Time to End Fairtrade Fortnight

Every year I wish that fair trade fortnight could be the last because we have made all trade fair! Capitalism is very good at through the abstraction of the market at hiding the unequal human relationships that mark out the interchange of goods and services between us.

So fair trade is a small step in making those relationships real. This year we have been asked by the Fair Trade foundation to “go further for fair trade”. And there is one co-operative that seems to be doing just that.

For the last thirty years Paul Birch has been better known as a record producer and MD of a record label. In that time he has released over a thousand albums by artists as diverse as Stone Roses to UFO, the Scorpions to Sister Sledge. He struck the fair-trade bug when he started developing a line in merchandising for many of the bands he promoted.

Paul says that it took a while to tick all the ethical boxes finding your way through the process of getting the T-shirts with fair trade and organic accreditation was a steep learning curve. Having built up a supply chain and created relationships with the producers it seemed like a good idea to put together all the marketing skills they had developed in thirty years in the music business into selling fair trade products.

In thinking about this the idea of a co-operative structure linking producers and consumers became the obvious vehicle. Today  Revolver Co-operative Limited is the trading co-operative company behind the Revolver World brand. Organised as an Industrial and Provident society it is a bona fide co-operative, formed with the help of The Co-operative Group (through the Co-operative Hub) and Co-operatives UK.
What is unusual about it however is that they incorporate the whole supply chain in the ownership of the business. As a multistakeholder community co-operative membership open to all, producer co-operatives in the developing world, retailers such as the Co-op’s in which it sells the products and the final customers.
What’s more 25% of the profit is invested back into the producers' communities. It prefers to trade with co-operatives because it says this strengthens the relationships between consumers and producers. In a very short time as well as a great range of fair trade organic apparel it now has a great range of coffees.
I have to make an admission at this point. Despite the fact that I come from a family of tea bellies.  I hate tea. I just can’t drink it. I am a total coffee head. And one of the most depressing features of modern life is the fact despite the fact that coffee and coffee shops have become ubiquitous most of what they sell is not very good!
So I drink most of my coffee at home and I like to try out coffees from around the world and have become a bit of a coffee snob. So to discover Revolvers coffee range was a delight. Their African coffee is grown by the co-operatives Kagera Coffee Union in Tanzania and Gumutindo Coffee Co-Operative in Uganda. This superb blend combines Tanzanian Peaberry, grown on the upper slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, and Ugandan High-grown Northern Bugisu, grown under shade not far from the Ugandan/Kenyan border.
Their Columbian coffee is a single-estate blend grown by the Riseralda Co-Operative established in 1959 of Fairtrade certified Arabica beans and the their Costa Rica coffee comes from members of the CoopeDota coffee growers co-operative who produce a terrific AA Grade Tarrazú arabica coffee.

The most recent venture however is probably of most interest to Morning Star readers. Paul says, “Cuban coffee is one of the most underrated coffees we've come across recently. Not only is it delicious, its quality rivals that of the established 'standard' coffees like Colombia. Not a word of a lie, when we received our first cupping samples in the office it's all we drank for two weeks straight!”

There is no doubt that their latest product is a bit special: exclusively imported Cuba Altura coffee sourced from one of the oldest grower co-operatives in Cuba.

Paul adds that, “at the moment given the somewhat 'unique' commercial situation in Cuba its not possible to get Fairtrade accreditation but nonetheless we're delighted to have this co-operatively produced arabica in both whole bean and roast & ground. Try it may well become one of your favourites - it makes great espressos.”

 Given that fairness is the whole basis of the Cuban economy you can do your bit and get great coffee and support the Cuban revolution by breaking the embargo everyday!

Currently a 227 gram pack is selling for just £3.75 and a pack of six for £22.50 or a kilo of beans for just £15.99. If you don’t have a co-op shop near you to obtain Revolver World coffee head to the website at www.revolverworld.com

Co-op Weathers the Retail Storm

The economic crisis that is being made worse by George Osborne is causing tremendous turbulence in the retail sector. Consumer spending which was the driving force of the economy before the banking crash is under massive pressure and this is exaggerating other cultural shifts in the way we shop.

The disappearance of many familiar names from the high street is a symptom of deep underlying structural changes in the sector. Osborne’s, “Honey I shrunk the economy” is ensuring that we have too much retail capacity. It is also hard to understand why David Cameron moans about people not paying their taxes when Osborne allows firms, like Amazon who sold £3.3billion worth of goods in the UK last year, to pay next to no corporation tax and exploit VAT loopholes.

Other factors include high fuel costs squeezing disposable incomes and reducing consumers’ appetite to travel plus the massive social impact of the internet both for shopping and for price comparison.

For the Co-operative retailers the ongoing migration into convenience stores has been accelerated by these forces. Concentrating food retail forces in this area made sense as the margins where better and it was a good fit with the existing co-operative retail estate.

This may have been a pragmatic response to the huge shopping “sheds” of the big four food retailers but no one realised how quickly these huge assets could become liabilities. Deloittes are predicting a 40% “downsizing” of retail space in the next five years. We will see retailers having fewer stores and the beginning of the end of the huge out of town shopping “hangers”.

Many people loved these huge stores, a whole retail village under one roof always dry and warm (a real boon given our climate) that buzz has however long gone. Now we can do our browsing online and often get stuff delivered to our homes cheaper than they can sell it in the shops.

Stores complain of shoppers coming in to take a look at goods then buying on the internet, a practice known in the trade as “show-rooming”.  Not a service you can offer for very long.

If the Co-op move to convenience made sense it has not gone unnoticed by the competition with all the major retailers developing small store formats. For the Co-op having a store in every UK postcode means that the business rises and falls with those communities and outside the South East they are being seriously squeezed.

The long retreat from non-food retailing continued this month when Midlands Society announced the closure of its nine Fashion and Home department stores after producing significant losses. This will be the end of an era in places like Derby, Chesterfield and Ilkeston where these stores have long been part of the fabric.

It maybe ironic but some of the competition has come from the fast growing Co-operative Electrical, the Co-op Group’s online business. Over Christmas it enjoyed a 15 per cent increase in sales compared with the previous year. Best sellers included, tablet PCs, printers and laptops, products that did not exist when those department stores first opened.

The co-op food retail sector had a good Christmas with many independent co-op retailers especially the East of England, Midcounties, Southern and Lincoln doing particularly well and the Co-operative Group had respectable results.

The real winners given the state of the economy where the discounters Aldi, Lidl and Iceland as well as at the other end of the spectrum Waitrose - showing that austerity is only for the poor. For the big retailers at best it was a stand still position with big discounts and high food inflation damaging margins.

This tough environment is the challenge for the new CEO of the Co-operative Group, Euan Sutherland. He will replace Peter Marks who most of us expected to be Sir Peter in the New Year’s honours list however he had to settle for a CBE.

I found this a bit insulting given his record. Maybe I’m an old cynic but this just adds to my scepticism about the whole honours system and those dreadful imperial labels.

Euan comes from Kingfisher where he was Chief Operating Officer, so for those of us in retail at least he is a shop keeper and not the banker that we thought the FSA might foist upon us.

Keeping the Co-operative retail sector competitive with smaller shops and lower volumes than our rivals is a tough ask. Back in 1993, the movement finally - not before time - got its buying act together. The formation of the Co-operative Retail Trade Group brought together all the buying for the movement into one body.

Many co-operators are now saying it is time to form or join a European version, joining with colleagues in Spain, Italy, Scandinavia, and elsewhere so we can really compete with the giant retailers.

Then there is the internet and the question of what should be the Co-ops online offer?  The new CEO is going to find that as well as the integration of a huge banking acquisition there is no let up in the retail competition and that is without going into funerals, pharmacy or farming!

 
  

Heres to a more Cydweithredol Cymru

If 2012 was the International Year of Co-operatives, then will 2013 be the Welsh Year of

Co-operatives?

Why so? Well the Co-operative economy in Wales is not insignificant there are around 400 co-operatives with a turnover of £1.3bn. For the fourth year running they outperformed the UK economy with a growth rate of 1.5%.  Very encouraging but when you consider that there are about 58,000 businesses in Wales there is considerable room for improvement.

Those of us in the co-op sector where delighted when last july Edwina Hart, Minister for Business, Enterprise, Technology and Science in the Welsh Assembly launched the Welsh Co-operative and Mutual’s Commission. Under the Chairmanship of Professor Andrew Davies, the Commission is charged with making, “recommendations on growing and developing the co-operative and mutual economy in Wales in order to create jobs and wealth in support of the Welsh Government’s aims and ambitions”.
 
The Commission is due to report in the autumn and has the potential to be a springboard to take co-operative development to a new level. Wales has always had a ‘co-operative culture’ and has a distinct enough economy for measures to encourage co-op development to have a significant impact.

There is no reason why Wales cannot become one of the World’s great co-operative regions like Emilia Romagna or Quebec. Wales already has some significant co-operative development assets like the Wales Co-operative Centre. For 30 years they have been providing reliable support to co-op start-ups, mainly funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Welsh Government. Unusually for this type of economic development body they owe their existence to the Wales TUC who established them in 1981.

There is huge scope for better advice, support and financing for new co-operative start-up’s but there is also huge scope to return of previous state owned assets to community co-operative ownership.

The platform of a good solid supportive relationship between the trade union movement and the co-operative movement has the potential to be the basis for making this a reality in a growing Welsh co-operative economy.

There are signs of a Welsh difference. The recent rows about water charges had little impact in Wales because of the ownership structure of Welsh Water. Owned by Glas Cymru, a single purpose company, with no shareholders run solely for the benefit of its customers it has a business model that aims to reduce the industry's single biggest cost, capital.

Welsh Water's assets and investment are financed by bonds and retained financial surpluses. Financing efficiency savings to date have largely been used to build up reserves to insulate Welsh Water and its customers from unexpected costs and to improve its credit worthiness so that the cost of finance can be kept as low as possible in future the years.

Compare this with £1.5 billion that shareholders have siphoned out of Thames Water over the last four years. I think Glas Cymru’s structure would be even better if it was owned co-operatively by the people of Wales creating real democratic accountability.

Another sector crying out for co-operative ownership is the railways. There is a vision for Rail Cymru a new co-operative railway company serving the people of Wales and the Borders which would put their needs before those of private shareholders and foreign owners -ironically the current Wales and Borders franchise is operated by Arriva which is owned by the Deutsche Bundesbahn the German State Railways – so it is OK  for public ownership as long as its someone else’s public!.

The vision for ‘Rail Cymru’ involving rail employees, passengers, the wider community and the elected government of Wales, is supported by amongst others Aslef and Co-operatives and Mutual’s Wales. The idea is outlined in a report written by Professor Paul Salveson who argues it would deliver better value for money to the taxpayer and provide a more responsive service.

The franchise comes up for renewal in 2018 allowing time for the Welsh Government to develop its plans in detail, ensuring employees, passengers and the community are fully engaged with the vision for a people’s railway set in an integrated network of connecting bus services, with improved access for walkers and cyclists to stations and with those stations being transformed into hubs of community activity.

There are also plans for the development of co-operative social care in Wales. If one sector should be denied to the profit hungry private sector it has to be social care. There is huge scope for co-operative solutions in this sector empowering service user’s and social care workers. The scope for co-operative schools is also tremendous.

Encouraging more fan owned co-operative sports clubs like Wrexham and Merthyr Town also has to be on the agenda. These issues and more will be discussed when the caravan of the Co-operative Congress rolls into Cardiff in the summer. The venue is the home of another another co-operative business Glamorgan County Cricket Clubs Swalec stadium.

I am sure co-operators from across the UK will be throwing their ideas into how to make Wales a co-operative champion in 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

Plugging in to Co-op Energy

The monsoon season that we have endured, the drought in the US and the horrific fires in Australia should make us all realise the terrible price we are paying for relying on fossil fuels to keep warm.
The climate change sceptics in Britain together with huge vested interests within the current political regime mean we have been very slow to define any coherent policy when it comes to developing the renewable energy sector.
The Con-Dem government have done a lot of talking about renewables, particularly Lib-Dem energy and climate secretary Ed Davey, but have been unbelievably slow in driving growth in the sector.
Now it seems that George Osborne is hoping that - like in the US - "fracking" is the answer. Shale gas is what right-wing Tories who hate renewable energy believe is the future.
It seems that George Osborne hopes that shale gas will come to his rescue the way North Sea oil came to Margaret Thatcher's. She spent it all. Norway has banked its share.
Norwegian Statens Pensjonsfond (state pension fund) the place where all surplus from petroleum sales is being deposited.
In the last quarter of 2012 the fund was valued at $654 billion and contained 1 per cent of all global equities. As well as paying for the Norwegian pensions system the fund is managed ethically.
It cannot invest money in companies that directly or indirectly contribute to killing, torture, deprivation of freedom, or other violations of human rights in conflict situations or wars.
When it comes to developing renewable energy there is also another way. Take the German Energiewende - since 1991, while German GDP has increased by 27 per cent, greenhouse gases emissions have been reduced by 24 per cent.
The Renewable Energy Act has stimulated a huge switch in Germany's energy sector, produced 380,000 new jobs and has created the country's largest post-war infrastructure project.
The policy aims to replace both fossil fuel and nuclear with renewables by 2050. It already produces 20 per cent of Germany's electricity which means it is already ahead of schedule on the nuclear phase-out.
There is no doubt that the huge campaigns in Germany against nuclear power - who can forget the yellow stickers "Atomkraft? Nein danke" (Nuclear power? No thank you) - have helped drive the policy.
It is not just about green energy generation but also about cutting consumption. The cost is paid for by higher feed-in tariffs for renewables the Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (EEG). It is set not to be more than 15 per cent of energy prices which amounts to 0.3 per cent of the income of an average German household. And because of the huge expansion in renewables the costs of the technologies have now started to fall.
The EEG has increased German energy prices, but even with the renewable surcharge prices have risen less than spot energy prices. The Germans also argue that renewables only seem more expensive because they do not have the externalities in terms of pollution and climate change that are excluded from conventional energy bills.
As a co-operator what is exciting about these developments is that when Germany's environment minister Peter Altmaier addressed the countries first-ever congress of energy co-operatives in Berlin last November, he was talking to an audience that was creating a new clean energy co-op every other day.
The co-op sector is one of the Energiewende's key partners. "If all Germans were as engaged as you," he said, "my job would be a lot easier." Locally based co-ops have been hugely popular in recent years, their number tripling since 2010 to some 600 with over 80,000 members.
The sector is now entering a new phase, becoming more professional as it grows in size and scale, moving into onshore wind power production and migrating from rural areas into the big cities like Berlin.
The co-ops cover all aspects of energy generation, from biomass, wind energy and solar power generation to grid operations and distribution. It seems also that once they become established their example encouraged growth at an exponential rate with 42 per cent in Bavaria and 47 per cent in Baden-Wurttmburg.
Not only is this policy engaging citizens in the switchover, it is also incredibly popular. In a recent poll 93 per cent of Germans said that despite the cost the use and development of renewables is "important" or "extremely important."
Not quite the poll ratings that Gorge Osborne will get for his "fracking" adventure.
While we do not have the policy framework of the Germans nor the investment of the Norwegians you can always get your power from Co-op Energy here in Britain - the only provider to cut its prices this winter. I am advocating this as the more members it enlists the cheaper my energy becomes.

The Co-operative Year 2012

2012 was thanks to its United Nations Designation as the Year of Co-operatives, one of celebration for the Co-operative movement. That was certainly something worth celebrating but it would have been less of a celebration if the UK sector had not performed so well.

For the fourth year in a row the co-operative economy has out performed the overall UK economy. Despite the fact that economic conditions for all sizes of co-op’s in all sectors are, thanks to the unresolved banking crisis and the efforts of the economic management of the ConDem coalition to make a bad situation worse, the toughest we have seen in our lifetimes.

Against this backdrop some co-operative businesses have been real star performers like the Co-operative of the Year, Midcounties, one of the larger retail societies, trading in food, pharmacy, funerals, childcare and now energy. Their outstanding energy business, Co-operative Energy, has won numerous awards and now has over 60,000 customers. CEO, Ben Reid, has said: "It has been an exciting 12 months as we have developed and expanded our food, energy, childcare and travel businesses in particular. We have had the confidence to invest and diversify despite the challenging economy because we believe in the co-operative way of doing business. Winning Co‑operative of the Year is a fine endorsement of our approach."

If you haven’t checked out Co-operative Energy yet supplying households with their gas and electricity and the only suppler to CUT its prices this winter I suggest you do so. Another outstanding performer has been the Wine Society, supplying high quality wine at fair prices, receiving the Decanter Award as National Wine Merchant of the Year for the second year running.

The Co-operative Banks capture of 632 former Lloyds Bank branches is also something of a coup and completely changes the scope and reach of the Co-op Bank. This was clearly a tough call for the Co-op Group but to achieve this level of growth organically would have taken decades.

The Co-op Bank has been a great success, it never required any government support but has still been hit by tough new regulations requiring greater capital adequacy, a significant contribution to the banking compensation scheme and having to set aside millions for PPI miss-selling despite the fact it hardly sold any, the price of defending yourself against no-win, no fee lawyers, all these costs means bank profits will be hit in the short term. 

Other star performers include, small co-op of the year, Equal Exchange, a fair trade workers co-op, dating back to 1979 when three voluntary workers returned to Edinburgh after working on aid projects in various parts of Africa. Their belief was that aid was not the only answer and direct, fairer trading could help redress the balance. Today they have a great range of quality products helping producers across the developing world, including an excellent Palestinian olive oil.
As a fan of supporter owned football clubs I was delighted when FC United, won the #coops2012 Award, for the co-operative which has actively used a variety of media (radio, press and social media) to promote their co-op. Their innovative use of social media to engage with its fan base is quite stunning. To date they have raised over £1.7million in a Community Share Issue by using every channel to talk to their members and supporters. Their communication strategy has real purpose as Andy Walsh, FC United's general manager, said: "The club's media work not only helps spread the word about FC United and supporter-ownership, but also gives many of our co‑owners the chance to be involved, develop their own skills and take responsibility for running an important element of the club."
The final major event of the International Year, Co-ops United in Manchester, was great fun and attracted almost 12,000 visitors with 200 Co-ops exhibiting including the Peoples Press Printing Society. The history of the sector was not neglected in the year with a super Lottery Heritage Fund refurbishment of the Rochdale Pioneers Museum and a new version of the film of the Pioneers.
One last highlight in a year of highlights was the publication of the, The Co-operative Revolution, a graphic novel that vividly explores the history of the co-op movement and its spread across the world and then takes an optimistic look at the co-operative world in 2044 the 200^th anniversary of the Rochdale Pioneers. Published by co-operative New Internationalist with the support of the Co-op Group at just £5.99 it makes a great stocking filler.
There is no doubt that this year people have started taking the co-operative business model more seriously and as Victor Hugo said, there is nothing more powerful than an idea when its time has come. And after the satire of the Nobel Peace Prize, being awarded to Henry Kissinger, Menachim Begin, Barack Obama and now the European Union we should campaign in 2013 to get the Prize for a genuinely peace promoting international body, the International Co-operative Alliance, they could certainly make good use of the prize money!

Co-operatives United

 Wow! Co-operatives really lit the blue touch paper in Manchester for the Co-operatives United festival to mark the culmination of 2012 as the UN year of Co-operatives. What a celebration, Co-operatives United together with the International Co-operative Alliance Expo, generated some amazing statistics, there were 11,800 visitors, representing 88 countries, 753 co-operatives attended, 171 co-operatives exhibited (including the Peoples Press Printing Society), the whole thing made possible by 521 volunteers and returning £12.8 million into the north west economy.

Many international visitors took the short trip to Rochdale for the spectacular re-opening of the refurbished Toad Lane Shop and Museum or caught up with the new Pioneers film (to be shown on Film4). I was particularly pleased with this years Co-operative Congress and the Co-op awards partly because my Society, the Heart of England Co-op Society, sponsored one of them. The award winners where from quite a cross section of the movement, a fan owned football club, a large retailer and a fair trade workers co-op. Organised by Co-operatives UK, the awards were announced at the international gala dinner in front of 900 people.

Miidcounties Co-operative, one of our larger retail societies, trading in food, pharmacy, funerals, childcare and now energy, won the Co-operative of the Year Award, sponsored by Cobbetts LLP – for overall performance excellence. Their outstanding energy business has won numerous awards and now has over 60,000 customers. Ben Reid, Chief Executive of Midcounties said: "It has been an exciting 12 months as we have developed and expanded our food, energy, childcare and travel businesses in particular. We have had the confidence to invest and diversify despite the challenging economy because we believe in the co-operative way of doing business. Winning Co‑operative of the Year is a fine endorsement of our approach."

Equal Exchange, a fair trade workers co-op, won the Small Co-operative, Big Achiever Award, sponsored by Chelmsford Star Co-operative Society – a small, under £5 million turnover co-op that has made a big impact. The origins of Equal Exchange go back to 1979 when three voluntary workers returned to Edinburgh after working on aid projects in various parts of Africa. Along with a sister organisation in London, Campaign Co-op, they started buying instant coffee from Bukoba on Lake Victoria in Tanzania. As a result Campaign Coffee was born. The volunteers had seen how small scale farmers were getting into debt due, in part; to the appallingly low prices they received for their products. Their belief was that aid was not the only answer and direct, fairer trading could help redress the balance! Today many years later, after bigger campaigns, more education and better products finally reaching independent retailers and supermarkets, the three volunteers' dreams are beginning to be realised. They have demonstrated a continued dedication to packing fair trade products at source, adding revenues, employment and new skills to the developing world partners they work with making them worthy award winners.

My delight however was for FC United, the fan owned football club, who won the #coops2012 Award, which we sponsored – for the co-operative which has actively used a variety of media (radio, press and social media) to promote how their co-operative is building a better world through co-operation during 2012. Their innovative use of a broad variety of media to engage with its fan base, to promote their long term aim of changing football for the benefit of supporters, is quite stunning. And by using every channel to talk to members and supporters their communication strategy has real purpose as Andy Walsh, FC United's general manager, said: "The club's media work not only helps spread the word about FC United and supporter-ownership, but also gives many of our co‑owners the chance to be involved, develop their own skills and take responsibility for running an important element of the club."

These Co-op Winners offer a snapshot of the breadth and excitement of the modern co-operative movement, a movement which has a new spring in its step following the UN year. What is important now is to build on the terrific quality of the international contacts we have built to generate a commercial co-operative advantage one from the other. Key initiatives must include an international buying Group to enable co-op retailers to compete with the very biggest of our capitalist rivals.

The inspiration of some of the international examples we have seen should also encourage us to continue to develop new Co-ops in new sectors here in the UK. In the United States the umbrella of electricity co-ops, Touchstone, serves 30 million members everyday - so don’t tell me we can’t have a huge co-op energy sector here in the UK. Lots to do now to build on the UN Year of Co-ops!

WORLDSUMMIT OF CO-OPERATIVES 2012

 Last week I had the privilege of attending the World Summit on Co-operatives in Quebec representing Co-operatives UK. It was amazing to be amongst 2,800 delegates from 91 countries - including a number from the very healthy co-operative sector in Quebec. The Canadian cooperative sector as hosts did us proud and played a huge role in the success of the event especially key sponsors and facilitators the Quebec financial co-operative Desjardins.

As well as the main summit there was a 'future co-operative leaders' programme which ran alongside the official event with participation from young British co-operators, and the summit was preceded by a pre-conference academic event ‘Imagine 2012’ on co-operative economics supported by St Mary’s University of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the Sobey School of management are world leaders in co-operative management education..

There was a very strong emphasis on understanding the range and scope of the global co-operative experience and part of this included the launch of nine studies – some of which added more value than others - produced in partnership with leading private sector professional service firms - some of whom, like McKinsey’s, lets face it are a bit of a surprise as they are not known for their advocacy of the co-operative model.

Former Labour MEP now President of the International Co-operative Alliance, Pauline Green, played an important role in holding the show together and there where other significant UK contributions, from Peter Marks of the Co-op Group, Ben Read of Midcounties Co-op, Vivian Woodell from Co-operative Phone & Broadband as well as Ed Mayo from Co-operatives UK.

’Imagine 2012’ with its theme of co-operative economics looked at traditional and current theory in understanding co-operative enterprise, but also looked the flaws in wider neo-liberal economics that seemed to dismiss or exclude co-operative solutions. The work of Nobel Prize winning Elinor Ostrom was celebrated and a major issue was the role of co-operatives in tackling the challenge of environmental sustainability.

What emerged from the official conference was a strong sense of relevance and confidence in the co-operative model.  For me reading that the top 300 Co-op businesses have a turnover of US$1.6 trillion then seeing them represented in a room made an abstract idea into a reality and was very uplifting. Seeing the reality of the size and scope of the global co-operative movement in the flesh was amazing.  At times, the mood felt a little self-indulgent, as many of the outside speakers seemed to have come to curry favour rather than to offer grounded support and advice.

Some of the challenges articulated at the conference are ones we know well, given the speed of market change, are co-operative businesses, agile enough and innovative enough? Are we bold enough in positioning ourselves as an alternative to shareholder companies? ... or is it the case that what fires us up doesn't necessarily work in the wider world beyond our members, where people just need to know who we are and what we do well.

It was great to meet with and listen to the examples of how co-operatives where facing up to their business challenges, the Texas Energy Co-op that was outperforming its private competitors by going back to the members, the Danish farmer cooperative that felt it could not operate in a dozen countries on the back of membership from just one and so is exploring minority external capital; and the delegation from Cuba, trying to plan for a new role for autonomous co-operatives in a more open but still socialist economy.

I had the pleasure of joining a group of Brits, Canadians and Cubans for a very lively dinner. We discussed everything from how committed Raul Castro was to co-op development, to all the practical issues of starting and managing co-ops, to the philosophical issue of could you have a non capitalist market economy?

This was a substantial Cuban delegation, typically boxing above their weight, including ordinary Cuban farmers, as well as government officials; but if there was one person who held our attention it was Professor Camila Pineriro Harnecker from the University of Havana who has edited a new book, Co-operatives and Socialism, A view from Cuba. The book a collection of essays makes the case for co-operatives as part of the solution to building a more equitable society.

Working with the Ministry of Light Industry she and her colleagues are making the case for the co-operative economy to be a viable alternative to the neo-liberal capitalist and the authoritarian socialist models currently in use around the world. Thanks to support from Canadian co-operators the book has been translated into English and Co-operatives and Socialism will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in December.

So far the United Nations Year of Co-operatives 2012 has been a tremendous opportunity to bring co-operators together as there is indeed much we can learn from one another and if we work together and support one another there is a great deal we can achieve. It is very important that this momentum is not dissipated and that the Co-op Year becomes the decade of co-operative development.

The next stop for this international Co-operative caravan will be at Co-operatives United, the World festival and ICA Expo in Manchester from the 29^thOct -2^nd Nov. I very much hope as members of Co-operatives UK, the Peoples Press Printing Society and its members will be there amongst the 10,000 visitors. For more information go to: www.manchester2012.coop