Anyone who reads this blog will know about my obsession with co-operatives (especially workers' co-ops). Therefore, it was amazing to attend the national co-operative congress over the last 3 days. I emailed the organisers a few weeks ago telling them that I definitely could not afford the £500 they were asking for attendance by non-member delegates and pleaded with them to let me come for a reduced rate or for nothing (see my email to them at the bottom of this blog). After a multitude of phone calls, the event organiser told me the day before the congress started that it was fine for me to come for free.
I can not thank them enough for letting me go because I was able to talk to workers, managers, buyers and sellers from a variety of co-operatives as well as attend seminars, workshops, field trips and the AGM of Co-operatives UK (Co-operatives UK's rule book can be found here). I spoke to co-operators from consumer co-operatives (The Phone Co-op and a variety of other retail co-operatives), workers' co-operatives (Infinity Foods, EcoGenie, Suma), housing co-operatives and housing co-operative development agencies (Radical Routes, CDS Co-operatives), organisations that help children set up workers' co-operatives in schools (Co-operative Education Trust Scotland, School.coop, young co-operatives, First Question), co-operative development agencies (Cambridge Co-operative Development Agency), co-operative banks/financing institutions (Co-operative & Community Finance) and also some people from the Co-operative College (which, amongst other things, help UK co-operatives twin with co-operatives in Southern countries).
The Congress was very mind expanding. I now have a much better sense of the UK co-operative movement and how a multitude of co-operative organisations really work.
There was also endless information about co-operatives at the conference which I picked up and plan to read through, including:
Participation in Governance: Case Study Examples - this looks at a variety of co-operative governing structures in the UK.
Delivering Employee and Community Buyouts - A guide to the Succession Process
After the Angry Sea: Co-operatives re-building after the tsunami
A Better Way to Recycle: Co-operative and Community Approaches to Recycling
Co-operative energy: lessons from Denmark and Sweden
I also picked up copies of:
Co-operative News
The co-operative membership magazine
Co-operatives Magazine
And found out about the:
The Journal of Co-operative Studies
I will try and write some blog posts about the congress, the co-operatives and the co-operators in the ensuing weeks. For now, have a look through some of the links above!
Email to Co-operatives UK:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I was very excited to find out about your co-operative 2007 conference in Brighton, but was disappointed to see the prohibitively high attendance prices.
I am currently a Masters student at the University of Sussex and am deeply fascinated by workers' co-operatives. Indeed, I have recently written a paper on workers' co-operatives in the UK which I am attaching for you to look at. If you read the paper you will see the extent of my interest in co-operatives as well as the interviews I conducted with workers from a few workers' co-operatives across the UK.
Is there any chance that a reduced student rate could be offered for me to attend? Or even better, is there any chance of being allowed to come for free? I currently live in Brighton at home with my family so I have no need of staying in the hotel or for any meals (I can bring my own packed lunch).
I simply can not afford the kind of prices that are advertised for attendance. However, I would love the opportunity to learn from - and speak to - co-operators from all over the country.
In your brochure you state that the conference is a "more open" event - I genuinely hope you that you will be able to make it more open for me to attend!
Many Thanks,
Edward Griffith-Jones
Sussex University
P.S. Alternatively, if there was interest, I could give a presentation on the subject of my paper at the conference. Namely, to what extent are workers' co-operatives schools of democracy and do they encourage people to participate more in politics outside of the workplace?
Posted in Co-operatives | Day to Day Life | Environment | Politics ed's blog | 434 reads
Submitted by ed on Mon, 2007-06-25 18:41.
