Cambridge Co-ops

The Co-operative Group has a strong presence in the City of Cambridge, with 8 food stores (including the Mill Road supermarket), a branch of the Co-op Bank by the Grafton Centre, a Pharmacy branch, also on Mill Road, and a Funeralcare branch on James Street (just off Newmarket Road). In addition, of course, insurance from CIS, and electrical goods from the Co-op E-store are available over the internet.

The area covered by the Cambridge and East Anglia committee is much wider than this, however, with large food stores in Haverhill, Littleport, Linton, Chatteris and Dunmow amongst others. Co-op Group Pharmacies are spread throughout East Anglia - especially around the Great Yarmouth area.

All of these businesses are owned, collectively, by the members of the Co-op, and are run purely in the interests of their customers and their community. Profits don’t go to any shareholders – they are distributed to individual members, invested back in the business, or donated to charitable, community or co-operative projects and organisations.

If you’d like to help the co-operative grow, prosper and more closely follow your and your community’s priorities, please join us.

First Post

This is the first post of The Cambridge Co-operator, and I'd like to introduce myself and the reasons for this blog's existence.

My name is Sam Tudor, a resident of Cambridge, and I rather grandly think of myself as a co-operator. By this I mean that I think that the Co-operative Values and Principles are an excellent way to run things, and generally support their implementation in businesses, public services and government.

I was fortunate enough to be elected onto the Cambridge and East Anglia Area Committee of the Co-operative Group. This means that if you are a member of the Co-operative Group (formally CRS) in Cambridge or East Anglia, I represent you. Feel free to leave a comment on a recent post here to get in touch with any issues that concern you.

Co-operative Group businesses are not the only co-operatives in Cambridge. There are two excellent worker co-ops in the wholefood trade: Daily Bread and Arjuna; the Argyle Street Housing Co-operative; and two credit unions (co-operatives for saving and borrowing money) that cover the patch: Rainbow Saver Anglia Credit Union, and the North Cambridge Credit Union.

I am also a member of the Co-operative Party, which seeks to promote Co-operative principles and values in local and national government, in partnership with the Labour Party.

The main reason for setting up this blog was to enable easier communication between the wider membership of the Cambridge and East Anglia area of the Co-operative Group, and a member of the Area Committee. It was also to redress what I felt was a shortfall of websites promoting co-operative ideals.

Yours in Co-operation!

Sam

UPDATE 13/5/08: Email address removed to prevent spam. You'll just have to use the comment boxes!