The Co-operative College - a different kind of College for a different kind of business

You can download further details about the individual projects summarised below. The files are in pdf format. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print the files. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer you can download it from the Internet. It is free.

Fair and Square

The Fair and Square project is being run by the Co-operative College with funding from the Department for International Development.

The project aims to bring information to concerned consumers through a programme of educational work within the co-operative movement.
In addition to a dedicated website, Fair and Square will distribute publications and offer training courses to members and customers of co-operatives. Training events will also be targeted at active members within the co-operative movement – those who make decisions about ethical sourcing and who shape business strategies and food policies.

For more information please visit www.fairandsquare.coop

EU Leonardo – Grundtvig European Co-operation Project in Adult Education

COCADE – Co-operative Curriculum for Adult Education in Europe

The College is the lead partner in a three-year project under the EU Leonardo Grundtvig Adult Education programme to develop a co-operative curriculum for adult education in Europe (COCADE).

The overall objective of the project is to develop a common Europe curriculum and education materials for co-operative education that will help to strengthen the democratic nature of co-operative organisations amongst the partner countries.

The project focuses on an active learning methodology, targeting members of co-operatives, especially active members who are elected to serve on committees and in democratic structures, and educators and trainers working with co-operatives.

The project will result in a co-operative curriculum for member education, the provision of education materials, including learning modules and toolkit, backed up by Training the Trainers event and a website. Project partners are:

• The Vilnius Co-operative College in Lithuania
• The University of South Bohemia in the Czech Republic
• Trentino Co-operative Federation in Northern Italy
• The University of Economics, Bratislava, working with the Slovak Union of Producer Co-operatives

Member Education Programme for Europe begins.

Co-operative educators from Italy, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Lithuania were guests of the Co-operative College in Manchester recently for the first meeting of partners in an EU-funded project to develop a common co-operative education curriculum for members across Europe.
“With the increased recognition of the importance of co-operatives in Europe by the European Commission, this project is timely” commented Mervyn Wilson, Chief Executive of the Co-operative College, “Members are the very heart of our co-operatives, and through this project we aim to share experience and good practice, so that we can help strengthen the pivotal role that members play in the governance and democracy of their organisations.

Over the three year life of the project, we will map existing provision and levels of member involvement in co-operatives, and then work to develop and pilot new learning programmes and materials.”

Aurelija Cepiene from the Vilnius Co-operative College in Lithuania commented,
'I believe the project can help to open a new page in the history of co-operatives in Lithuania: the project will prove that cooperatives are not only soviet tools for "playing democracy" but they can be a means to strengthen social responsibility, tolerance and other democratic processes in a democratic country'.

Another partner organisation in the project Kamil Picja from the Univeristy of South Bohemia. added,:
' Despite of the existence of some co-operative education in the Czech Republic, we perceive a neccessity of a larger dissemination of co-operative principles in both adult and initial education. The project can reinforce the development in our country and deliver wide experience of other European partners with co-operative education and co-operative movement'.

The project partners met again in June 2006 in Trento in Northern Italy to discuss proposals for a core curriculum for member education, and start the process of drafting pilot modules.

Visitors from the COCADE project at the Rochdale Pioneers Museum.

More information is available on the EU - Information and Training website.

Université Coopérative Européenne

The Co-operative College has recently commenced work on a project to create a European Co-operative University for the co-operative and social economy sector with 20 partner organisations in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium and Poland.

The project, funded through the EU Leonardo Programme, aims to develop co-operation between social economy organisations, universities and training providers to support social entrepreneurship through training, research and co-operative learning methodologies.

The project will look at co-operative learning processes and methodologies used by project partners, and how these can be adapted for open and distance learning. Other working groups will explore resources, materials and training in the co-operative and social economy sector. A project website -
http://uce.universite-cooperative.coop/ will develop steadily over the life of the project.

West Midlands Social Enterprise - Creating and supporting stakeholder members in social enterprises

As an abstract concept, ownership, empowerment and stakeholding are interchangeable and synonymous with the social economy, yet there remains no strategy for making these ideals a reality.
This project was designed to address this issue and identify strategies for:

• Developing a greater number of active members
• Ensuring that the participation base is progressively widened to include a wider range of members
• Effectively supporting and retaining active members, for instance, through member education programmes.

West Midlands Social Enterprise - Social enterprise in the curriculum
Introducing the 'Not Just for Profit' toolkit

The 'Not Just for Profit' toolkit introducers social enterprise into the school curriculum for the 14-19 age group. Social enterprises are businesses which trade in order to bring about social and environmental improvements. It is a growing area which is receiving increasing recognition throughout society and is a rich seam for schools to mine.

The executive summary outlines what you will find in the 'Not Just for Profit' toolkit, the final output of a two-year research project.

West Midlands Social Enterprise - Building sustainable football supporters' trusts

This project focused on researching the learning needs of Supporters' Trusts and developing learning materials to meet these needs with the long term aim of building the sustainability of the trusts in the region.

Through the course of the project the trusts in the West Midlands have formed themselves into a viable and ongoing regional network, giving support and sharing information with each other. This can only help to promote their sustainability and there are clear signs that the strengthening of the trusts is stimulating wider community involvement, most particularly where a community partnership has developed.

Co-operatives Fighting Poverty

The Strategic Grant Agreement between the co-operative movement and the Department for International Development was launched at the House of Commons by Gareth Thomas MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for International Development, (DFID). The occasion also launched "Target 2015", a publication for co-operative members and customers on the challenges in combating world poverty.

A consortium of more than ten co-operative organisations, led by the Co-operative College, is involved in the Strategic Grant Agreement, adding weight to the fight against poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Joseph Stiglitz is an influential thinker and policy maker. He is former Chief Economist at the World Bank and is now Professor at Columbia Business School. His latest book Globalisation and its Discontents is an international best seller and he has recently published a paper exploring The Role of Co-operatives in Globalisation.

press release

2015 leaflet

SGA
agreement

Promoting Co-operatives - Implementing Recommendation 193

In 2002 the International Labour Conference adopted a new ‘Recommendation’ 193 on the Promotion of Co-operatives – an international policy guideline that provides a framework for co-operatives for the 21st century.

In response, the Co-operative College, in association with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), have published a guide for those who want to know more about the ILO Recommendation, and how to use it to help establish an enabling legal and political environment in which co-operatives can flourish.

The 65 page guide is laid out in an accessible style and includes a CD Rom containing translations of the recommendation and additional resources.

The pack includes:

• Introduction: why this guide?
• How to use the guide
• What is the ILO?
• What are International Labour Standards?
• Why co-operatives?
• Co-operatives and poverty
• What is so important about Recommendation 193?
• Considering the Recommendation
• Putting the Recommendation into practice
• ILO procedures
• Organising a tripartite seminar on Recommendation 193
• ILO’s core labour standards

Copies of the pack are available from The Co-operative College, Holyoake House, Hanover Street,
Manchester, M60 0AS priced £40.00 each.

For further information please refer to our web page Promoting Co-operatives

A network for young co-operators

CHAIN is a network for employees aged between 18 and 35 based in the Manchester Co-op complex. It aims to raise awareness for staff of their co-op and other co-ops, both in the UK and internationally, improve membership and include a social element.

Confidence Project

The two reports are based on the UK and Italian experience of financial participation by employees in co-operatives.

The Confidence Project was EU funded and headed by the Trentina Federation of Co-operatives from South Tirol in Italy, with the Co-operative College in the UK, the Mondragon Co-operative Corporation in Spain and other partners. The project derived from the growing interest in CSR in the private sector, through to which companies are required to take into account the interests of stakeholders other than their shareholders, ie including employees. Recent changes in Italian law led their co-operatives to become concerned of the dangers of co-operatives simply mimicking private sector on incentive schemes, rather than looking for methodologies for financial participation by employees consistent with co-operative values.

The timing of the project, which was completed in June 2004 was particularly useful for us in the UK. It provided an opportunity to review employee incentive schemes introduced in UK co-operatives since the successful campaign by Co-operativesUK that enabled all employee share ownership schemes (AESOPs) to be extended to members of co-operatives.

We hope that the papers that follow will help stimulate debate on the original aims of the project – the need to generate greater financial involvement by co-operative employees as distinct stakeholder groups in their enterprises, but in a way that is consistent with co-operative values and principles, and does not create distortions by advantaging one group of stakeholders against another.

Mervyn Wilson
Chief Executive and Principal
Co-operative College
26/07/2004

UK Report

Italian Report