The series, called ‘Co-operation in Practice’, was made by the SouthEast Housing Co-operative in Melbourne. As well as defining each value and principle in a practical sense, it covers governance; co-operatives’ relationships with members and directors; the importance of education to co-operatives and the resurgence in co-operative education; the spread of co-operation internationally; and the sometimes unclear relationship between co-operatives and social enterprise.

Wilson explained: “If you look at any co-operative you ought to be able to judge it by looking at how those values and principles are put into practice in everyday life.”

He added that “the ethical values are particularly important to co-operatives” because it was the lack of these values among nineteenth century businesses that allowed the co-operative movement to grow. Wilson gives an example of honesty: the Rochdale Pioneers kept the scales in their store on view to show that they gave honest weights and measures at a time when it was common to cheat shoppers out of goods and sell adulterated food. The so-called ‘Rochdale Principles’, said Wilson, continue to guide co-operatives today.

The spread of co-operation since the days of the Rochdale Pioneers has been inspiring and, as Wilson notes: “Co-operatives have managed to develop and flourish in all political and economic systems. Co-operatives are becoming more and more the part of a modern, twenty first century economy.”

Watch the videos online using the password SEHC.

Principles

Members

Governance

Education

Directors

International

Social Enterprise

College staff have volunteered to be on a new, dedicated blogging team. Our bloggers are drawn from different teams to ensure the blog represents the diversity of the College’s work, although they will be joined by guest bloggers from other parts of the College from time to time.

The core blogging team comprises Jess Wilson, Schools Trust Co-ordinator from the Schools team, Archivist Sophie Stewart from the Heritage team, Michelle Sansby, Customer Services Manager – Information & Systems from the Co-operative Learning & Development Team, Emma Willder, Vice Principal – Finance & Resources, Ceri Smith, Contracts & Compliance Manager in the Finance & Recources team, and Funding Development Manager Sue Hennessey. They are also joined by Simon Sheppard, who is currently Project Archivist on the Robert Owen Correspondence Collection, and Heather Roberts, Archive Assistant, who is working to catalogue the records of the Co-operative Group as buildings are vacated ahead of the Group’s move into its new premises. Heather is sharing unique insights about what it’s like to be an archivist, and revealing treasures unearthed in the dark, dusty world of the basements under the co-operative complex.

Follow the Co-operative College’s blog at www.co-op.ac.uk/blog.

Before she worked for the College, Wendy had been a College associate for two years. She was involved with the Towpath Project, which worked with volunteers from different charities, as well as Co-operative Funeralcare quality assurance.

Wendy is an assessor and internal quality assurer, and her role includes teaching observations as well as developing quality assurance documentation – a role that encompasses “more than I thought I could fit into two and a half days!”

Wendy is currently working very closely with Funeralcare on an ongoing project which includes reviewing the levels of awards, writing new units and workbooks and reviewing progression routes. She is also supporting Funeralcare as they develop a textbook for qualifications. She explained: “I’m looking forward to seeing new textbooks developed and ready for use. We hope it’s going to be a master set that everyone can use.”

Though her role involves a certain amount of travelling around the country, Wendy is pleased to now have a desk at the College. She said: “I enjoy working as a member of the team and going out and meeting the various learners. I feel more at home now.”

Wendy was previously a lecturer in an FE college, working in teacher education and quality assurance. She had also previously run a business in Chester. As she has learned about co-operatives, Wendy has realised that there were similarities with the way co-operatives are run and her business. She said: “What surprised me was my previous business worked like a co-operative. We shared out any profits between the staff and they agreed at what level.”

The more time she spends at the College, the more Wendy is learning. She said: “The more I learn about co-operatives the more interesting it’s becoming. I really didn’t realise how vast they are across the world and how they are run. I’m looking forward to visiting the Pioneers Museum in Rochdale when it is reopened.”

Finland is regarded as the world’s most co-operative country. Three quarters of all households are members of a consumer co-operative, and consumer co-operative account for 44 per cent of the food retail market.

The Finnish co-operators will be visiting Manchester on Monday 12 March, and the Co-operative College invites you to join us for lunch in the Shillito Suite in New Century House. All are welcome.

For full details and booking information please see flier below.

Finland – the World’s Most Co-operative Country

In February, Wilson and his colleague Dr Jerry Lieberman, co-director of the Evolution Institute, met staff from the Co-operative College in Manchester to find out about the Co-operative College’s work and discuss the possibilities for collaborating in future to build an evidence base that co-operation works.

Wilson has been putting theory into practice by working with community groups in Binghampton, a depressed city in New York State which has seen a dramatic reduction in population in recent years. He takes a whole-city based approach to neighbourhood research. As outlined in his new book The Neighbourhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time, Wilson engages groups in community projects such as building new parks, aiming to “increase the quality of life in neighbourhoods and improve city governance” and “change cultural practices for the better”. Speaking during a lecture in Manchester, he described this as a bottom-up process: “We work with all sectors of the population and truly engage all neighbourhoods to turn them into effective groups capable of managing their own affairs. Part of what works is groups who make their own decisions by consensus.”

Wilson believes that “co-operation can succeed as a strategy, but only under certain circumstances”, and is looking at the characteristics groups need to be able to co-operate effectively. He explains the reasoning behind his community-based research methods: “Why not study actual groups and coach them at the same time to improve the science of co-operation? If you find likeminded groups who are doing the same, you can build an infrastructure/framework and groups can learn from each other. You need to build in the mechanism for variation, selection and replication.”

One of the reasons co-operation is not yet mainstream could be because of a communication problem in the past. Wilson identifies a need to “change the dominant paradigm in the media” – that individuals are inherently selfish and self-interested – by making sure co-operation, along with evolution, is understandable and relevant. He explained: “Evolution also has a relevance problem. The key is to present these ideas as useful in a positive sense. It needs to be tied to community.”

This means making evolution relevant to a wider audience than scientists: “We want to embrace interdisciplinarity and expand evolution beyond biology to include all things human. We want to include the humanities, art and religion – the non-sciences which give meaning to life. There is a common language of evolution and it can be applied to education, health, you name it.”

Of particular interest to Wilson and Lieberman was the College’s model for co-operative schools in England – democratically accountable schools which are owned and run by their local community via a multi-stakeholder forum.

Wilson and Lieberman have worked in high schools in the United States, aiming to create “an environment where it was easy to co-operate and easy to learn”. Wilson notes: “All practices were totally familiar. All were in the repertoire of what schools and teachers already did, for example learning by seeing.”

There are similarities and differences between co-operative education in the United States and the United Kingdom, but what the College and Wilson share is a desire to find a way of assessing what works for communities, and build a successful co-operative model which can be learned from and replicated.

Julie Thorpe, Head of School and Youth Programmes at the Co-operative College, has written about her perpective of Wilson’s visit here.

Steve specialises in teaching the harder skills like quality and finance, and he has worked for the College as an Associate since 2000. His work for the College has included teaching quality systems for co-operative retail managers and carrying out board skills audits for co-operatives. In 2011, Steve started managing the quality processes for Member and director programmes at the College and working on internal verification as an Associate.

Now, he is employed by the College two and a half days a week and is “looking forward to promoting and helping improve the co-operative businesses the College is involved with”.

Currently, Steve is working on developing a programme called Going the Distance, a Distance learning programme for members of independent co-operative societies and looking at an apprenticeship scheme.

Steve has had a varied career in co-operatives, and has also worked as an accountant. He has set up co-operative businesses, including a fabrication and welding company in Rugby, and was “won over by the ethical aspect”.

Steve is also interested in the finance side of co-operatives, and has even trained the board of the ICA in finance!  He said: “I had to quickly find out about the constitutional form of co-operatives and became interested in the finance side. People describe co-operatives as not for profit business, but co-operatives are very profitable. It’s surprising how many people don’t understand the difference between co-operatives and other types of business and I had to learn the difference. Any company can have ethical values, but understanding the financial side helps us to distinguish a co-operative from other businesses and the way profits are distributed to members.”

Steve, who is based in Leamington Spa, has other work interests. He is also an occupational psychologist who does psychometric testing, and works with Birmingham University and the Royal College of Agriculture on business development.

Steve enjoys being based at the Co-operative College and working on maintaining the quality of the courses the College offers. He said: “You’ve got a more reliable business if you can see how things are improving. Good systems free people up to be more creative and it gives you more freedom.

“We need to make sure we have some really good courses people want to do, and do again, and build a great reputation. There’s a positive feeling here.”

Yeo emphasises how the book collects stories of successful co-operative businesses all over the world and looks into how co-operatives are making a difference. The full article can be read online at www.thenews.coop/article/vital-stories-bring-together-world-co-operation.

Mayo notes that, in the wild, dogs, swarms of bees, schools of fish and flocks of birds work together. Far from what we have been told about human nature being innately competitive and self-interested, people, he says, are programmed to do the same. He argues: “What keeps things going, what sustains families, what makes work meaningful, what contributes to our wellbeing and what really connects us to Nature is co-operation.”

He notes that current business culture celebrates lone entrepreneurs and businessmen, prioritising profit and competition and meaning that, in our unequal society, the winner always takes it all. Business, he argues, is geared towards developing leadership, meaning people are always comparing themselves with others.

However there is an alternative and Mayo reminds us that the co-operative sector has significantly outperformed the wider UK economy in recent years. Membership of co-operatives has grown by 18 per cent since 2008, to 12.8 million (one in five of the UK population).He draws on studies of economics and co-operation, such as A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution, and looks at the psychology of co-operation.

Mayo concludes: “The co-operative model is good for the economy. But it is also good for the soul.”

Read the full article online at www.resurgence.org/magazine/article3551.html.

Co-operatives will be given a boost in both the public and academic eye with the publication of a new book written by an array of contributors interested in co-operation, timed to coincide with 2012, International Year of Co-operatives.

Contents:

1. Introduction. Anthony Webster, Linda Shaw, David Stewart, John K. Walton and Alyson Brown

2. Co-operativism meets City Ethics: The 1997 Lanica take-over bid for CWS. John Wilson

3. Values and Vocation: Educating the Co-operative Workforce, 1918 – 1939. Keith Vernon

4. International Perspectives on Co-operative Education. Linda Shaw

5. Co-operative Education in Britain during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: Context, Identity and Learning. Tom Woodin

6. Beyond a Fair Price. Samantha Lacey

7. Negotiating Consumer and Producer Interests – A challenge for the Co-op and Fair Trade. Katarina Friberg

8. ‘A Party within a Party’? The Co-operative Party-Labour Party Alliance and the Formation of the Social Democratic Party, 1974-81. David Stewart

9. The Creation of New Entities: Stakeholders and Shareholders in 19th century Italian Co- operatives. Patrizia Battlilani

10. Co-operatives and Nation-building in Post Apartheid South Africa: Contradictions and Challenges. Vishwas Satgar and Michelle Williams

11. Community, Individuality and Co-operation: The Centrality of Values. Ian MacPherson

12. An Alternative Co-operative Tradition: The Basque Co-operatives of Mondragón. Fernan do Molina and John K.Walton

13. ‘A Co-operative of Intellectuals’: The Encounter between Co-operative Values and Urban Planning. An Italian Case Study. Marzia Maccaferri

14. Government to Governance: The Challenge of Co-operative Revival in India. L Vaswani

15. Minding the GAAP: Co-operative Responses to the Global Convergence of Accounting Standards and Practice. John Maddocks, Elizabeth Hicks, Alan Robb and Tom Webb

16. Resting on Laurels? Examining the Resilience of Co-operative Values in Times of Calm and Crisis. Jan Myers, John Maddocks and James Beecher

17. Shared Visions of Co-operation at a Time of Crisis: The Gung Ho Story in China’s Anti- Japanese Resistance. Ian Cook and Jenny Clegg

18. The Hidden Alternative: Conclusion. Ed Mayo

The book, entitled The hidden alternative – Co-operative values past, present and future, came out of a conference held in Manchester in 2009 called ‘Can values make a difference’. It is aimed at an international audience of academics, co-operative members and all those interested in the co-operative model. It will be of interest not just to students (undergraduate and post-graduate) but to policy makers, especially in the light of current political concerns to explore alternative models to the conventional public and private sectors.

The hidden alternative – Co-operative values past, present and future includes essays on education and co-operation, Fairtrade, politics and governance, planning and stability and how co-operatives have coped with the global economic crisis, with a conclusion by Co-operatives UK Chief Executive Ed Mayo and perspectives on how co-operation works across the world, from the UK to India, China and post-Apartheid South Africa.

Contributions demonstrate that co-operation offers a real and much-needed alternative for the organisation of human economic and social affairs, one that should establish its place at the forefront of public and academic discussion.

Contributors include Linda Shaw, Vice Principal at the Co-operative College, Dr Tony Webster, Head of History at Liverpool John Moore’s University, John K. Walton, Ikerbasque Research Professor at the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Alyson Brown, Reader in History at Edge Hill University and David Stewart, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Central Lancashire.

The book is published by the University of Manchester and the United Nations University Press for wider distribution in the United States, Canada, Japan and the UN bookshop.

The book was launched simultaneously in Waterstones, Gower Street, London and the Eighth Day Co-operative, Manchester on 12 January, where attendees had the opportunity to meet the editors and the authors, find out more about the book and learn more about the International Year. Professor Stephen Yeo, an eminent co-operative scholar, opened the event in London. Economist and co-operative expert Robin Murray spoke at the event in Manchester.

Wilson identifies ‘the need for and the availability of co-operative services’ that are accountable to stakeholders and put stakeholders’ needs at the heart of business rather than short term stakeholder values. He updates readers on the progress of co-operative schools – there are expected to be 200 co-operative Trusts and Academies by early 2012, and the number is projected to double in just over a year. Wilson also says it is likely that the first co-operative further education college will open in the next year.

He notes the effect economic troubles are having on young people and highlights the need to build on Young Co-operatives models in schools, support youth co-operatives in Africa and develop similar models in the UK to help tackle youth unemployment.

He concludes: “While there may not be co-operative solutions for every walk of life, the economic challenged bring real opportunities for building a stronger, more diverse co-operative sector.”