Wild Welcome for Co-op Students!

Co-op activists and thinkers will be hanging out together next weekend for the UK society of Co-operative Studies Conference at the beautiful Gilsland Spa Hotel near the village of Gilsland, half way between Carlisle and Hexham, very close to Hadrian’s Wall in Cumbria. At 700ft above sea level, the hotel commands spectacular views over the Cumbrian countryside. To the east of the Hotel are the heights of South Tynedale with the Pennines to the south. To the south west are the mountains of Cumbria and the Lake District and to the north are the rugged moors.

A pretty isolated place to find a Co-operative Hotel and Conference centre you may think. The Hotel itself been on the grand tour for many years famous visitors included Robbie Burns and Walter Scott when it was the Shaw Hotel and later the Gilsland Spa and Hydro but it came into the co-operative family when the Co-operative Wholesale Society (as the major shareholder) and a number of retail Co-operatives took over in 1902 and ran it as a convalescent home. Members of those co-operatives used the hotel for convalescence until during the First World War the hotel was taken over by the Military Authorities as a provisional hospital. Many soldiers were able to take advantage of the peace and quiet of Gilsland Spa to recuperate before being sent back to the carnage on the front line then during the Second World War it was used as maternity hospital.

This chequered career was revitalised in 1972, when the property was established as the Gilsland Spa Hotel and has been progressively developed as a family holiday centre. The ongoing investment programme has made all the bedrooms en-suite, with central heating throughout the hotel. The bars provide the ideal ambience for that relaxing drink or bar meal and the latest addition, the Orangery, allows it to offer superb wedding, conference and banqueting facilities. The Conference is supported by The Northern Region of the Co-operative Group who have a very close relationship with Gilsland.

Despite the bucolic scenery there is much going on in the co-op economy for conference delegates to chew over. There are keynotes from Chris Herries the very first woman Chair of Co-operatives UK, Eric Calderwood of Stirling University and Bob Yuill Deputy Chief Executive of the highly successful Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society. Topics for the weekend include important sessions on the future of co-op retail, developing growth strategies for co-op enterprises with case studies from the agricultural sector, lessons from a new business history marking 150 years of the CWS, as well as a roundup of the current state of the co-op sector. You can tell that the conference is starting to come of age because people want to add their own things to the agenda developing its own fringe.

These include the recently formed Students for Co-operation. In many parts of the world many of the services that students need as well as their accommodation is held co-operatively even in the USA the Harvard Co-op had a turnover last year of $45 million the 33,000 paid-up members received $856,000 amounting to a dividend of 8% on purchases its Harvard Square bookshop was voted the best bookshop in Boston. This is not unusual and yet here in the UK students are having a double whammy of higher fees and the squeeze of the private rented sector.  There is huge scope for co-operative solutions to the challenges students face and students in many parts of the country have made a start.

Another session that I am sure will be of interest to Morning Star readers is a session on Co-operators in the Spanish Civil War. Chaired by Ian Hewitt grandson of Nottingham volunteer James Feney and with contributions from historian Richardson and author David Ebsworth (the pen name of former T&G Regional Secretary Dave McCall) whose Agatha Christie style novel the Assassins Mark set in the Spanish Civil War ahs as its lead character s reporter from the great co-op newspaper the Reynolds News. 

There are also session covering life in a small one shop Co-op Society at Grosmont in North Yorkshire and the history of Co-ops in Cumbria, as well as more technical sessions covering Industrial and Provident Society law. Anyone who has even the vaguest interest in co-ops and lives between Carlisle and Newcastle will be welcome to drop in and will be sure to something to enjoy and find a great co-operative place to do it in!