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this is a quick check to see if i can post here from my posh new mobile. apart from not being able to use capital letters its not too bad! the reason is that i don't seem to be able to use hive.coop, which is something of a pity.

hive.coop

Sorry about the general lack of posts on here. It turns out that getting *involved* with Co-operative Societies - as well as other organisations, my job and a part-time PhD - takes away the time necessary to *write* about them. And with me and the missus becoming parents in May, it isn't a situation that I can realistically see changing.

And that's a shame, because I genuinely feel that over the coming years use of web technology to provide communication and engagement between elected members of large co-operatives and the wider membership will become increasingly important. In fact I'd say that in a wee while those elected members who fail to provide even a cursory description of their activites and opinions will be seen as distinctly old fashioned and needlessly remote.

Which is why I'm really glad that hive.coop has been launched. Hive is a social networking site in the same vein as Facebook and Myspace, but it is designed specifically for the co-operative movement. On it you can start your own blog, start or join discussions, create your own special interest group and of course engage in the devisive accepting and declining (and unfriending!) of "friends".

It's only been going a few days, but its already lively enough. With wider publicity and some more members it could get really useful and interesting.

So I'm going to semi-retire this blog (well, it's been semi-demi-retired for a little while now, lets face it). I'm not sure if I'm going to start a new, less intensive blog on Hive, or if I'm just going to keep active in the forums and groups, but I will try to stay available and open to all members of the Co-operative Group, and especially those I represent in Cambridge and East Anglia and the Central and Eastern region. And I'll try not to take it all *too* seriously, *all* of the time.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Yours in Co-operation,

Sam

And for the last post, you finally get a head-and-shoulders shot of my ugly mug! I'm sure you can see why I kept it well hidden until now.

Castle Website

The fantastic Knucklas Community Land Project that I blogged about a bit earlier in the year now has a website to provide a bit more information and to act as a point of contact. I'm a proud member of the Project, set up as a a type of co-operative to benefit the community, which in turn means that I am a joint tenant of a medieval Welsh castle!

The aim is to complete the purchase from the locals who stumped up the cash when the castle was first for sale, so if you are interested in archeology, community orchards, allotments, or just want to support a very worthwhile community project, go and buy some shares and be part of it!

Logo from Project Website

Co-operative Review 2009

Every year the great guys and gals at Co-operatives UK publish a review of the previous year's Co-operative performance and the 2009 review was published a few weeks ago. It acts as a thorough and comprehensive look at all parts of the wider movement, including the consumer co-op movement, worker co-ops, agricultural co-operatives, credit unions, housing co-ops, fishing co-ops and community co-ops such as supporters trusts and renewable energy co-operatives.

However, it's the bit on the traditional consumer co-operative movement that I would like to consider here. I've looked at this before, in 2006 and 2007 - I must have been distracted by my wedding in 2008 - and it's interesting to see how things have changed. On both those previous occasions I pointed out that we were witnessing the slow but pernicious decline of the consumer co-operative movement. Turnover had been decreasing year on year.

Somewhat brilliantly, this has changed for the better. The total turnover in 2008 across all 20 consumer societies is now £12.9bn, up 2.3% on 2007, and up 3.5% on the low point in 2006. Bear in mind that this results reflect a period of time before the acquisition of Somerfield by the Co-operative Group - the largest of the consumer co-operative societies - in March of this year. Coupled with our merger with Britannia, next year's look at 2009 figures should make very interesting reading indeed

We are fighting back, and now see like-for-like sales growth that is ahead of the other major retailers. Because of the large size of the Co-op Group, its results do kind of dominate figures, but there have been some good growth - in fact better than the Group's - at the largest independent Co-ops - Midlands and Midcounties. The 4th largest society, East of England saw a sales decrease. Not sure what is going on there!

In short, there is a lot more to be positive about regarding the Co-operative Movement than there was four years ago. We have a new brand that people seem to like, we are selling some great products, our ethical credentials are better known in the public at large, and we are expanding and facing the future with optimisim rather than settling for that slow decline. Well done to the boards and management of the consumer co-operative movement!

The image is of Blencathra, and therefore nothing to do with the comparative performance of the UK consumer co-operative movement. However, Kate and I went up it in May and its a nice enough photo we took.

Farewell to PR!

Just a very quick message to say farewell to the Co-operative Group's chief food retail officer in the region. Peter Rowley has left us to take up the more convenient (for him!) equivalent post in the North-West. Those of you who have come to members' meetings in the past few years will no doubt have been as impressed as I was with his almost encyclopedic knowledge of the food stores under his responsibility.

I know that the whole Central and Eastern Regional Board will give him a fond farewell, and I would like to echo that here. We look forward to having as good a relationship with his successor.

City Supporters Trusts United Against Teen Cancer

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a big fan of Supporters Trusts. Supporters Trusts are co-operative of fans of a particular team (usually football, although rugby supporters trusts are coming into being as well), who aim to increase their voice at their supported club. Large football clubs in particular are notorious for exploiting their fans' loyalty but giving them little in return. Supporters Trusts aim to redress the balance, and can even end up controlling the club like at AFC Wimbledon, Exeter and our very own Cambridge City.

Supporters Trusts are great because they have a real co-operative frontier feel about them. They appeal to a largely different bunch than the consumer or worker co-operative movements, and are run by and for a group of ordinary sports fans in their spare time, trying to make their club and their community better.

The two Supporters trusts in the City of Cambridge; CCST and CFU support Cambridge City FC and Cambridge United FC respectively, and relations between them are always warm. Exhibiting the sixth and seventh Principles of Co-operation, they have come together to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust, a good cause if ever there was one. In best Supporters' Trust traditions, the event will take the shape of a football match between the two sets of fans at City's Milton Road ground.

The match takes place on Friday 4th December, and entrance will be free, but please do contribute to the bucket collection for the TCT!

Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Soccer_goalkeeper.jpg

Co-op Boss "Leader of the Year"

Warm congratulations to Peter Marks, Co-op Group Chief Executive, for having been named Leader of the Year at the National Business Awards. The award was given to Peter for the period in which he successfully steered through two mergers while managing to hold on to the high standards already in place for the core of the business.

Peter is a strong character, and can be a little ascerbic when questions from elected members aren't to his taste! But nobody can deny that his record since taking over the Co-operative Group has been superb, with the society advancing both in financial terms and in pursuit of its social goals. Well done Peter.

New for Norfolk

Exciting goings on in Norfolk. The Co-operative Group is opening a brand-spanking-new, lovely fully branded Co-operative Food store in the delightful market town of Wymondham (for those of you who aren't "from these parts", it's pronounced something like "Windham") later this week. This is in the premises that until recently was a Woolworths - if you know the town you will be aware that this means in a rather prestigious location on Market Street.

As an area committee member of the Cambridge and East Anglia area that covers this patch I'll be along this Saturday morning to try to encourage the good people of Wymondham to become members of the Co-operative Group. This way, they will receive the very worthwhile twice-yearly dividend and can play their part in the democracy of the Society if they wish.

Image of Wymondham's Market Cross taken from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wymondham.jpg. They used to nail live rats to it apparently.

Cambridge + East Anglia Meeting Report

The half-yearly meeting for members of the Co-operative Group in the Cambridge and East Anglia region went really well. This is one of the two more formal meetings during the year when the wider membership - the "ordinary members" if you will (although there is no such thing as an ordinary Co-op member!) receive presentations from their representatives about how their Co-operative Society has performed. And because we are a Co-op, we place just as much emphasis on our community work, our charitable giving, and our campaigns as we do on the financial side of things.

I am aware that I haven't posted anything yet on the interim results of the Group that were released in September. I'll just briefly summarise them here

Things are looking OK!

For those who like a bit more detail, our green food shops are doing great - and the Somerfield acquisition is looking good in these early days. So food retail is selling more and making more profit than this time last year. We are still doing well with our pharmacies, with a slight increase on last year's profits. Travel and Motor dealerships (we have inherited some car showrooms from our merger with United Co-ops) are obviously operating in markets that are very prone to the credit crunch, but are holding on in there. Travel made a reduced profit on an increased market share, while motors managed to break even. Funeralcare is doing well, boosted by acquisitions and improved marketing. Our other businesses such as farms, legal services etc. are generally doing as well, if not better, than 2008

That's the national picture - but this being a local meeting we were also told of the performance of just our region. In the Central and Eastern patch, food sales, funeral care and pharmacy all increased sales and profit, while our travel businesses saw slight declines. In food I believe we slightly outperform the national average.

So on a financial footing things are going well. But what about membership activity? I must admit that when Ranjit, our Co-operative Affairs Officer for our area, gave a list of the membership events, campaigns and community functions that we have put on or contributed to over the last twelve months, I was amazed by its length. As a committee member you often lose count of the number of events that our officers organise on our behalf, so a serious well done to Ranjit and the rest of the regional membership team.

The list included:

• Cambridge screening of Plan Bee


• Watch Your Waste event


• Share Your Profits scheme - Cambridge City FC


• Loads of Community Fund awards


• Fairtrade Fortnight


• Walking Buses


• Green Energy 4 Schools (including the first school based windfarm funded by the Co-op in Ely)


• Farm - to - Fork


• 2009 Strawberry Fair


• ICA day at Milton Keynes


• Title Sponsors of Cambridge Folk Festival


• Screening of Burma VJ


• Young Film Makers


• Ripple Effect member education

And still to come is Sugar Secrets (an expose of the sugar industry) and "The Wave" a march against climate change.

Of course, these members meetings are not just passive reception of presentations from the Co-op. They are also your chance to ask questions of officers and elected members. These can be regarding just about anything, such as trading performance, customer service, constitutional matters, or about our community involvement.

I thought that this year's questions were particularly good, and I include a brief, paraphrased Q+A report of a selection of them:

Trading performace / customer service
Q. Is the Co-op looking into self-service tills?
A. There is a trial going on at the moment at a number of sites in other areas. The jury is still out on self-service - we want to give as good a service as possible. We won't be rusing into this.

Q. Our Co-op in Dunmow has got a nearby Tesco's, as other stores do in the area. Can store managers with nearby aggressive competition form a mutual support group to swap ideas?
A. These issues are already discussed at regular managers meetings. Strategies to compete effectively are discussed and implemented.

Q. How is the Mill Road store doing in the face of competition?
A. We are performing even better than expected, and are finding that a small initial drop in sales is gradually building back. The pro-Co-op nature of the local community has been fantastic.

Q. Do we track the percentage of transactions made by members?
A. This is tracked in food stores and discussed by management. It is important to increase this value as members typically spend more per visit.

Q. Can we use Brittania branches to pay in cheques?
A. Not at the moment. The computer systems are incompatible. Hopefully this will change in the near future.

Membership Matters
Q. Thank you for the screening of the excellent "Vanishing of the Bees" film. Can we do something similar on the Tar Sands issue (extraction of oil from tar sands contributes even more carbon to the atomsphere than normal oil)?
A. Opposition to Tar Sands extraction is a major project of our Social Goals team. We are looking at the possibility of showing a film.

Q. Are there membership campaigns planned on local food sourcing?
A. Not at the moment - next year's action plan will be being considered by your area committee members very soon.

Q. How many young people are members?
A. The Co-op membership has been slightly older than the wider population for a long time. However, our new campaigns and the brand launch this year has meant that our new members are considerably younger. We want to have a good age mix representative of wider society.

I think that a very informative and enjoyable evening was had by all. It was good to see members attending for the first time, as well as of course our regular active members. Attendence was up on last year - whether this was due to the more central location or the advertising campaign and brand relaunch is hard to say.

Image is of the Cambridge Wickerman sourced from the website of the Co-operative Cambridge Folk Festival.

Half-Yearly Members Meeting

A reminder that as previously advertised, the half-yearly members meeting in the Cambridge and East Anglia area of the Co-operative Group will take place on Thursday 22nd October at the Gonville Hotel in Cambridge. Start time is 7pm.

On the agenda will be receiving reports on both the financial and membership activity in the area since the last meeting. There will also be the opportunity to vote for a member delegate to attend and observe the national Group AGM. This is a new departure for us as a Society, and has come about through the constitutional review process in recent years.

The meeting is open to all members of the Co-operative Group who live in Cambridge and East Anglia. Ideally however, you would let our lovely membership team know that you will be coming by emailing them on membership.central&eastern@co-operative.coop. Alternatively, you can now register online at the fantastic events diary: https://www.co-operativememberevents.coop/. This diary also covers all the other area meetings in the country, so be sure you select the right one!

Upcoming Events

Well, first of all my apologies at the lack of regular updates on this blog. Sadly, I think that this situation is likely to continue. I seem to be gaining additional responsibilities with various bodies, and my election to the Co-operative Group Central and Eastern Regional Board takes its toll as well. So this blog is going to be a little bit stuttering, but I hope to be able to use it as a noticeboard for upcoming events and as a way for Co-op members to get in touch with me.

Of the upcoming Co-operative events in this area, the most important is surely the Cambridge and East Anglia Area Half-Yealy Meeting on Thursday 22nd October. This meeting, open to all Co-operative Group members in the area, starts at 7pm in the Gonville Hotel (by Parkers' Piece), and is your chance to hold your area committee to account. You get to find out about the financial and membership performance of the Co-op in the area. All the elected members on the Area Committee are likely to be there, so come along and have a word!

A Watch Your Waste event will be held in the daytime on Tuesday 29th September at the University Arms Hotel in the centre of Cambridge. This will have lots of tips on how to make your food go further, and help to reduce waste in the kitchen.

Finally, we are planing a Sugar Secrets Event in Cambridge at some point in the near future to expose the dreadful conditions that some sugar farm workers have to endure, and the role that Fairtrade has to remedy the situation.

I hope to see you at one of the above events!

That Was the Weekend That Was

I, like everyone else I would imagine, had a great time at the Cambridge Folk Festival last weekend. Although this was the first time that the Co-operative Group was the headline sponsor of this most prestigious of folk festivals, I was there as a paying punter rather than as a Co-op membership operative!

But the Co-op stand was more impressive than ever, with the bubble machine adding to the atmosphere. The ever-delightful Co-operative Ethical Quizes were so popular that we were running out of question forms. The answers were to be found around the interactive Co-op stall, which showcased our community credentials, our windfarms, our committment to Fairtrade - in fact our all round ethical nature!

And as for the Folk Festival itself? Pretty much top draw in my opinion. I'm more of a fan of English folk than Americana, and I'm not sure if it was my imangination, but there seemed to be a little bit more of the home-grown stuff than usual. Compliments go to Jim Moray, reggae-folk crossover act Edward II, Lau, Calan, Spiro with their trance-folk and Ruairidh MacMillan and friends. You were my pick of the festival, and thanks to the Proper Folk store most of you are also very very slightly richer as a result of my purchases! Wild Willy Barrett's end of festival show was great but sadly about 40 minutes too short...

I can't tell you how glad I am that the Co-operative were so closely involved with a festival of such brilliance, and with values and principles so well aligned with our own. I hope that this relationship is a long and happy one!