Co-operatives Fortnight…

Saturday marked the first day of Cooperatives Fortnight, the national campaign to raise awareness about the work of co-operatives across the country, and a call for the government to take action to narrow the gap between rich and poor in the UK.

For those not in ‘the know’,a co-operative is a business organisation that helps to build a better world by giving everyone a share of the profits and an equal say in how the business is run.  According to the Co-operatives Fortnight website, there are over 4,900 independent co-operatives in the UK, in all parts of the economy, and these co-operatives are owned by over 11million people who have an equal share in the profits and have a say in what the co-operative does.

I love co-operatives and all that they stand for, so to celebrate Co-operatives fortnight in my own special way, here are my top 5 all time favourite local (and not so local) co-operatives.  In no particular order…

• Leigh Fishermans Co-operative – I’ve bought many a trout from this gem of a fishmongers, which is run by real life fishermen.  Situated on the coast in Old Leigh, this a beautiful place to buy a beautiful bit of fresh fish  Directions
• Essex Savers Net Credit Union – recently taken over from Southend Credit Union, this is a financial co-operative that offers a safe, convenient way to save, with easy access loans at fair rates of interest.  Writing about this coop has reminded me that I must get round to joining!  Website.
• Zero Credit – a co-operative of individuals with personal experience of debt.  This is a national co-operative which aims to end the stigma which pushes debtors into unsuitable products and services and to start a responsible dialogue with government and the finance sector.  This is on my list of favs after meeting Emma (founder & director) via collaborate work at CL.  Website
• The People’s Supermarket – situated in central London, this is a supermarket for the people, by the people.  The vision is to create a commercially sustainable, social enterprise that achieves its growth and profitability targets whilst operating within values based on community development and cohesion.  Arthur Potts-Dawson shared his vision for the People’s Supermarket at our Chain Reaction event in 2009. Website
• Southend Jazz Co-op – this is a group of musicians who get together every Saturday morning to play jazz, each session is run by various tutors focusing on developing improvisational skills.  I’ll be honest, I’ve never been to this co-op, but I just love the fact that it exists! .Website

Find out more about Co-operatives Fortnight on the website, and don’t forget to sign the petition to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.

The Jubilees People’s Millions

Just something that appeared in my inbox the other day that I deemed worth sharing…

Got a great idea for a project to inspire your community?
Want to involve local people working together to tackle a problem?
Know what you want to do but need some money to make it happen?

The Jubilee People’s Millions could be the answer!

The Big Lottery Fund and ITV, with the approval of Buckingham Palace, will be helping to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012. We’re looking for new projects that will improve local places and the lives of people in your community.

In June 2011 ITV regional news will feature two great project ideas in each region each night for three nights, competing for viewers’ phone votes. At stake is up to £60,000 from the Big Lottery Fund.

To have a chance of winning you’ll need to inspire local people to get involved with your project. It’ll also need to capture the public’s imagination and persuade them to vote for you.

http://www.peoplesmillions.org.uk/apply

The Litmus Test

Interesting new newspaper concept stumbled across today….the Litmus Test is an online newspaper that features ‘leading thinkers from across the political spectrum’ who address six key questions facing Britain today.

In the spirit of evidence-based discourse, leading blogs from across the political spectrum – Left Foot Forward,ConservativeHome, and Lib Dem Voice – have collaborated to put together this special, limited edition publication looking at the key issues facing Britain today, including an infographic of the UK’s political landscape.

Hard copies will be given out at each Party conference, but free copies are available to download from the website.  The only premise is that in order to download you must tweet about the publication or add a link to your facebook wall.

A savvy way of ensuring that readers spread the word!

Featured in this publication are:

• Economy – how can the tax system get us out of this economic mess
• Immigration – is Britain full?
• Climate Change – should Britain lead the world in tackling climate change?
• Social Justice – will the Big Society defeat poverty
• Electoral Reform – will Electoral and Lords reform change anything
• Technology – will technology kill bureaucracy?

Find out more on the website

The People’s Kitchen

Last night I went to visit The People’s Supermarket, in Holborn for the launch of ‘The People’s Kitchen’.

The People’s Supermarket is a co-operative, ‘a supermarket that is run by the people for the people, selling the best food at the lowest possible prices’.  This is the first time I’ve managed to get over to see the supermarket in action, having blogged about the concept back in November last year.

The People’s Supermarket is staffed entirely by volunteers to keep retail prices low, and according to one of the enthusiastic volunteers that I chatted to – yesterday was the 100th day that the supermarket has been open.  The new ‘People’s Kitchen’ part is intended to ensure that stock in the shop isn’t wasted, by creating exciting dishes with any food on the shelves nearing its sell by date.

Last night, chef Arthur Potts-Dawson, had cooked up some delicious samples of the type of thing that the kitchen will be producing.  I sampled some chilli chutney and some totally tasty aubergine and potato ‘hummus-y’ type dish (at the same time avoiding the TV cameras that were there!).  From the menus chalked up on the board, dishes produced by the kitchen were reasonably priced as well – making it a perfect stop for lunch if you are in the area.

The supermarket itself isn’t ‘massive’, but the shelves stock quite a range of choice.  While brand names do appear on the shelves (Hovis bread, and Wheatabix for example), a lot of the produce is locally sourced.  Personally, I like to see a shelf full of wonky, and oddly shaped vegetables – I shudder at the uniformity of the produce that you find in mainstream supermarkets (and I think there was genuine mud on the potatoes as well!)

Sadly, Holborn is a little too far for me to travel to volunteer at the co-op, but I do aim to support the venture by nipping in for lunch or a weirdly shaped vegetable if I’m in the area.

Check out The People’s Supermarket Website

A quick list of community resource & skill sharing initiatives…

Streetbank – Putting people in touch with others in their local community (within 1 square mile) to share skills and resources. Read more

Ecomodo –  Allows people in the UK to lend and borrow each other’s everyday objects, skills and spaces with confidence for free, for a fee or for charity.  Read  more

Freecycle – Matching people who have things they want to get rid of with people who can use them, and so keeping usable items out of landfills.  Read more

Makerhood – Community initiative about to be piloted in the Brixton area to promote local artists and makers, and to enable people to buy things made in their local neighbourhoods.  Read more

Just for the Love of it – A ‘pay it forward’ site, the aim is to help reconnect people in their local communities through the simple act of sharing.   Read more

Bank of Happiness – Estonia based virtual collaboration network that allows people to share their skills and time within their communities. Read more

A Collaborative Way to Fund Your Project

IndieGoGo is a website that enables people to share their ideas (whether creative, for a cause, or entrepreneurial), and raise funds to make their idea a reality.

A US based organisation, is it currently being used by entrepreneurs in around 134 countries, and it seems fairly straight forward to use.

Simply, post your project / idea (making sure you are explicit about details), set your fundraising target, describe what the funds will be used for and what potential funders will get out of supporting your project, and then set a target date that you wish to receive funding by.

Take a look at examples of some of the projects featured on the site.

IndieGoGo is free to sign up to (whether you are a fund raiser, or a potential funder), but charges a 9% marketplace fee on funds raised.  However, IndieGoGo will also pay a 5% cash bonus on every dollar raised if you meet your fundraising target, so while you don’t have raise your full fundraising goal, it is obviously in your interests to do so!

The other thing worth noting is that even though you have posted your idea via the IndieGoGo website, you will still retain 100% ownership of your idea.

IndieGoGo seems like an innovative way to generate funding to help get your idea off the ground, and I’d be interested to hear feedback from anyone who has used the site on how useful they found it to be.

Streetbank

Streetbank is a new online platform and community project designed to ‘make the world a bit nicer by connecting neighbours with each other’

The idea is simple:  you use the site to get to know your neighbours within a mile of where you live or work, by helping them out in small but useful ways and lending and receiving small items.

The idea behind Streetbank was developed by Ryan, Nick and Sam, who, in their own words ‘got interested in the idea of lending’

Sam had had a good experience with his next-door neighbours. They had been lending stuff to him – small stuff mainly (like a cup of sugar), but it got bigger (like a ladder) and in time he found he was actually hanging out with his neighbours who turned out to be quite surprisingly nice once he got to know them.

So Sam talked to Ryan and Ryan reckoned that the Internet would be a handy way of sharing stuff with the community. And we realised that it could be more than just lending, like people giving stuff away and helping each other too. And we realised that it could also be a way of everyone getting to know their neighbours (in a moderately uncheesy way).

The site is free to join, although to become a member you have to show that you have something that you could share or give away – whether that be something practical like a ladder or a guidebook, or a skill such as guitar lessons or gardening.

Streetbank put me in mind of Estonia’s Bank of Happiness – a project which encourages community cohesion and community support systems by skill sharing, and there are also some similarities in the thinking behind Streetbank and the Big Society Network idea ‘Your Square Mile’ – a platform to enable and empower citizens to make a difference in the square mile that they live in.

Streetbank is an inspired idea, and one that fits well with the thinking behind Chain Reaction – that we are all connected, that we all have something to offer, and that we can achieve more together.

Find out more about Streetbank and get involved here

Convergence

Last week I had a very interesting meeting with Marcus Jamieson-Pond to learn more about Convergence – a free network for CSR professionals and social entrepreneurs, that brings people together on a 1:1 basis or in small groups to share best practice and new ideas.

Marcus and I talked at some length about some of the parallels between what Convergence as a network is seeking to achieve, with what we do at Chain Reaction; namely that we are both dedicated to helping people to connect, collaborate and commit to ideas for positive social change.

The only real difference in approach between Convergence and Chain Reaction that I can see is that Convergence operates on a member-get-member basis (i.e. to get membership you need to be recommended – rather like LinkedIn), whereas anyone may join the Chain Reaction network.  (But as Marcus was quick to point out – membership of Convergence isn’t ‘exclusive’ – so I ask you to point your eyes at the page:  becoming a member of Convergence for more info)

Something else that I find interesting about Convergence is the fact that this network has been developed by a group of like-minded individuals from the CSR / business worlds.  In my experience – despite the fact that we can learn much about social leadership from the business sector – the corporate / business sectors often are the hardest audiences to ‘get’ what we do at Chain Reaction.

Chain Reaction offers businesses an opportunity to collaborate with public and third sectors as a way of generating new solutions for better lives for those in the UK and internationally – almost going beyond ‘traditional’ Corporate Social Responsibility.

But this is often hard to get across.  We aren’t profit-making.  We have no real business strategy – just a vision that one talent, experience or idea can unlock the potential of another, creating a powerful chain of energy to build a better world.

And now more than ever (in this period of cuts and ‘austerity’) we will all need to work more collaboratively and creatively across the traditional sectoral boundaries, to deliver a fairer, stronger society.

But Marcus and Co. do ‘get’ these values – which is why I am excited to connect Chain Reaction to Convergence, and look forward to future collaborations!

Find out more about Convergence >>>

Find out more about Chain Reaction >>>

The People’s Supermarket

It looks like there is a co-operative supermarket opening in London soon – this is very exciting news.  I am pretty anti supermarkets in general, mainly because of the monopoly they have due to their size and purchasing power.

If you don’t know, a co-operative is an organisation that is owned by a group of people for mutual benefit.

Wikipedia says:

A cooperative (also co-operative or coöperative; often referred to as a co-op or coop) is defined by the International Co-operative Alliance’s Statement on the Co-operative Identity as an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise. It is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit.

The People’s Supermarket will be a ‘not for profit’ organisation, staffed entirely by volunteers which will keep retail prices low.  You can read more about the thinking behind The People’s Supermarket, by the founder, chef Arthur Potts-Dawson, in this interview by The Independent.

Personally, this is really exciting news, as this will create volunteer opportunities, work experience, affordable food for people who need it, and an alternative to the big supermarkets.  I’ve signed up for more information and will update the blog as I find out more.  (The location of this venture is unknown at the moment, although it will be London-based!)

Check out the website for more info >>>