Very many thanks to Bruce (Wood), developer and entrepreneur, who has handed me a well-thumbed, fabric-clad 1942 book “Consumers’ Co-operation in Great Britain’.
This tells me that Co-operatives UK, which I join at the beginning of November, started life from a Co-operative Congress in 1869.
The founding object, which I think is just great, was set as “the promotion of the practice of truthfulness, justice and economy in production and exchange.”
As you might expect from a consumers co-op book, that’s only one part of the story. Co-operatives UK was formed from a sort of merger of the part that started life from 1869 with a workers co-op part that started in 1971. If you can reconcile the consumer/worker divide, that would be a massive achievement. If you also succeed in getting housing, marketing, financial and other co-ops all pushing in the same direction, we’ll be expecting you to walk atop the Irwell as an encore!
Comment by MJ Ray — 3 August, 2009 @ 12:24 pm |
Hi Ed, I just saw this news today, on the LinkedIn profile of a mutual contact – Sion Whellens at the wonderful Calverts printers. Congratulations!
Comment by msbaroque — 17 August, 2009 @ 6:20 pm |