Whilst discussing bankers makes most people’s blood boil there is one bank that has quietly got on with delivering a good service to its customers without engaging in the kind of reckless activities that have bought the global economy to its knees. You may have missed its half yearly figures buried in the overall performance of the Co-operative Group. Despite the overall performance of the Co-op Group at the half year stage not being much to write home about, with the integration of Somerfield still causing issues in the Food Division, the Co-op Banks half year results whilst not spectacular did show steady improvement. The operating results are up a respectable 20% to £131 million and the steady increase in new account holders since the financial crash goes on with a 73% increase. The Bank gained 56,000 new customers (and therefore Co-op Group Members) in the half year.
The benefits of the Britannia merger are also now beginning to show with better savings products and this month Co-op Bank current account customers have access to an extra 245 branches as baking services are available in the Britannia outlets. These branches now offer Co-op Bank customers full access to everyday banking services, including paying in cash and cheques, withdrawing cash and making transfers to Co-op credit cards and Britannia savings accounts.
This more than trebles the number of available branches from 97 to 342. This is at a time when, according to the Campaign for Community Banking, 1,000 local communities have been left without a single bank branch.
It also seems that the Co-op Bank is the last credible bidder for the 630 branches that the Lloyds Banking Group, is being forced to sell under European Union rules on state bail-outs. And there is pressure from the Independent Commission on Banking for them to sell more than that. If successful this would be a huge increase in their branch coverage.
The lack of branches is something which many feel has slowed down their growth. Despite the huge growth in online banking, in which Smile the Co-ops own online service is a market leader, many customers still want access however infrequently to a bank branch.
Currently the Bank is a Money Which? Recommended Provider for current accounts, savings, credit cards and car insurance and its current account scores a high customer satisfaction rating of 86%. I have always found that there is an anti-co-op bias in Which? So this is praise indeed.
The real test of the benefits of the Banks development will be felt at the end of this year when the £729 million investment in new internal processes backed up with state of the art information technology should deliver a new business wide banking IT platform. This is being rolled out in stages. Last year saw the new online business banking facility and later this year the payments hub will go live. These new systems will give the Bank the most up to date and flexible back office systems around, increase their capacity and will enable the new merged organization to offer a totally integrated service to its customers.
It is wise I think to roll out such an enormous program in stages. I don’t think there has been any new large scale project that has work perfectly first time. There are always glitches and bugs in software systems that you have to operate the system to find.
To even be talking about such an enormous investment is amazing. The transformation of the Co-op Bank is remarkable. Just a few years ago to find a co-op bank outlet you would have had to find your way to a dusty corner of a Co-op shop just to gain access to a fairly rudimentary banking service. Yet today the Bank is a market leader in new products and customer service. There is no doubt that it has lead the rejuvenation of the Co-operative brand. The bank has long been the only Bank that consults its customers on its ethical policies and this year those Ethical policies will be extended to the £1bn of investments underpinning key insurance products.
Since the Ethical Policy was introduced in 1992, The Co-operative Bank has with held over £1billion of funding from business activities that its customers say are unethical. Having such a strong ethical stance has not however been bad for business because at the same time it has increased its commercial lending sixteen fold to almost £9 billion. This year the Bank has also strengthened its green credentials by extending its commercial lending in the area of energy efficiency and renewables from £400m to £1bn.
One group of people who have benefited from the Banks expansionary mood is UNISON members. The union’s members who switch to the Banks Current Account Plus before the end of the month will receive a benefit of £100 cash back, plus the Bank will make a £50 donation to UNISON Welfare charity in return for a minimum monthly deposit of £800.
Since the partnership between the Bank and Unison began the Bank has given more than £1.3 million to UNISON Welfare from financial products linked to the union.
UNISON members have until the end of the month to take advantage of this offer and the full terms and conditions can be found at www.britannia.co.uk/unison, or calling 0800 917 7066, or by visiting any one of The Co-operative Bank or Britannia branches.
They say you are more likely to get divorced than to change your bank account but nothing could be simpler and what’s more if they make any mistakes you are generously compensated. I know the Co-op Bank is still a bank and we all have a downer on banks at the moment but here is one way we can all be co-operators even if you are miles from a shop!
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Friday, 16 September 2011
Sports fans, Spectators or Supporters?
There has been much debate about the Morning Stars sports coverage. As a small circulation paper with a mission to promote socialist ideas should it dedicate so much space to mainstream sport? As someone who believes in the cultural importance of sport I see this as an important debate. I confess, I love county cricket, indeed the more meaningless the fixture the more I like it! I am also an ecumenical rugby fan enjoying League as much as Union. I have however fallen out of love with modern football. This is a complex issue and is perhaps something to do with the way football culture has become ubiquitous elevating players into celebrities.
I suspect it is because I don’t much like the people who play the game who despite their working class origins have become in the immortal words of Jonathan Meades, a “bespoke cast of gladiatorial yob-gods, wag-roasting Croesus kids, who once a week descend from their Parnassian blingsteads to run around for 90 golden minutes of bravura vanity”.
As the great CLR James pointed out when he said “What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?” The social, political and economic context of sport is crucial to its understanding. My belief is that the role that football plays in our society has not changed as much as Sky television would like us to think. After all in English Journey, his account of a tour of the country in 1933, J.B. Priestley describes a game between Notts County and Notts Forest:
“Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game; the heavy financial interests; the absurd transfer and player selling system; the lack of any birth or residential qualification for the players; the betting and coupon competitions; the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the Press; the monstrous partisanship of the crowds (with their idiotic cries of ‘play the game Ref’ when any decision against their side is given); but the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt and it has gone out to conquer the world.”
Well it has most certainly conquered the world but what I believe has changed since 1933 is not the game itself after all one of the reasons for its success is that it is fairly simple. What has changed is the role of the spectator. Are you just to sit in our arm chairs as a Sky subscriber as if it watching a soap opera? Is the spectator to be a mere consumer or is the role of the fan to be more than just cheerleader?
This is the key question being tackled by Supporters Direct the organisation that seeks to promote sustainable spectator sports clubs based on supporters' involvement & community ownership. Since they were formed in 2000 they have changed the nature of the debate about who owns our sports clubs.
One of the shortlisted candidates for Co-operative of the Year at this year’s Co-op Congress was to give it its full title The Exeter City AFC Supporters’ Society Limited, which as an Industrial and Provident Society (IPS) is a bona fide co-op and is the owner of Exeter City. I have to say when we saw how much they were able to do in their community from the base of the football club I was bowled over.
FC United of Manchester have shown what can be done from a standing start raising over a £1million in their community share issue towards the new ground planned to be at Moston. Fan owned clubs are on a roll. Many will be watching AFC Wimbledon back in the football league after their club was kidnapped and taken to Milton Keynes. I will be watching Telford United back in the Blue Square Premier after being rescued by their Supporters Trust. Indeed Telford is a hot bed of co-operation with the local ice hockey team the Telford Tigers being the only co-operative owned team in the national ice hockey league.
Supporters Direct have a proud record with 150 Trusts at clubs up and down the country bringing £25million of new finance into football alone, with 26 clubs now in Trust ownership and 110 having shareholdings in their clubs. This trend I believe can only go one way. With the greatest club in the world, Barcelona, being in fan ownership what better advertisement for this model could there be?
But it is not just football, in Rugby League there are now supporters owned clubs such as Rochdale Hornets and Hunslett. Many cricket clubs too are in co-operative ownership, including Surrey, Lancashire and Glamorgan which all feature in the UK’s top 100 Co-ops.
Modern fans can be more than just passive supporters and fan ownership has to be the way forward after all who is more committed to a club and more hungry for success than its fans? Who are the only people who can be trusted to stick with a club through thick and thin when the sugar daddies that see clubs as trophy assets bringing them status lose interest or go bust!
I hope our sports coverage can cover more of the political-economy of sport. Ownership really does matter. Who is profiting from the business of sport? And to those who think this is OK for the minor league clubs but not for the Premier League giants - remember when the banks where too big to fail?
I suspect it is because I don’t much like the people who play the game who despite their working class origins have become in the immortal words of Jonathan Meades, a “bespoke cast of gladiatorial yob-gods, wag-roasting Croesus kids, who once a week descend from their Parnassian blingsteads to run around for 90 golden minutes of bravura vanity”.
As the great CLR James pointed out when he said “What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?” The social, political and economic context of sport is crucial to its understanding. My belief is that the role that football plays in our society has not changed as much as Sky television would like us to think. After all in English Journey, his account of a tour of the country in 1933, J.B. Priestley describes a game between Notts County and Notts Forest:
“Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game; the heavy financial interests; the absurd transfer and player selling system; the lack of any birth or residential qualification for the players; the betting and coupon competitions; the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the Press; the monstrous partisanship of the crowds (with their idiotic cries of ‘play the game Ref’ when any decision against their side is given); but the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt and it has gone out to conquer the world.”
Well it has most certainly conquered the world but what I believe has changed since 1933 is not the game itself after all one of the reasons for its success is that it is fairly simple. What has changed is the role of the spectator. Are you just to sit in our arm chairs as a Sky subscriber as if it watching a soap opera? Is the spectator to be a mere consumer or is the role of the fan to be more than just cheerleader?
This is the key question being tackled by Supporters Direct the organisation that seeks to promote sustainable spectator sports clubs based on supporters' involvement & community ownership. Since they were formed in 2000 they have changed the nature of the debate about who owns our sports clubs.
One of the shortlisted candidates for Co-operative of the Year at this year’s Co-op Congress was to give it its full title The Exeter City AFC Supporters’ Society Limited, which as an Industrial and Provident Society (IPS) is a bona fide co-op and is the owner of Exeter City. I have to say when we saw how much they were able to do in their community from the base of the football club I was bowled over.
FC United of Manchester have shown what can be done from a standing start raising over a £1million in their community share issue towards the new ground planned to be at Moston. Fan owned clubs are on a roll. Many will be watching AFC Wimbledon back in the football league after their club was kidnapped and taken to Milton Keynes. I will be watching Telford United back in the Blue Square Premier after being rescued by their Supporters Trust. Indeed Telford is a hot bed of co-operation with the local ice hockey team the Telford Tigers being the only co-operative owned team in the national ice hockey league.
Supporters Direct have a proud record with 150 Trusts at clubs up and down the country bringing £25million of new finance into football alone, with 26 clubs now in Trust ownership and 110 having shareholdings in their clubs. This trend I believe can only go one way. With the greatest club in the world, Barcelona, being in fan ownership what better advertisement for this model could there be?
But it is not just football, in Rugby League there are now supporters owned clubs such as Rochdale Hornets and Hunslett. Many cricket clubs too are in co-operative ownership, including Surrey, Lancashire and Glamorgan which all feature in the UK’s top 100 Co-ops.
Modern fans can be more than just passive supporters and fan ownership has to be the way forward after all who is more committed to a club and more hungry for success than its fans? Who are the only people who can be trusted to stick with a club through thick and thin when the sugar daddies that see clubs as trophy assets bringing them status lose interest or go bust!
I hope our sports coverage can cover more of the political-economy of sport. Ownership really does matter. Who is profiting from the business of sport? And to those who think this is OK for the minor league clubs but not for the Premier League giants - remember when the banks where too big to fail?
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Fellowship is heaven
Review Essay
The Story of HF Holidays by Harry Wroe
Published by HF Holidays 2007
Voices of Wortley Hall, The Story of “Labour’s Home”, 1951-2011 by John Cornwell
Published by Wortley Hall, 2011
These are amongst that substantial library of celebratory self published co-operative society histories but none the worse for that. HF Holidays can trace its lineage back over a century whilst at sixty Wortley Hall is just a youngster. They have in common the quest for working class educational holidays.
The Holiday Fellowship (now HF Holidays) was registered as an Industrial and Provident Society in 1913 when it was a fundamentalist breakaway from the Co-operative Holiday Association (CHA) formed in 1897. The origins of the CHA can be found in the teachings of Dr. J.B. Paton, principal of the Nottingham Congregational Institute, who believed that,
“The wealth of a country does not consist in the number or exchangeable value of its agricultural or manufactured or artistic products,
so much as in the strength and intelligence and virtue of the men and women whom it rears.”
Paton was born in Galston in Ayrshire in 1830, where his father had been a hand-loom weaver before becoming the manager of the town’s co-operative store. He was an advocate of the National Home Reading Union (NHRU) dedicated to spreading adult literacy and his teaching inspired Thomas Arthur Leonard, originally from Stoke Newington, who trained at the Institute for the congregational ministry. He began his ministry in Barrow before moving to Colne his preaching at Colne lead to the formation of the Co-operative Holiday Association, from amongst NHRU members, his sermon at the Dockray Congregational Church on the theme of “The philosophy of holiday making” was reported in the Colne and Nelson Times of Friday August 7th 1891.
Driven by a spirit of temperance and Christian Socialism he felt the workers of Colne deserved to escape the usual trips to Blackpool or Morecombe with their “perverse or corrupt conceptions of life and conduct”. To this end he formed a rambling club which, in June 1891, took thirty participants to Ambleside, in the Lake District. These became annual affairs attracting large numbers using properties belonging to the NHRU and their supporters. In 1894 a committee was elected with Leonard as General Secretary and in 1896 they acquired their first property in Whitby. Then in 1897 they formalised the loose organisation as the Co-operative Holiday Association although co-operative in name it does not appear to have been a formal co-operative.
By 1913 the CHA had grown to eighteen centres but despite its working class origins it had become “rather middle class in spirit and conservative in ideas”. It had gained support from rich industrialists such as Sir William Mather of the Manchester firm Mather and Platt who helped “balance the books”. Leonard wanted to return to the idea of “strenuous and simple” holidays and the Holiday Fellowship was born and a headquarters was acquired at Bryn Corach at Conwy in North Wales, purchased for £5,096, quite a sum in 1914, and in HF hands until the end of 2010.
Not the best year to form a working class holiday organisation holidays started at Easter 1914. A week at Conwy would set you back 32s 6d with an extra 4s6d for the walking excursions. It is quite remarkable that despite two world wars, a depression and huge social upheavals the Holiday Fellowship is approaching its centenary in rude health. The basic idea has remained the same throughout.
The development of HF follows a common co-operative trajectory. Firstly you need a charismatic individual or small group who see a clear market opportunity that requires more than a commercial rational i.e. it has to be driven by more than the pursuit of profit. Co-operative businesses often grow out of strong communities and this is clearly the case here. Leonard was certainly charismatic he also had a role in the formation of the Youth Hostels Association and with Canon Rawnsley in the Lake District the early years of the National Trust.
He had a Whitmanite approach to the natural world and with his advocacy of ‘rational dress’ for women when out walking on the fells was ahead of his time. All successful co-operative societies need active members and the model the Holiday Fellowship employed of having a system of leaders ensured member engagement. They are a key group of volunteers who act as walking guides but also carry the culture of HF holidays out amongst the wider membership. That culture was for a very long time rather Spartan, it is perhaps no coincidence that before the First World War Leonard became a Quaker and the Quaker value of simplicity was certainly reflected in the business.
This model also helped keep the costs down, fresh air and walking are not expensive commodities but over the decades a major change in customer expectations has taken place. This was tackled by another key co-operative issue - the employment in the enterprise of professional management. Properties have had to be modernised and assets have had to be turned over. Unlike the CHA which changed its name to Countrywide in 1964 continuing as an association of walkers but selling its holiday operations to commercial operators.
HF has in modern times after a couple of sticky patches managed both to take on professional management including using modern marketing techniques including the innovative use of the internet and to renew the business model by a strong return to co-operative values and principles. Leonard who was also a strong internationalist, represented by having a centre in Germany as early as 1914, would approve of the current brochure (2011) of 236 pages covering the 16 UK HF centres but also including holidays in every part of the world from Japan to Peru.
This has been achieved according to the current Chief Executive, Brian Smith, by strengthening the co-operative nature of the business and making membership more than just a loyalty scheme - by making member ownership a reality. This strategy has included a significant increase in member communications and in their role as investors in the business.
This takes me onto Wortley Hall and the things they could perhaps learn from the renewal of the mission of HF holidays. The story of Wortley Hall is also that of the vision of one man, Vin Williams (1893-1970). He had been a lecturer with the National Council of Labour Colleges. The NCLC had grown out of the Central Labour College which had been created following the strike at Ruskin College and the formation of the ‘Plebs’ league in 1908. What the Plebs had realised is that,
“If the education of the workers is to square with the ultimate object of the workers – social emancipation – then it is necessary that the control of any such an educational institution must be in the hands of the workers.”
This principle was very important to Williams who whilst having been imprisoned during the General Strike for sedition was an ecumenical socialist, embracing, Trade Union, Labour Party and Co-operative views. His son, who he named Lenin, known as Len, recalls that he “saw himself as member of the whole Labour movement.” Black listed after the General Strike, after many attempts to make a living including a period of bankruptcy he had become a lecturer in the NCLC.
William’s NCLC district covered Sheffield and the North Midlands and he ran schools across the region, mainly in hotels and when he saw Wortley Hall he realised its potential as a permanent home for workers educational holidays. Friends in the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU), Mick Shaw and Alf Hague came to see the derelict building that Williams was raving about. Williams used every contact he had in the Labour Movement to get support for the Hall bringing together representatives of the AEU, FBU, NUM, USDAW, NUR, Co-op Party and Labour Party in 1951 to establish a committee with Harry Johnson, AEU full time official as Chair and himself as secretary. The first years rent was just £50 which just shows how derelict it was.
Williams spent a considerable amount of time fund raising around the labour movement. The story of how he assembled a huge army of volunteer skilled labour, needed for restoration, has become part of the Wortley Hall folklore. The hall was opened by Sir Frank Soskice MP KC in front of “3,000 rain drenched enthusiasts”. That year the syllabus of lectures at the Hall could be booked through your trade union branch or through Co-op Travel Services. The link with the Co-operative movement was very important, the first treasurer Bill Robinson was manager of the Co-op Bank in Sheffield, and until 1994 when they moved to Unity Trust, the Halls finances were a part of the Co-op Bank manger’s job description.
The Hall had been established as an Industrial and Provident Society in 1952 and took its part in the Co-op Union and Co-op Party. It was sadly an incident with the Co-op bank that bought Williams involvement with the Hall to an end. The purchase of some new furniture in 1958 saw Williams’s signature on the cheques. As he was an un-discharged bankrupt the Bank refused to honour the cheque. Other members of the management committee could sign cheques but he could not he was mortally offended that his integrity had been questioned and he left the Hall never to return.
This was a sad end to his engagement with the Hall as he had done all the hard work, taking the Hall through the period when visitors had to bring their ration books and a visit to Wortley was “the socialist equivalent of a week at Butlins”. Williams had gained the engagement of different parts of the Labour movement by getting them to sponsor the various “wings” of the building named after hero’s from different parts of the movement, Robert Owen, Keir Hardie, Tom Mann and George Lansbury.
Williams was succeeded by Alf Hague, a very different character; involved since 1950 and he was a long standing member of the Communist Party who the author points out saw themselves as the “sea-green in-corruptibles.” He shaped the Hall for the next thirty years. His first challenge was to purchase the Hall outright from the Wharncliffe family who where facing considerable death duties. He managed to buy the Hall outright for £10,000 by October 1959.
For years the model worked well with Trade Union and political schools and working class holiday weeks. They generated record surpluses, which thanks to the Co-op Bank connection were wisely invested. By 1970 the building had been Grade II listed and by 1976 the Historic Buildings Council valued the Hall and its 27 acres of grounds at £3.75 million.
However following its 25th anniversary celebrations the cracks began to appear in its offering. They had opened part of the building as a working-mens club which generated considerable revenue but had closed the share-register in 1962 as they felt they had enough “owners” and it was not fully opened again for twenty years. As tastes changed the Hall had become dated this came to a head when following the tough year of 1983 the FBU demanded improvements. Alf Hague was cautious, he saw improvements that some advocated as self-indulgence and had built the business generating considerable surpluses but his frugal style was out of the fashion of the times.
Eventually it was realised that if the Hall was to renew its purpose for a new era he would have to go. His successor in 1991 was Brian Clarke who saw through a complete change in the basis of operations despite a huge financial black hole opening up. For the trade union movement these were difficult times with a fundamental change in working class culture. In 1994 they renewed their links with the wider Labour movement by hosting the now annual South Yorkshire Festival in the grounds of the Hall. This has been followed by a steady up grading of the offer to the point in 2005 when they appointed their first professional hotel and catering manager.
In the last decade the gardens as well as the Hall have undergone considerable restoration, the restoration of the stained glass windows cost £35,000, the fountain was restored, the house gained four stars from the English Tourist Board, and the gardens gained the gold award from Yorkshire in bloom. Even the kitchen garden came back into use with organic status generating 4 tonnes of produce in 2010.
The first conference in the Hall in 1951 was of the British Federation of Young Co-operators many of the participants ended up having significant political careers like Ted Graham, later National secretary of the Co-op Party and MP and Betty Boothroyd who famously became the first women speaker of the House of Commons. Last year thirty four organisations had conferences in the Hall and despite the fact the Hall continues to provide a space for working class education it has also proven itself as a four star country house hotel.
Today the debate within the Co-operative movement about Co-operative education is very much alive. Can genuine co-operative education take place in mainstream institutions or do we need independent co-operative spaces for co-operative education to take place? If spaces like Wortley Hall are to survive and prosper then there is a responsibility for the Hall to engage with the whole movement and the whole movement to engage with it.
In many ways the arguments of Vin Williams and the “Plebs” are unresolved. It maybe that the transmission of culture is as important as formal education and perhaps that is what Wortley Hall could learn from the Holiday Fellowship. After all as William Morris said:
“Fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell: fellowship is life, and lack of fellowship is death: and the deeds ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship’s sake that ye do them”.
The Story of HF Holidays by Harry Wroe
Published by HF Holidays 2007
Voices of Wortley Hall, The Story of “Labour’s Home”, 1951-2011 by John Cornwell
Published by Wortley Hall, 2011
These are amongst that substantial library of celebratory self published co-operative society histories but none the worse for that. HF Holidays can trace its lineage back over a century whilst at sixty Wortley Hall is just a youngster. They have in common the quest for working class educational holidays.
The Holiday Fellowship (now HF Holidays) was registered as an Industrial and Provident Society in 1913 when it was a fundamentalist breakaway from the Co-operative Holiday Association (CHA) formed in 1897. The origins of the CHA can be found in the teachings of Dr. J.B. Paton, principal of the Nottingham Congregational Institute, who believed that,
“The wealth of a country does not consist in the number or exchangeable value of its agricultural or manufactured or artistic products,
so much as in the strength and intelligence and virtue of the men and women whom it rears.”
Paton was born in Galston in Ayrshire in 1830, where his father had been a hand-loom weaver before becoming the manager of the town’s co-operative store. He was an advocate of the National Home Reading Union (NHRU) dedicated to spreading adult literacy and his teaching inspired Thomas Arthur Leonard, originally from Stoke Newington, who trained at the Institute for the congregational ministry. He began his ministry in Barrow before moving to Colne his preaching at Colne lead to the formation of the Co-operative Holiday Association, from amongst NHRU members, his sermon at the Dockray Congregational Church on the theme of “The philosophy of holiday making” was reported in the Colne and Nelson Times of Friday August 7th 1891.
Driven by a spirit of temperance and Christian Socialism he felt the workers of Colne deserved to escape the usual trips to Blackpool or Morecombe with their “perverse or corrupt conceptions of life and conduct”. To this end he formed a rambling club which, in June 1891, took thirty participants to Ambleside, in the Lake District. These became annual affairs attracting large numbers using properties belonging to the NHRU and their supporters. In 1894 a committee was elected with Leonard as General Secretary and in 1896 they acquired their first property in Whitby. Then in 1897 they formalised the loose organisation as the Co-operative Holiday Association although co-operative in name it does not appear to have been a formal co-operative.
By 1913 the CHA had grown to eighteen centres but despite its working class origins it had become “rather middle class in spirit and conservative in ideas”. It had gained support from rich industrialists such as Sir William Mather of the Manchester firm Mather and Platt who helped “balance the books”. Leonard wanted to return to the idea of “strenuous and simple” holidays and the Holiday Fellowship was born and a headquarters was acquired at Bryn Corach at Conwy in North Wales, purchased for £5,096, quite a sum in 1914, and in HF hands until the end of 2010.
Not the best year to form a working class holiday organisation holidays started at Easter 1914. A week at Conwy would set you back 32s 6d with an extra 4s6d for the walking excursions. It is quite remarkable that despite two world wars, a depression and huge social upheavals the Holiday Fellowship is approaching its centenary in rude health. The basic idea has remained the same throughout.
The development of HF follows a common co-operative trajectory. Firstly you need a charismatic individual or small group who see a clear market opportunity that requires more than a commercial rational i.e. it has to be driven by more than the pursuit of profit. Co-operative businesses often grow out of strong communities and this is clearly the case here. Leonard was certainly charismatic he also had a role in the formation of the Youth Hostels Association and with Canon Rawnsley in the Lake District the early years of the National Trust.
He had a Whitmanite approach to the natural world and with his advocacy of ‘rational dress’ for women when out walking on the fells was ahead of his time. All successful co-operative societies need active members and the model the Holiday Fellowship employed of having a system of leaders ensured member engagement. They are a key group of volunteers who act as walking guides but also carry the culture of HF holidays out amongst the wider membership. That culture was for a very long time rather Spartan, it is perhaps no coincidence that before the First World War Leonard became a Quaker and the Quaker value of simplicity was certainly reflected in the business.
This model also helped keep the costs down, fresh air and walking are not expensive commodities but over the decades a major change in customer expectations has taken place. This was tackled by another key co-operative issue - the employment in the enterprise of professional management. Properties have had to be modernised and assets have had to be turned over. Unlike the CHA which changed its name to Countrywide in 1964 continuing as an association of walkers but selling its holiday operations to commercial operators.
HF has in modern times after a couple of sticky patches managed both to take on professional management including using modern marketing techniques including the innovative use of the internet and to renew the business model by a strong return to co-operative values and principles. Leonard who was also a strong internationalist, represented by having a centre in Germany as early as 1914, would approve of the current brochure (2011) of 236 pages covering the 16 UK HF centres but also including holidays in every part of the world from Japan to Peru.
This has been achieved according to the current Chief Executive, Brian Smith, by strengthening the co-operative nature of the business and making membership more than just a loyalty scheme - by making member ownership a reality. This strategy has included a significant increase in member communications and in their role as investors in the business.
This takes me onto Wortley Hall and the things they could perhaps learn from the renewal of the mission of HF holidays. The story of Wortley Hall is also that of the vision of one man, Vin Williams (1893-1970). He had been a lecturer with the National Council of Labour Colleges. The NCLC had grown out of the Central Labour College which had been created following the strike at Ruskin College and the formation of the ‘Plebs’ league in 1908. What the Plebs had realised is that,
“If the education of the workers is to square with the ultimate object of the workers – social emancipation – then it is necessary that the control of any such an educational institution must be in the hands of the workers.”
This principle was very important to Williams who whilst having been imprisoned during the General Strike for sedition was an ecumenical socialist, embracing, Trade Union, Labour Party and Co-operative views. His son, who he named Lenin, known as Len, recalls that he “saw himself as member of the whole Labour movement.” Black listed after the General Strike, after many attempts to make a living including a period of bankruptcy he had become a lecturer in the NCLC.
William’s NCLC district covered Sheffield and the North Midlands and he ran schools across the region, mainly in hotels and when he saw Wortley Hall he realised its potential as a permanent home for workers educational holidays. Friends in the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU), Mick Shaw and Alf Hague came to see the derelict building that Williams was raving about. Williams used every contact he had in the Labour Movement to get support for the Hall bringing together representatives of the AEU, FBU, NUM, USDAW, NUR, Co-op Party and Labour Party in 1951 to establish a committee with Harry Johnson, AEU full time official as Chair and himself as secretary. The first years rent was just £50 which just shows how derelict it was.
Williams spent a considerable amount of time fund raising around the labour movement. The story of how he assembled a huge army of volunteer skilled labour, needed for restoration, has become part of the Wortley Hall folklore. The hall was opened by Sir Frank Soskice MP KC in front of “3,000 rain drenched enthusiasts”. That year the syllabus of lectures at the Hall could be booked through your trade union branch or through Co-op Travel Services. The link with the Co-operative movement was very important, the first treasurer Bill Robinson was manager of the Co-op Bank in Sheffield, and until 1994 when they moved to Unity Trust, the Halls finances were a part of the Co-op Bank manger’s job description.
The Hall had been established as an Industrial and Provident Society in 1952 and took its part in the Co-op Union and Co-op Party. It was sadly an incident with the Co-op bank that bought Williams involvement with the Hall to an end. The purchase of some new furniture in 1958 saw Williams’s signature on the cheques. As he was an un-discharged bankrupt the Bank refused to honour the cheque. Other members of the management committee could sign cheques but he could not he was mortally offended that his integrity had been questioned and he left the Hall never to return.
This was a sad end to his engagement with the Hall as he had done all the hard work, taking the Hall through the period when visitors had to bring their ration books and a visit to Wortley was “the socialist equivalent of a week at Butlins”. Williams had gained the engagement of different parts of the Labour movement by getting them to sponsor the various “wings” of the building named after hero’s from different parts of the movement, Robert Owen, Keir Hardie, Tom Mann and George Lansbury.
Williams was succeeded by Alf Hague, a very different character; involved since 1950 and he was a long standing member of the Communist Party who the author points out saw themselves as the “sea-green in-corruptibles.” He shaped the Hall for the next thirty years. His first challenge was to purchase the Hall outright from the Wharncliffe family who where facing considerable death duties. He managed to buy the Hall outright for £10,000 by October 1959.
For years the model worked well with Trade Union and political schools and working class holiday weeks. They generated record surpluses, which thanks to the Co-op Bank connection were wisely invested. By 1970 the building had been Grade II listed and by 1976 the Historic Buildings Council valued the Hall and its 27 acres of grounds at £3.75 million.
However following its 25th anniversary celebrations the cracks began to appear in its offering. They had opened part of the building as a working-mens club which generated considerable revenue but had closed the share-register in 1962 as they felt they had enough “owners” and it was not fully opened again for twenty years. As tastes changed the Hall had become dated this came to a head when following the tough year of 1983 the FBU demanded improvements. Alf Hague was cautious, he saw improvements that some advocated as self-indulgence and had built the business generating considerable surpluses but his frugal style was out of the fashion of the times.
Eventually it was realised that if the Hall was to renew its purpose for a new era he would have to go. His successor in 1991 was Brian Clarke who saw through a complete change in the basis of operations despite a huge financial black hole opening up. For the trade union movement these were difficult times with a fundamental change in working class culture. In 1994 they renewed their links with the wider Labour movement by hosting the now annual South Yorkshire Festival in the grounds of the Hall. This has been followed by a steady up grading of the offer to the point in 2005 when they appointed their first professional hotel and catering manager.
In the last decade the gardens as well as the Hall have undergone considerable restoration, the restoration of the stained glass windows cost £35,000, the fountain was restored, the house gained four stars from the English Tourist Board, and the gardens gained the gold award from Yorkshire in bloom. Even the kitchen garden came back into use with organic status generating 4 tonnes of produce in 2010.
The first conference in the Hall in 1951 was of the British Federation of Young Co-operators many of the participants ended up having significant political careers like Ted Graham, later National secretary of the Co-op Party and MP and Betty Boothroyd who famously became the first women speaker of the House of Commons. Last year thirty four organisations had conferences in the Hall and despite the fact the Hall continues to provide a space for working class education it has also proven itself as a four star country house hotel.
Today the debate within the Co-operative movement about Co-operative education is very much alive. Can genuine co-operative education take place in mainstream institutions or do we need independent co-operative spaces for co-operative education to take place? If spaces like Wortley Hall are to survive and prosper then there is a responsibility for the Hall to engage with the whole movement and the whole movement to engage with it.
In many ways the arguments of Vin Williams and the “Plebs” are unresolved. It maybe that the transmission of culture is as important as formal education and perhaps that is what Wortley Hall could learn from the Holiday Fellowship. After all as William Morris said:
“Fellowship is heaven, and lack of fellowship is hell: fellowship is life, and lack of fellowship is death: and the deeds ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship’s sake that ye do them”.
Amazon Booksellers
“Go on living while you may, striving with whatsoever pain and labour needs must be, to build up little by little the new day of fellowship, rest and happiness. If others can see as I have seen it, then it may be called a vision rather than a dream.”
William Morris, News from Nowhere, 1891.
What a buzz at Co-op Congress a real sense that now is time for a greater role for the co-operative movement in the economy. The co-operative retail sector is gaining confidence, there are new co-ops springing up every day and the movement is weathering the recession better than private business.
I thought I was in a dream when, as a bookaholic, I entered the congress exhibition but that vision turned out to be the News from Nowhere bookstall. With Sara and Sal making everyone welcome it quickly became the place to hang out, supping excellent fair-trade Revolver coffee and chewing the fat over all matters co-operative, whilst browsing the stalls splendidly eclectic stock. It also had the edge as the place to pick up your free copy of the Morning Star kindly provided by Birmingham Readers and Supporters Group.
This was NfN’s first time at Co-op Congress but they are no strangers to co-op bookselling. May Day 1974 saw them first open their doors on Liverpool’s Manchester Street. Three moves later they are at 96 Bold Street in a 5-storey building owned by the workers co-operative as a not-for-profit community business. It has been run as a women’s collective for thirty years providing women with their first experience of running a business, building up their skills and confidence in bookselling, retail and accounts.
They try to put their values into practice with all staff receiving equal pay rates and collective decision making – no boss here! You could write the recent radical history (or perhaps herstory!) of Liverpool from those who have passed through their doors. Always more than a bookshop, the children’s area has toys and a comfy chair for tired or breastfeeding mums; many lesbians and gay men have found it a welcoming place when first “coming out” and numerous campaigns have found support here; Troops Out, Reclaim The Night, Striking Miners, Greenham Women and the Liverpool Dockers have all been welcomed.
They have strong local links with initiatives such as Sahir House, Black History Month, Africa Oye, Liverpool Friends of Palestine, the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, as well as refugee and women’s groups. Countless conferences have had their horizons expanded by a NfN bookstall. And where else in Liverpool can you celebrates, Chinese New Year, Martin Luther King Day, International Women’s Day, Jewish Book Week, St Patrick’s Day, Pride Week, Hiroshima Day, World Aids Day & Kwanzaa?
Anti-war from Vietnam to Iraq they have always been ahead of the curve on difficult issues even boycotting Barclays bank cheques during apartheid days. Over the years they have been called alternative, radical, feminist and now community so whilst their vocabulary has improved their values have remained stubbornly constant - to provide access to books and information on the reality of the world and how to change it and ourselves for the better.
They must be doing something right as they recently had a visit from the English Defence League. The EDL thugs more than met their match, back in the 80’s, the shop suffered a spate of arson attacks form racist groups and is more than capable of looking after itself with the support of its many friends in the City.
The EDL must have been attracted by their 30th Birthday Celebrations which ran under the banner of – “We are All Immigrants” – making the simple case that we all come from somewhere and showing solidarity with the City’s latest wave of migrants. Today they are Liverpool’s main independent bookshop, carrying a significant range of World Music and a selection of the weekly radical press. As there is only ONE left wing daily they make sure their local newsagent has a stock of the Morning Star. They take pride in helpful customer service and highly efficient ordering facilities, which have generated strong links with local universities and colleges.
In a world of the internet and multinational corporate chains, an independent, grassroots co-operative could struggle to compete, and serious difficulties with dilapidated buildings, ruthless landlords, and fierce competition have had to be overcome but News From Nowhere has shown what can be achieved by dedicated workers, with over 60 years bookselling experience between them and determined community support for a vital resource.
Now you don’t have to live in Liverpool to be part of that community they now have a super on line service which can supply pretty much any book in print so if you see a book reviewed in the Star and you wonder where you can get it simply go to: www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk and you can get your books from Amazons!
William Morris, News from Nowhere, 1891.
What a buzz at Co-op Congress a real sense that now is time for a greater role for the co-operative movement in the economy. The co-operative retail sector is gaining confidence, there are new co-ops springing up every day and the movement is weathering the recession better than private business.
I thought I was in a dream when, as a bookaholic, I entered the congress exhibition but that vision turned out to be the News from Nowhere bookstall. With Sara and Sal making everyone welcome it quickly became the place to hang out, supping excellent fair-trade Revolver coffee and chewing the fat over all matters co-operative, whilst browsing the stalls splendidly eclectic stock. It also had the edge as the place to pick up your free copy of the Morning Star kindly provided by Birmingham Readers and Supporters Group.
This was NfN’s first time at Co-op Congress but they are no strangers to co-op bookselling. May Day 1974 saw them first open their doors on Liverpool’s Manchester Street. Three moves later they are at 96 Bold Street in a 5-storey building owned by the workers co-operative as a not-for-profit community business. It has been run as a women’s collective for thirty years providing women with their first experience of running a business, building up their skills and confidence in bookselling, retail and accounts.
They try to put their values into practice with all staff receiving equal pay rates and collective decision making – no boss here! You could write the recent radical history (or perhaps herstory!) of Liverpool from those who have passed through their doors. Always more than a bookshop, the children’s area has toys and a comfy chair for tired or breastfeeding mums; many lesbians and gay men have found it a welcoming place when first “coming out” and numerous campaigns have found support here; Troops Out, Reclaim The Night, Striking Miners, Greenham Women and the Liverpool Dockers have all been welcomed.
They have strong local links with initiatives such as Sahir House, Black History Month, Africa Oye, Liverpool Friends of Palestine, the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, as well as refugee and women’s groups. Countless conferences have had their horizons expanded by a NfN bookstall. And where else in Liverpool can you celebrates, Chinese New Year, Martin Luther King Day, International Women’s Day, Jewish Book Week, St Patrick’s Day, Pride Week, Hiroshima Day, World Aids Day & Kwanzaa?
Anti-war from Vietnam to Iraq they have always been ahead of the curve on difficult issues even boycotting Barclays bank cheques during apartheid days. Over the years they have been called alternative, radical, feminist and now community so whilst their vocabulary has improved their values have remained stubbornly constant - to provide access to books and information on the reality of the world and how to change it and ourselves for the better.
They must be doing something right as they recently had a visit from the English Defence League. The EDL thugs more than met their match, back in the 80’s, the shop suffered a spate of arson attacks form racist groups and is more than capable of looking after itself with the support of its many friends in the City.
The EDL must have been attracted by their 30th Birthday Celebrations which ran under the banner of – “We are All Immigrants” – making the simple case that we all come from somewhere and showing solidarity with the City’s latest wave of migrants. Today they are Liverpool’s main independent bookshop, carrying a significant range of World Music and a selection of the weekly radical press. As there is only ONE left wing daily they make sure their local newsagent has a stock of the Morning Star. They take pride in helpful customer service and highly efficient ordering facilities, which have generated strong links with local universities and colleges.
In a world of the internet and multinational corporate chains, an independent, grassroots co-operative could struggle to compete, and serious difficulties with dilapidated buildings, ruthless landlords, and fierce competition have had to be overcome but News From Nowhere has shown what can be achieved by dedicated workers, with over 60 years bookselling experience between them and determined community support for a vital resource.
Now you don’t have to live in Liverpool to be part of that community they now have a super on line service which can supply pretty much any book in print so if you see a book reviewed in the Star and you wonder where you can get it simply go to: www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk and you can get your books from Amazons!
Monday, 20 June 2011
Summer of Co-op Celebration
Last year saw the very first co-operative fortnight. They say that imitation is the best form of flattery and that was the way Ed Mayo the new Director General saw it when in introducing Co-ops Fortnight he sought to emulate the success the fair-trade movement had achieved in raising its profile with “Fairtrade Fortnight”.
Last years Co-ops fortnight certainly helped raise the profile of the co-operative business model at a time when greater clarity and understanding was clearly required. At the time a day did not seem to go by without a Condem politician bandying the “John Lewis Model” about without any clear understanding of what the model actually amounts to.
This year Co-operatives UK aims to go one further with Co-op fortnight (something of an elastic term - 25th June to 9th July) by launching a petition with the aim of getting 100,000 signatures and thereby securing a parliamentary debate. The issue that the Co-operative movement is raising is the importance of wider ownership. The gap between rich and poor is once again widening. Today half of the UK population own just one percent of the nation’s wealth when a generation ago they owned 12 per cent.
Unlike bankers bonuses sharing ownership with workers consumers and residents spreading ownership and wealth is both good for the economy and for society. So this year Co-operatives UK is calling upon the Government to encourage firms to share profits with, staff, customers and the communities they serve. To promote the community ownership of key local amenities like village shops and local pubs and to enable people to take action on housing, arts, sport, land, finance and green energy and to create a level playing field by removing the legal barriers that make establishing a co-operative business more difficult than a private company.
Of course this is just the beginning public understanding of the co-operative business model is to say the least poor so this is just the beginning of a process of making the model better understood and better appreciated. Of course the co-op model is not suitable for every type of business or service but there is no doubt that the sector could be a great deal larger than it currently is.
Even many people who engage with a co-operative everyday do not always appreciate the benefits of the co-op model. Not something I would hope that could be said of Morning Star readers. As we enter the cycle of the annual meetings of the Peoples Press Printing Society it is worth remembering that the co-operative structure the Daily Worker adopted in 1945 to widen the ownership of the paper has served the business well.
Since it was formed as an Industrial and Provident Society there have certainly been enormous changes in newspaper publishing, not all of them for the better, but the Society has with the support of its members held firm providing a legal structure and a sound basis for publishing a daily newspaper in the most challenging of environments.
A huge number of publishing businesses that have fallen by the wayside over this period and they were not trying to carve out a special political space in support of the working class movement and its allies. It is tough to produce a daily paper when having the backing of millionaire proprietors and large scale commercial advertisers but to do it, with only the support of the Labour movement and its readers, is I think an immense challenge that successive workers and management have faced with tremendous fortitude and one that readers should never take for granted.
I know that for me the Morning Star, as the paper has been since 1966, is a daily voice of sanity in a mad world. It was sixty five years ago that at a huge gathering in the Albert Hall London bus workers leader Bill Jones handed the formal document of transfer of the Peoples Press Printing Society to Bill Rust. An early shareholder, taking the then £200 maximum, was none other than George Bernard Shaw. Soon the Society had twenty thousand shareholders including 266 trade union organisations and 45 co-operatives.
Sadly in fit of sectarianism the Co-operative Union refused the paper membership on the spurious grounds that it might be in competition with the Co-operative Press! Well I am glad to say, as a Director of Co-operatives UK, the modern day successor to the Co-op Union, that The PPPS is now a member and able to take its place with all the other co-operatives at Co-operative Congress.
I hope the PPPS will take its place at this years Co-op Congress from 24-26 June in Birmingham. I very much hope the PPPS will be represented and will share with other co-operators the lessons it has learnt over the years and pass on some advice to younger co-ops the secret of its resilience.
Today the Morning Star shines brighter than ever and that is due in no small part to the work of the members of the Peoples Press Printing Society, both individuals and organisations and their elected representatives on the management committee who have worked behind to scenes to keep the Star, the only daily newspaper owned by its readers, shining!
For more information about Co-op Congress go to: www.uk.co-op/congress and for details of the petition go to www.uk.coop/yourstoshare
Last years Co-ops fortnight certainly helped raise the profile of the co-operative business model at a time when greater clarity and understanding was clearly required. At the time a day did not seem to go by without a Condem politician bandying the “John Lewis Model” about without any clear understanding of what the model actually amounts to.
This year Co-operatives UK aims to go one further with Co-op fortnight (something of an elastic term - 25th June to 9th July) by launching a petition with the aim of getting 100,000 signatures and thereby securing a parliamentary debate. The issue that the Co-operative movement is raising is the importance of wider ownership. The gap between rich and poor is once again widening. Today half of the UK population own just one percent of the nation’s wealth when a generation ago they owned 12 per cent.
Unlike bankers bonuses sharing ownership with workers consumers and residents spreading ownership and wealth is both good for the economy and for society. So this year Co-operatives UK is calling upon the Government to encourage firms to share profits with, staff, customers and the communities they serve. To promote the community ownership of key local amenities like village shops and local pubs and to enable people to take action on housing, arts, sport, land, finance and green energy and to create a level playing field by removing the legal barriers that make establishing a co-operative business more difficult than a private company.
Of course this is just the beginning public understanding of the co-operative business model is to say the least poor so this is just the beginning of a process of making the model better understood and better appreciated. Of course the co-op model is not suitable for every type of business or service but there is no doubt that the sector could be a great deal larger than it currently is.
Even many people who engage with a co-operative everyday do not always appreciate the benefits of the co-op model. Not something I would hope that could be said of Morning Star readers. As we enter the cycle of the annual meetings of the Peoples Press Printing Society it is worth remembering that the co-operative structure the Daily Worker adopted in 1945 to widen the ownership of the paper has served the business well.
Since it was formed as an Industrial and Provident Society there have certainly been enormous changes in newspaper publishing, not all of them for the better, but the Society has with the support of its members held firm providing a legal structure and a sound basis for publishing a daily newspaper in the most challenging of environments.
A huge number of publishing businesses that have fallen by the wayside over this period and they were not trying to carve out a special political space in support of the working class movement and its allies. It is tough to produce a daily paper when having the backing of millionaire proprietors and large scale commercial advertisers but to do it, with only the support of the Labour movement and its readers, is I think an immense challenge that successive workers and management have faced with tremendous fortitude and one that readers should never take for granted.
I know that for me the Morning Star, as the paper has been since 1966, is a daily voice of sanity in a mad world. It was sixty five years ago that at a huge gathering in the Albert Hall London bus workers leader Bill Jones handed the formal document of transfer of the Peoples Press Printing Society to Bill Rust. An early shareholder, taking the then £200 maximum, was none other than George Bernard Shaw. Soon the Society had twenty thousand shareholders including 266 trade union organisations and 45 co-operatives.
Sadly in fit of sectarianism the Co-operative Union refused the paper membership on the spurious grounds that it might be in competition with the Co-operative Press! Well I am glad to say, as a Director of Co-operatives UK, the modern day successor to the Co-op Union, that The PPPS is now a member and able to take its place with all the other co-operatives at Co-operative Congress.
I hope the PPPS will take its place at this years Co-op Congress from 24-26 June in Birmingham. I very much hope the PPPS will be represented and will share with other co-operators the lessons it has learnt over the years and pass on some advice to younger co-ops the secret of its resilience.
Today the Morning Star shines brighter than ever and that is due in no small part to the work of the members of the Peoples Press Printing Society, both individuals and organisations and their elected representatives on the management committee who have worked behind to scenes to keep the Star, the only daily newspaper owned by its readers, shining!
For more information about Co-op Congress go to: www.uk.co-op/congress and for details of the petition go to www.uk.coop/yourstoshare
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
150 years of Kropotkin's Footnote!
Lincoln Co-operative Society Celebrates its 150th Anniversary.
Sadly the Lincoln Equitable Co-operative Society only rates a footnote in the second edition of that old anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin’s seminal book, Fields, Factories and Workshops. This is the book in which Kroptkin laments the fact that; “Under the pretext of division of labour, we have sharply separated the brain worker from the manual worker”.
Originally published in 1898 alongside the Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid it is one of Kropotkin’s most important works. In it he talks of a new “mutualist” venture – the Lincoln Equitable Co-operative Society. So here we have it, 1898 and the Lincoln Co-op is already making waves.
Founded in 1861 by a joiner from Gainsborough, Thomas Parker, it began trading from 1, Napoleon Place, Lincoln, in September 1861, wisely “goods where sold for ready money only”. After the first quarter they had 74 members and paid out a dividend of 9 old pence!
The society’s mission was the “domestic, social and intellectual advancement of its members” so in 1876, they established an Education Committee and having raised £18 from concerts and readings opened a free reading room twenty years before Lincoln’s first public library.
Lincolnshire Co-operative Society today has expanded across the county and into Newark in Nottinghamshire. This year the Society celebrates its 150th anniversary with a slightly larger membership - 198,000 - who last year received a dividend payment of £4.3million.
With sales of £278 million, a trading surplus of over £20million, two hundred outlets from food stores, pharmacies, post offices, home stores, travel agents, coffee shops, florists, a car dealership, funerals and even their own a bakery. This I suppose at least ensures the conquest of bread.
In the report to members in 1863 the Society told them to “Have faith in the lovely principle of co-operation and cast your mountain of woe into the sea”. Today faced with the retailing juggernauts of the big five supermarkets the performance of Lincoln Society is even more remarkable than it was in Kropotkin’s day.
For a regional consumer retail society to consistently deliver such staggering results for the community it serves and its members is more than remarkable. The Society is staunchly committed co-operative principles as well as fair trade and to local sourcing. They have a real commitment to local produce and it’s not just Lincolnshire sausage and Lincolnshire poacher cheese. They sell a large range of local sourced foods supporting local producers and cutting down on food miles.
The society established and continues to support the Lincolnshire Co-operative Development Agency which offers business support across the county. The 150th Anniversary gives the Society much to reflect on indeed for the 50th anniversary in 1911 a history was written by the then secretary Duncan McInnes and in 1961 a centenary history was written by Frank Buckshaw and Duncan McNab. The 150th will not be an exception and former Director Alan Middleton is writing a new history of the Society.
Lincoln has always been fiercely independent and is deeply embedded into its local community is it any wonder when last year it shared £132,000 amongst 1500 Lincolnshire groups and charities. This year to mark the anniversary their big birthday award means they will be sharing £500,000 with 150 local good causes – there you have some genuine mutual aid!
But do not think it is all looking backwards. Lincoln is one of the most innovative and dynamic societies in the country. It is engaged in using its property portfolio to drive economic development and buying a pharmaceutical distribution business. Chief Executive Ursula Lidbetter is well known within the movement as a staunch champion of co-operation and in standing up for members having a key role in society governance. Currently she is Chair of the Co-operative Group’s Food board bringing her Lincoln experience to the national stage.
Ursula has been inspired by the passion and zeal of the founders of Lincoln Co-op 150 years ago who started the society not to generate profits or seek returns on their capital, but because they wanted to make a difference. She says; “Whatever members needed, the society found a way to provide it and the same ethos applies today, we collaborate with our community because that’s what we’re all about. If we can help we do, but if you want community development, you’ve got to be in the community.”
“Co-operation?” she adds, “you know it when you see it — regardless of the structure or the name. All our co-ops were founded because of the desperate need for trust, fairness and integrity. Yet there’s a whole generation who thinks of the Co-op as just another supermarket. That demonstrates the scale of the task the Movement faces.”
Here is a clear example of Kropotkin’s brains and hands working together - the true secret of Lincoln’s success is in being true to Co-operative values instead of just trying to be another supermarket. That is a lesson for all of us.
Sadly the Lincoln Equitable Co-operative Society only rates a footnote in the second edition of that old anarcho-communist Peter Kropotkin’s seminal book, Fields, Factories and Workshops. This is the book in which Kroptkin laments the fact that; “Under the pretext of division of labour, we have sharply separated the brain worker from the manual worker”.
Originally published in 1898 alongside the Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid it is one of Kropotkin’s most important works. In it he talks of a new “mutualist” venture – the Lincoln Equitable Co-operative Society. So here we have it, 1898 and the Lincoln Co-op is already making waves.
Founded in 1861 by a joiner from Gainsborough, Thomas Parker, it began trading from 1, Napoleon Place, Lincoln, in September 1861, wisely “goods where sold for ready money only”. After the first quarter they had 74 members and paid out a dividend of 9 old pence!
The society’s mission was the “domestic, social and intellectual advancement of its members” so in 1876, they established an Education Committee and having raised £18 from concerts and readings opened a free reading room twenty years before Lincoln’s first public library.
Lincolnshire Co-operative Society today has expanded across the county and into Newark in Nottinghamshire. This year the Society celebrates its 150th anniversary with a slightly larger membership - 198,000 - who last year received a dividend payment of £4.3million.
With sales of £278 million, a trading surplus of over £20million, two hundred outlets from food stores, pharmacies, post offices, home stores, travel agents, coffee shops, florists, a car dealership, funerals and even their own a bakery. This I suppose at least ensures the conquest of bread.
In the report to members in 1863 the Society told them to “Have faith in the lovely principle of co-operation and cast your mountain of woe into the sea”. Today faced with the retailing juggernauts of the big five supermarkets the performance of Lincoln Society is even more remarkable than it was in Kropotkin’s day.
For a regional consumer retail society to consistently deliver such staggering results for the community it serves and its members is more than remarkable. The Society is staunchly committed co-operative principles as well as fair trade and to local sourcing. They have a real commitment to local produce and it’s not just Lincolnshire sausage and Lincolnshire poacher cheese. They sell a large range of local sourced foods supporting local producers and cutting down on food miles.
The society established and continues to support the Lincolnshire Co-operative Development Agency which offers business support across the county. The 150th Anniversary gives the Society much to reflect on indeed for the 50th anniversary in 1911 a history was written by the then secretary Duncan McInnes and in 1961 a centenary history was written by Frank Buckshaw and Duncan McNab. The 150th will not be an exception and former Director Alan Middleton is writing a new history of the Society.
Lincoln has always been fiercely independent and is deeply embedded into its local community is it any wonder when last year it shared £132,000 amongst 1500 Lincolnshire groups and charities. This year to mark the anniversary their big birthday award means they will be sharing £500,000 with 150 local good causes – there you have some genuine mutual aid!
But do not think it is all looking backwards. Lincoln is one of the most innovative and dynamic societies in the country. It is engaged in using its property portfolio to drive economic development and buying a pharmaceutical distribution business. Chief Executive Ursula Lidbetter is well known within the movement as a staunch champion of co-operation and in standing up for members having a key role in society governance. Currently she is Chair of the Co-operative Group’s Food board bringing her Lincoln experience to the national stage.
Ursula has been inspired by the passion and zeal of the founders of Lincoln Co-op 150 years ago who started the society not to generate profits or seek returns on their capital, but because they wanted to make a difference. She says; “Whatever members needed, the society found a way to provide it and the same ethos applies today, we collaborate with our community because that’s what we’re all about. If we can help we do, but if you want community development, you’ve got to be in the community.”
“Co-operation?” she adds, “you know it when you see it — regardless of the structure or the name. All our co-ops were founded because of the desperate need for trust, fairness and integrity. Yet there’s a whole generation who thinks of the Co-op as just another supermarket. That demonstrates the scale of the task the Movement faces.”
Here is a clear example of Kropotkin’s brains and hands working together - the true secret of Lincoln’s success is in being true to Co-operative values instead of just trying to be another supermarket. That is a lesson for all of us.
Wortley Hall @ 60
Happy Birthday to the Workers Stately Home!
At a time when we are battling so that workers can retire at sixty I am glad to see that one Labour movement institution has reached its diamond anniversary without a hint of retiring! I have always had a soft spot for Wortley Hall, I first went there longer ago than I like to admit, as it was the venue for the weekend schools of the old Midland Section of the Co-op Party.
Wortley Hall, between Sheffield and Huddersfield, is set in 26 acres of formal gardens and woodlands, was the ancestral home of the Earls of Wharncliffe, we are unsure when the original hall was built but it is known that Sir Thomas Wortley, born in 1440, lived at the Manor Wortley until 1510.
Sir Thomas, on the wrong side during the English Civil War, was taken by Parliamentary forces to the Tower of London. The hall then fell into decay until the mid eighteenth century when Edmund Wortley commissioned its rebuilding. The family’s new wealth came from the black diamond’s of the South Yorkshire coalfield. The Hall was occupied by the Army during the war, but with the coming of peace and the nationalisation of the mines it fell into what looked like terminal decline.
This all changed at a meeting in May 1950 when former miner Vin Williams proposed to local labour movement activists that Wortley Hall should become an education and recreation home for workers who would be both the owners and the users. The Hall was lifted out of almost derelict condition by a great deal of voluntary work with supporters carrying out much needed repairs and restoration. Then on May 5th 1951 it was opened as an education and holiday centre for the trade union, labour and co-operative movement.
For sixty years, successive generations have maintained that commitment and built on the sacrifices of those workers to keep Wortley Hall as the Workers Stately Home. It has always been run on co-operative principles and is a member of the Co-operatives UK and registered as a Friendly Society.
Today, with four stars from the English Tourist Board, the Hall is looking better than ever. The effort that has gone into bringing the accommodation and grounds up to the very highest standards has really paid off. The grounds laid out in an Italinate style on an eastward facing slope enjoying magnificent views over the Vale of Worsborough are absolutely glorious.
The Hall can host conferences for up to 175 delegates, with seven conference rooms and 49 en-suite bedrooms, all equipped with direct telephone lines and internet connections. Recently upgraded is the Unite ballroom, paid for mainly by Unite branches.
Another recent development has been the creation of two holiday cottages set in the old stable yard. The area has some excellent cycling and walking as the Hall is not far from the Peak District, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and for those wishing to travel further afield there is the ‘last of the summer wine country’ of Holmfirth.
Starting in May there are some exciting events to mark the anniversary especially intriguing are a series of folk song workshops with some very talented musicians and wordsmiths both to enjoy folk song but also to have ago at creating some new ones. Developed by Steel Valley Beacon Arts, participants include Pete Coe, Gavin Davenport, Ian Enters, Robin Garside, Bryony Griffith and Chris Mcshane.
The grounds are also the home of the South Yorkshire Festival, celebrating workers worldwide, which takes place on Saturday 2nd July this year, an excellent day out, in a delightful setting.
In August Jo Stanley will be giving the Sylvia Pankhurst memorial lecture which is sponsored by the National Assembly of Women, the Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee and Wortley Hall.
And don’t forget organisations and individuals can apply for shares which are in £5 units. For a small sum you too can have a share in the Workers Stately Home! If you are a member of a Trade Union, Labour or Co-operative organisation you are eligible to become an individual shareholder. This entitles you to participate in the running of Wortley Hall so for more information go to: www.wortleyhall.org.uk
At a time when we are battling so that workers can retire at sixty I am glad to see that one Labour movement institution has reached its diamond anniversary without a hint of retiring! I have always had a soft spot for Wortley Hall, I first went there longer ago than I like to admit, as it was the venue for the weekend schools of the old Midland Section of the Co-op Party.
Wortley Hall, between Sheffield and Huddersfield, is set in 26 acres of formal gardens and woodlands, was the ancestral home of the Earls of Wharncliffe, we are unsure when the original hall was built but it is known that Sir Thomas Wortley, born in 1440, lived at the Manor Wortley until 1510.
Sir Thomas, on the wrong side during the English Civil War, was taken by Parliamentary forces to the Tower of London. The hall then fell into decay until the mid eighteenth century when Edmund Wortley commissioned its rebuilding. The family’s new wealth came from the black diamond’s of the South Yorkshire coalfield. The Hall was occupied by the Army during the war, but with the coming of peace and the nationalisation of the mines it fell into what looked like terminal decline.
This all changed at a meeting in May 1950 when former miner Vin Williams proposed to local labour movement activists that Wortley Hall should become an education and recreation home for workers who would be both the owners and the users. The Hall was lifted out of almost derelict condition by a great deal of voluntary work with supporters carrying out much needed repairs and restoration. Then on May 5th 1951 it was opened as an education and holiday centre for the trade union, labour and co-operative movement.
For sixty years, successive generations have maintained that commitment and built on the sacrifices of those workers to keep Wortley Hall as the Workers Stately Home. It has always been run on co-operative principles and is a member of the Co-operatives UK and registered as a Friendly Society.
Today, with four stars from the English Tourist Board, the Hall is looking better than ever. The effort that has gone into bringing the accommodation and grounds up to the very highest standards has really paid off. The grounds laid out in an Italinate style on an eastward facing slope enjoying magnificent views over the Vale of Worsborough are absolutely glorious.
The Hall can host conferences for up to 175 delegates, with seven conference rooms and 49 en-suite bedrooms, all equipped with direct telephone lines and internet connections. Recently upgraded is the Unite ballroom, paid for mainly by Unite branches.
Another recent development has been the creation of two holiday cottages set in the old stable yard. The area has some excellent cycling and walking as the Hall is not far from the Peak District, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and for those wishing to travel further afield there is the ‘last of the summer wine country’ of Holmfirth.
Starting in May there are some exciting events to mark the anniversary especially intriguing are a series of folk song workshops with some very talented musicians and wordsmiths both to enjoy folk song but also to have ago at creating some new ones. Developed by Steel Valley Beacon Arts, participants include Pete Coe, Gavin Davenport, Ian Enters, Robin Garside, Bryony Griffith and Chris Mcshane.
The grounds are also the home of the South Yorkshire Festival, celebrating workers worldwide, which takes place on Saturday 2nd July this year, an excellent day out, in a delightful setting.
In August Jo Stanley will be giving the Sylvia Pankhurst memorial lecture which is sponsored by the National Assembly of Women, the Sylvia Pankhurst Memorial Committee and Wortley Hall.
And don’t forget organisations and individuals can apply for shares which are in £5 units. For a small sum you too can have a share in the Workers Stately Home! If you are a member of a Trade Union, Labour or Co-operative organisation you are eligible to become an individual shareholder. This entitles you to participate in the running of Wortley Hall so for more information go to: www.wortleyhall.org.uk
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
