Austrian filmmakers visit National Co-operative Archive and Pioneers Museum
A group of filmmakers from Austria have been visiting co-operative locations in the UK for a documentary about the past, present and future of co-operatives.
The visitors, who were led by Frank Matzler, started the UK filming in nineteenth social reformer Robert Owen’s model community New Lanark in Scotland, where they learned his influence on the origins of the co-operative movement. Moving to Manchester, the film crew interviewed Mervyn Wilson, Principal and Chief Executive of the Co-operative College, in the reading room of the National Co-operative Archive. They looked at items from the Archive, including the Robert Owen correspondence collection, material on the international co-operative movement from the 1930s and the original visitors book of the Rochdale Pioneers, which shows that their first visitor from Austria arrived in August 1867.
Saturday morning was spent filming a temporary exhibition on the Rochdale Pioneers at Touchstones Arts and Heritage Centre in Rochdale and interviewing Head of Heritage Resources, Gillian Lonergan. The visitors then went on to see building work that is going on at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum, which is currently being refurbished.
The documentary is being produced by Austrian co-operative bank Raiffeisenbank as a celebration of 2012, International Year of Co-operatives. The section on the early development of co-operation will also include material on Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, a German economist responsible for developing the world’s first credit unions, and FW Raiffeisen, a German co-operator who pioneered rural credit unions.
Filed Under: About • Co-operatives Globally • Our Heritage
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