Step 1 — The Promotion (Preliminary) Stage and the Chief Promoter

The first practical step in forming a co-operative society is the promotion or preliminary stage, in which the idea is turned into an organised group ready to apply for registration. It begins when a group of at least ten persons (or five societies, for a federal society) who share a common economic need come together and hold a preliminary meeting. At this meeting they take the founding decisions: they agree on the objects of the proposed society, decide the type of society it will be (for example a credit, consumers', housing, or marketing society), fix its proposed name and area of operation, decide the liability status, and, crucially, elect a Chief Promoter from among themselves and authorise him, by a resolution, to carry out all the formalities of registration on the group's behalf.

The Chief Promoter is the person who leads the whole registration effort and acts as the group's representative before the Registrar until the society is registered and a managing committee is elected. His functions in this stage are practical and important. He reserves the proposed name of the society with the Registrar so that no two societies carry the same name. He opens a bank account in the name of the proposed society and collects from the prospective members their share money and entrance fees, depositing the amounts in that account, so that the society starts with a genuine capital base. He arranges for the drafting of the bye-laws, usually adopting and adapting the model bye-laws approved for that class of society. He collects the various documents and information the Registrar will require, and finally signs and submits the application for registration together with the prescribed fee. …