at a classroom's level. That's a really good point. But that's all about its peak. You'll get that. You never know. Never know. We shall see. And I think it's something to be cautious of. And there's already a very strong like community tech or platform cooperative kind of movement is like, how can we use tech for good? You know, it's not not exploitative business models using technology in a way that like all the things we've talked about today adds value to society. And I think we'd be really open to how this model could be applied in the tech space. I think there's a lot of opportunity, especially with schools. We've seen some online schools run community share offers as well to raise capital and take on a cooperative model. So I think there's definitely scope for more sort of online cooperatives as well, looking at this approach. And I mean, yes, we'll share the slides and the recording afterwards and the guidance note as well. So yeah, all of that will be shared with everyone. And Hanna saying, yeah, prefer to promote this in a more inclusive way, not just for Muslims. Yeah, I agree. I think there's been so much we've learned from this and there's so much that's just so broadly applicable. So it's just finding because obviously we wouldn't have got funding for it if we didn't say this was about reaching out to Muslim communities and like providing opportunities for underfunded Muslim communities who are delivering kind of wide social benefit or SMEs that are struggling to access traditional finance. Like there's already clearly a gap there that we don't want to ignore that gap going forward. But there's definitely scope for this to be there. And I like to think that I mean, they're very inclusive models anyway, right? So even if a Muslim based organization ran this community share offer, they'd be able to accept members from everywhere and any religious background as well to invest. It doesn't exclude anybody from investing through the model. Ahmed, did you have your hand up as well? Actually, I do want to ask your question about banking because it's slightly different. I think. Yeah, I just want to understand if we ever see a world where there is community based banking at the moment, we see a lot of conventional bankers always always with their private enterprises. Do we ever see a world that will there be a community based banking looking after the community rather than profits and dividends, etc.? I asked, do you want to? Yeah, I mean, I would say on that is definitely the private banks, it's all about profit maximization for shareholders, right? If we were to, I mean, a bank was to open on a cooperative model, right? You do get cooperative banks, right? Where the members own is more democratic and it's owned by the members. The products are then structured in a way to really support that community, right? So the community members themselves are depositing in that particular bank and the products are structured in a way, of course, interest free, but then to support the community. So you may have lending products then like a credit union, right? Without interest, or it could be other types of saving products where funds are then being channeled to ethical businesses in the community. Right? And that would be really powerful. And I don't see why cannot cooperative banks are not really comparison to private banks. They just haven't taken off that much. I think private banks just have much more kind of like investor money in the shareholder money. But I think definitely we could. I don't see why not you call from an Islamic perspective, develop such a product with these kinds of like rules that we've developed here and really offer something different than what we have already. Yeah, I mean, I think looking to the credit union movement is really important. And some of the research we did on that intersection of like Islamic kind of values and cooperative models. Most of the examples from places like Indonesia and Malaysia that already have like like far as they already have a Sharia division as part of their equivalent to the FCA, so like their existing financial kind of monitoring already has a Sharia governance panel. And it's all around banks. It's all around insurance and banking and better access to finance because the Western model for provision of finance just doesn't fit like clearly, clearly doesn't fit and it's worth mentioning. Yeah, Chris mentioned the RSA project in Southwest Mutual. There is a movement for community banking at the moment. That's very much based on these principles, but they the whole regular regulatory environment for banking is so different as well. So there's no way actually the moment that we could use our models that we've created here to start a bank, the principles, yes, but because of the regulatory environment for banks in the UK. It's just, yeah, it's a slightly different challenge, but I think there's lots of discussions to be had around that, like adaptive adapting credit union models and things. Mel, is that a hand up and a Christmas tree? Great. We can hear you. Little festive background. I posted in the chat now, so I was struggling to type quickly. I suppose, yeah, credit unions and Amir's posted about CDFIs and, yes, there are a number of different community investment based models that have tried and you write that the problem is with the regulatory environment for social banks. It's scale that, you know, many of the social investors don't fall into those category. But I suppose I just wanted to make the point that whilst social investors are not necessarily Sharia compliant in the way that we've talked today, 85 percent of the investors that are listed on good finance or social enterprises or charities themselves. So I suppose I just wanted to make the point about separating out mainstream banks who are profit maximising and social investors who are not necessarily profit maximising. So they don't do what we're talking about here. But, you know, you need to consider the whole range from mainstream banks to social investors to CDFIs and credit unions, as well as then additional financial structures to help different organisations. So, yeah, just just repeating that way. Yeah. And Hannah had a question for us about you mentioned that Islamic banks don't lend to Muslim SMEs at the moment. And why is that? Yeah, it's a very limited and restricted area because after the global financial crisis, the regular regulatory kind of like environment tightened up. So that was one of the things and then access to capital. Islamic banks have a challenge when it comes to accessing capital because it has to be the capital. They receive has to be sharia compliant as well. And therefore they have to also have a much more kind of stringent risk assessment. So they don't go and just give funds to anybody. The balance sheets are already so tight, right? They're running a very tight balance sheet and a PNL. So for them to kind of lend to risky businesses and SMEs, it's just beyond the appetite, really. So it's just, I guess, the level of funding that they have available. They just prefer the kind of, I would say, the easier, low-hanging fruit investment rather than the riskier kind of investments, unfortunately. So yeah, Islamic SMEs or Muslim-owned SMEs find a challenge in the UK to get capital. And there's very few kind of options in the market right now for them. Yeah. And I think you've mentioned to me before for us about how some of the structures we've talked about today are sort of informally already happening to an extent outside the formal institutions where communities might be all contributing something. And then if they can afford to get something out of it later, that's fine. Or, you know, there's just informal networks going on, interest-free lending, et cetera. But this is a way to maybe formalize some of this stuff a little bit better. I agree. Yeah, there are. I mean, amongst communities, there's so much money moving around, right? And so it's already there in a very informal kind of network, but it's usually between families or close, like, you know, you know, people who you've known for a long time, close associates. But if we were to formalize this, I know some there's a company that we're currently advising. They're trying to create a platform which actually formalizes the whole process where people can come together as a community and then lend to one another. This is a lending-based platform, but in a more formalized platform-based structure. Interesting, really interesting. And we sort of see that as well, even outside of the Muslim world. There is a co-op. I don't know where they got to, but it was of freelancers as well who don't have the same like employment benefits or sick leave or contributions and stuff like that, where they were trying to create an informal, formal lending platform where they could help each other out kind of as and when. So if because there's no formal sick pay or because of that kind of lack of structure as freelancers, but they could work together to cooperate and create a sort of micro lending platform themselves. So, yeah, these things are happening kind of simultaneously in different worlds. Michael's asked about our fossil fuels, sharia compliant. What are you expecting, Michael, from the community shares fracking world? I mean, I fully expect they will be, but I'm just thinking again, if we're talking about harm, that it's quite and we're talking about carbon ridder and the harm of carbon is known. I mean, I don't think it's I'm just again thinking on the track. I mean, I can see existing fossil fuel reserves being actually compliant. I'm wondering about new exploration. And again, it's probably not something anybody in community share community share market is looking at. But it's just again, it's thinking about the thing about the financing of sharia compliant areas again. So if if a if a BP was investing in renewable, which it is, does that is that does it does that become sure? Is it is it sharia compliant? And is appointed become doesn't become sharia compliant? Yeah, it's a very, very good question. And there's a lot of like threads in there, really, like the first thing is the resources that we have in the world, if they are used in in a balanced way, this is our teachings. And there's some benefit in there when when things become extreme and you start over consuming, that's what brings problems when moderation is left, right? So that's one thing I think an entire area to discuss in terms of like the fossil fuels that we have. But yeah, if you have renewable renewable energy, that's always better because the benefits are far greater for everybody in the society, right? So from a sharia perspective, that would be that would probably get five stars as opposed to something which may get three stars or two stars. But I think the problem most of these discussions are fossil fuels. I always voice my personal view, which is like a lot of is down to over consumption, greed, profit maximization. And it's about how can certain companies keep their kind of lights running and probably keep their pockets full as well? It's more based on that than anything, whereas Islam teaches as moderation, the world, because we've gone into like overkill in consumption, it's really caused an imbalance everywhere. And we see that indeed the ecology around us and the kind of like natural environment habitat around us, the Amazon is being destroyed, right? Because we just can't have enough like we just the resources we want we want to consume all the resources are there as fast as possible. Why? So it becomes profit for me, right? So it's I think that discussion as well as part of the entire conversation. Thank you. That's helpful. That's really helpful for us. And I think a lot of us resonate with that kind of overall. It's not just about what's the material nature of the business. It's about the motivation and it's about the governance and the structure of these businesses as well. You know, that's what are the motive? What are the incentives? What are the motivations for people? Is it profit maximization or is it something else? And I think that's why we're trying to operate in the the other side of that coin. And yeah, I think it's a really, really important point. Great. OK, we've got a couple of minutes left, but the conversation has been really good. Are there any other questions that people want to raise before we wrap up? You we can answer questions later if they come to you as well. So please do feel free to get in touch. I'm going to follow up the session, like I said, by. Well, we'll edit the recording and put it on YouTube and then we can share it around with people and we'll share the slides and I'll share the guidance as well on it. It's an open invitation to get in touch with us if you want to discuss things in more detail. If you have an organization that you're working with that you think would be suitable or you just want to scope it out and have a think about whether it'd be a good fit. I will get in touch with those who've shared their emails. And then I will also also you can just reach out to us through our contact. I'll put our contact details on the on the slides so you can find them there as well. So yeah, I just really want to thank Fires for all his work on this today. It's been a long journey, but it's been really fascinating and really enjoyable so far. So we look forward to seeing what happens next with it. And obviously, thank you to the Connect Fund as well for funding it. And kind of allowing us to get under the skin of this work in a way that's really tangible rather than yeah, not just a notional thing. It's really great. And thank you all for such good questions. Really good questions, really interesting discussion there. Do you want to say anything else Fires? No, no, thank you. It's a pleasure.  And if there's anything I can do for you or any question that you feel free to reach out any time, more than happy to have a conversation. OK, well, we'll tidy up then. Lovely to hear from you. And thank you for the nice messages coming through. Thanks, guys. Bye. Thank you.


by the turtle. Yeah, the turtle got me. Sorry about that. So yeah, I was, I have a, I've been thinking about the issue of gender bias and sexism, people's attitudes towards women. And I know there's work to be done there because, for example, someone on the Super Chat from your show a while back, I don't know now, maybe a couple of months ago or something, they asked the question, isn't it strange that Ayn Rand came up with objectivism because women generally are not attracted to reason and logic and something to that effect. But feminism is definitely not, it's got a lot of bad elements mixed into it. And so I wouldn't want to identify myself as a feminist or call a movement to correct those biases, feminism. So on the one hand, there's work to be done and it's beyond, it's more specific than just individualism versus tribalism or collectivism because there's a certain kind of subset of that problem that needs to be solved. And similarly with racism and racial bias. But so what do you think about the language to use when talking about something like that? Well, I think there's a lot of work to be done. I think that, I think a lot of men have no concept of how sexist the world was and still is to some extent, although it's much better than it used to be. And how racist the world was and how it's gotten better, but there's still a lot of racism there. Somebody just said, I mean, this is an example. Somebody just says, name three women scientists. I can. And by the way, the Pfizer vaccine was developed by a woman, a Turkish woman in Germany. So, you know, but it's that, yeah, I mean the people thinking in those terms and people don't recognize it. And yes, there's been a shortage of women scientists. There was a shortage of women painters in the Renaissance and through the Enlightenment. You know why? Because women were not allowed to do anything. They were literally forced into a role of a domestic servant and a breeder of children. There's a famous story, there's a movie about this. I kept her out of the name of the movie about a woman who the only way she could pursue intellectual career, intellectual, is to become a courtesan, is to become a prostitute basically, because then they left her alone. Then she was outside of kind of society and then she could go read and she could paint and she could do the things that she wanted to do. And what a horrible choice, right?  So yeah, absolutely.  And their paintings were often presented as being painted by a man and only years and years later was it discovered that they were female. Yes, I think that that needs to be talked about. It doesn't have to have a banner, it just has to be talk about the fact that this is the history and to some extent it's still with us and that the real place where it needs to be talked about is the young girls. Particularly, if you look at the statistics, young girls going into I think high school are equal to or further ahead of boys in math and science. And then they drop out in high school. The number of girls involved in high school. And that's, yeah, the movie is Dangerous Beauty, by the way, the movie is Dangerous Beauty. It's worthwhile watching. So those are the goals that need to be encouraged to pursue what really interests them rather to pursue what certain segments of society think they should do even today. And the reason they're not a lot of engineers and sort of can value women is because they're just not enough women engineers. It's not because they're less skilled or less talented, they're just not enough of them on them, graduating from schools. And I think that has to do with biases that go back to teenagehood when we're teenagers. So all of that needs to be worked on and needs to be advocated for without it falling into the trap of collectivism. I don't think it's that hard. I mean, look at Anne Grant, the way she did it was portrayed female heroes. I mean, woman running a railroad in 1957 was pretty good art and just good education. Yeah, yeah. And also, but even once I am an engineering, two engineering degrees, and even once a woman gets into a career after school, she'll encounter a lot of attitudes that you can't do it or just assumptions that she's not able to do certain things and certainly not to like be a leader in such a field. And so I think that's where it has the most impact in my mind is just limiting people from pursuing the most important value in your life, your career and being told over and over again that I know you can't do this, even if you know that you can. Yeah, no, it's horrible. It's a horrible injustice, you know. And anything I would suggest is just, and I'm sure you do this, is just to stand up against it and voice your opposition. I think that's the best activism you can and you pave the way for younger women who are gonna come after you. I think that's how women got as far as they have today. And there is a real part of my hatred of the right, of the new right, of the kind of new right is the extent to which they are sexist and racist. Yeah. It's just ugly, the way they talk about women and the way they talk about minorities is just horrific and it's so reactionary. It's so going backwards that it's just offensive and at least the old left, the new left is, women are supposed to hate men and all whites are racist, but the old left, the kind of the more traditional liberals at least really did believe in some sense of equality in the appropriate way between women and men, between the races, color blindness and sex blindness when sex blindness is appropriate. Sometimes it's not, but when it is. So, yeah, it must be horrible to have to deal with that and to know that it's sometimes under the surface because people are afraid of being it out. So sometimes you can't just stand up against them because you don't even, the opportunity too because it's under the surface. It's usually under the surface because they know better. Every once in a while someone will just make an explicit comment and then it's like, they're giving me a gift because there's something I can really do about it. But most of the time it's not, but on a related issue, I think that there's a lot of opportunity for objectivism in this. There's sort of a subset of, I don't know if you'd call it feminism, but there's almost like a cottage industry around supporting women's professional development like people sell books like Lean In, for example, by Sheryl Sandberg. That's one of the most notable ones. And they're all giving women advice and this advice inevitably turns to things like, well, you don't have to just always sacrifice for your husband or your kids or whatever. It's okay for you to take care of yourself, but then they'll go on to say, you're not being selfish if you take care of yourself. And I want to scream back at the audio book like I am being selfish when I do that. And that's a good thing, but in a way some of this about trying to support women and encourage us to be active in our careers and successful is about, you can't do that without saying, assert yourself and be selfish in some sense. And they try to straddle this fine line of like be selfish, but call it something else and don't really be selfish, but we still value altruism, but you should advocate for yourself and advance your career. A whole self-help industry is like that. Yeah.   There's a massive opportunity for objectivism within the self-help world. Yeah. I'm just not sure how to do it, but somebody should do it. As I said, my viewership of my channel drops when I do self-help type stuff and rises when I do economics and politics, which is not as much fun for me, at least the politics part of it, but that's the reality of the marketplace. The marketplace doesn't want me talking about self-help. So somebody needs to do it, whether it's, I don't know, Gina Golan, or somebody needs to be the self-help guru coming out from an objective perspective. There's a massive, and part of that would be to talk about minorities, to talk about women, to talk about what it is to be successful because, and how to stand up for yourself. All right, we got him out. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual, would be any man or woman who is willing to think, meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims, or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism, and impotence and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist broads. All right, before we go on, reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now, 30 likes, that should be at least 100. I figure at least 100 of you actually like the show. Maybe they're like 60 of the Matthews out there who hate it, but at least the people who are liking it, I wanna see a thumbs up, there you go. Start liking it, I wanna see that go to 100. All it takes is a click of a thing, whether you're looking at this, and you know the likes matter. It's not an issue of my ego. It's an issue of the algorithm. The more you like something, the more the algorithm likes it. So, you know, and if you don't like the show, give it a thumbs down. Let's see your actual views being reflected in the likes. 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