The basic idea is very simple – co-operatives throughout the country are being asked to film what they do and what they think of co-operatives.

These short pieces of video will be edited together by the Media Co-op to make the finished product which will be released during Co-operatives Fortnight. It will be a truly co-operative film from start to finish. The Wales Co-operative Centre is among the organisations signed up, to participate.

The short film above helps to explain more about the project and what participants need to do.

You can sign up here to be part of this exciting collaborative film project. The deadline to sign up is 30 May and the deadline to submit your video is 3 June.

A set of instructions have been produced, for co-operatives who sign up for the project.

Thanks to Scotmid Co-operative, Chelmsford Star, Green City Co-operative, Handmade Bakery and Unicorn Grocery for taking part in the introductory film.

Jakub Plojhar from the Czech delegation discusses social enterprise with Wales Co-operative Centre Board Member Wynne Evans

Earlier today, Catherine Evans, Wales Co-operative Centre Marketing Manager, accompanied a delegation from the Czech Republic on a visit to Cardiff social enterprise Vision 21. Here’s her story…

I’m just back from spending the morning with a group of visitors from the Czech Republic. They’ve spent the week in Wales to find out about social enterprise. I went with them to Vision 21 in Cardiff, a social enterprise which provides training and work to people with disabilities.

The Czech Republic has a well developed tradition of
co-operatives, stemming back 160 years. Agriculture and housing are two sectors which are largely based on
co-operative models. However, the concept of social enterprise is much less well known, and the group (which included people from the South Bohemian Chamber of Commerce, a university economics department, local government and civic bodies) had come to Wales to find out more about how social enterprises can provide employment for people who are furthest from the main-stream labour market.Vision 21 was founded in 1987 and currently provides over 350 student placements each week. It has 16 different social enterprises to support training into the world of work and further learning for people with differing needs and styles. Its projects provide the students with the opportunity to broaden their life skills in real work settings.The building which I visited with the delegation from the Czech Republic was the Sbectrwm Centre in Fairwater, Cardiff.

The morning began with a tour of Sbectrwm led by Diana O’Keefe, manager of Vision 21’s ICT training project. Delegates were shown the pottery workshop, the community garden and the café, and had a chance to talk to some of the students based at the Centre.They then heard from Diana about the way in which Vision 21 works with people who have a wide variety of physical, emotional and social needs. It was interesting to learn how the organisation teaches soft skills – such as time management, self confidence and working independently – as well as basic literacy, numeracy and IT skills, and vocational skills.

Rhian Edwards from the Wales Co-operative Centre spoke about the co-operative and social enterprise sector in Wales, and explained how the economic challenges facing Wales are often best tackled by social enterprise and co-operative solutions. She highlighted the huge variety of sectors where co-operatives and social enterprises are thriving.

Simon Harris, Wales Director of Business in the Community, discussed the way in which the private sector can play a role in society by adopting responsible business practices. He outlined four pillars of responsible business – care for employees, care for the community, care for the environment, and responsible supply chains.

The Czech delegates asked plenty of questions about how social enterprise is supported and its relationship to government bodies. They were also curious about Wales’s relationship with the European Union, and the level of EU support for social enterprise.

It was a fascinating morning and great to showcase one of Wales’s best known social enterprises to an international audience.

The Wales Co-operative Centre is keen to help communities across Wales to help themselves. We want to encourage the development of community co-operatives that engage with community members, provide vital services and create much needed jobs.

This seminar is aimed at people who are interested in finding out more or want to set up a community co-operative in their area.

Where and when?

• Porth, Too Good to Waste, Tuesday 30 April 2013, 10am – 1pm

This seminar will provide:

• Historical background to the co-operative movement
• Co-operative Principles and their relevance in today’s society
• Information on the pros and cons of developing a Community co-operative
• Issues to think about when setting up a community co-operative
• Information on suitable co-operative structures
• Examples of successful community co-operatives

Who should attend?

• Key decision-makers and policy advisors
• Community development workers
• Community activists
• Community First co-ordinators and support staff
• Community regeneration specialists
• Economic development specialists
• Grant givers and funding bodies
• Anyone interested in setting up community share schemes

Book your place now by completing our online booking form. Places are limited so please book early to avoid disappointment!

Employee ownership experts from the Wales Co-operative Centre will be joined in the Cardiff event this Tuesday (“3rd April) by Chris Earnshaw, managing director of John Lewis Cardiff. Chris will look at how Employee Ownership in John Lewis gives the group a competitive advantage over other businesses within the retail sector. He will explore how John Lewis manages its employee ownership structure, its engagement with its Partners, (staff) and provide an insight into the benefits employee ownership can give companies of every size.

Britain’s most famous employee owned company, the John Lewis Partnership recently announced a bonus worth 17% for each employee – equivalent to nine weeks pay. The Partnership currently employs over 84,000 people and has paid a bonus of at least 9% since 1999/2000.

Employee ownership is a concept that is becoming more and more popular in Britain due to the increased recognition of it as a means of sustaining growth and encouraging innovation within companies. In fact, according to industry experts Field Fisher Waterhouse by September 2012, an investment of £100 in employee owned companies in 1992 would have returned £661 compared to the same investment at the same time in the FTSE All-share which would have returned just £244.

Employee ownership can also be effective as a long term succession strategy. Several models can be used to allow business owners to sell shares directly to employees or to a trust working on behalf of the employees (similar to the ‘John Lewis Model’). The move towards employee ownership is flexible and can be utilised over a timescale that suits the owners, the employees and the company.

Aberystwyth biotech company Aber Instruments is employee owned. It’s Finance Director Barry Wise and his co-founders decided to pass on the business to their employees as part of a long term succession strategy. Barry retires from Aber Instruments this year and is joining the Wales Co-operative Centre at the breakfast events to talk about the benefits of this approach for business owners looking to retire or for business owners looking to grow their business.

Places for the Cardiff event and the events in Swansea and Newport can be booked online at http://www.walescooperative.org/business-succession-events or by calling 0300 111 5050

What is co-operative housing?

Co-operative housing is a form of housing where members (either tenants or owners) democratically control and manage their homes and play an active role in the life of the communities they live in. Co-operative housing is very common in other parts of Europe. There are a number of different types of co-operative housing, either for rent or for sale but they have one fundamental thing in common: they put democracy and community ownership at the heart of housing.

Some of the advantages of co-operative housing are:-

• An affordable form of home ownership

• A democratic and safe community

• Long term financing and security

• Flexible to meet occupiers needs

• Potential of shared benefits of communal energy

What is the plan for co-operative housing in Newport?

Seren’s plan for the old Pirelli site is to create a community of around 200 homes which will be a mix of homes for rent and to buy. The vision is of an ‘urban village’; bringing the community benefits of village life to the heart of the City. Seren would like to include an area of co-operative housing in this development, if there are enough people interested.

Why are we reaching out to you and what should you do next?

We are trying to find out whether you are interested in knowing more about the development of the Pirelli site and whether you are interested in being a part of the co-operative Seren wants to support on the site.

If you are interested in finding out more, please go online using this web address

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/co-operativehousinginnewport.

You’ll be asked to answer a few questions about yourself, your family, your current housing situation and to provide your contact details.

We will then write to you with more information about co-operative housing and an invitation to attend an event to tell you more about Seren’s plan and the types of co-operative housing that may be possible.

If you have any questions about this matter, please contact Dave Palmer from the Wales Co-operative Centre on 029 2055 6169.

Thank you.

The procurement awards aim to highlight the good practice of both procurement teams who purchase services and goods for the public sector, and the businesses that supply them. Dynamix won the ‘Most Improved Supplier Award’ at the ceremony which recognises a supplier who has made use of the support services to improve their tendering methods and thereby improved their chances of winning public sector contracts.

Amy Sanders

Dynamix was set up in Swansea 23 years ago and has built up a reputation for working with children, young people and adult community members and the professionals that support these groups.

Amy Sanders is one of the directors of Dynamix. She commented,

“The decision to give the award to Dynamix is a tremendous opportunity to both shine a light on social enterprises and how they can make a meaningful contribution to supply services to local authorities and public bodies.

With such a thriving social enterprise sector in Wales, we believe that a social enterprise succeeding in the Procurement Awards is a sign that the proportion of services supplied to the public sector by social enterprises is growing. Social Enterprises need to be recognised for the additional benefits they bring to the public sector. As award recipients, Dynamix hope we can continue to advise how procurement can be done in a way that values social enterprises and does not disadvantage them.

The tendering process is seen as such an obstacle for some social enterprises and Dynamix are so proud that we have been recognised for the enormous hard work we have invested in order to be able to meet the exacting requirements so that we can compete on an equal playing field. It has really paid off in Dynamix’s ability to secure significant contracts and broaden our work.”

Alex Bird, one of the partners in the co-op, realised after working with a number of community co ops trying to finance projects through share issues, that whilst they could market themselves easily to local people, communicating to the wider public wasn’t easy on a small budget. He and his colleagues have worked with community shops, community centres, pubs, football and rugby clubs, festivals, food co ops, bike shops, off-road cycle centres, recycling projects, gyms and energy co ops, and all had difficulty marketing their share issues. Many didn’t proceed with a share issues because they couldn’t see how they would get sufficient share sales and the activists involved looked to other sources of finance such as grants and loans.

Some projects they’ve worked with have been very creative in their share issues, linking up with credit unions and CDFIs to enable people to get lines of credit or save up to buy shares, but they still find it difficult to contact their diaspora, and you can only raise so much from local people.

Many projects have a wider appeal than just their immediate neighbourhood, and there is a large body of people across the UK and further afield who don’t have a project nearby but would like to support one. Real ale pubs, vegetarian and vegan shops, football clubs, and of course ecological and green energy projects are examples of projects with a broader appeal, but many such projects weren’t getting through to their potential share buyers, and at times weren’t hitting their finance raising targets.

After many discussions about who wasn’t doing what and whose job it was to sort out this problem, and why “they” should be doing it, consultancy.coop did what co-operators always do in the end – got on with it themselves.

Using the well-known open source software from WordPress and with the help of Co-operatives UK Internet Services they have set up a .coop site from their own resources.

The new website is up and running at http://www.shares.coop and features all the Community Share Issues they know about free of charge in a classified style listing, plus lots of advice and guidance. The site is presently entirely self-funding, although as it develops they hope to bring some sponsorship on board in order to raise income and grow the site, so they offer paid for features as well as the basic free listing.

Help them improve their SEO and get up the Google ratings by visiting the site, telling your friends, blogging, tweeting and linking your website to theirs.

• Cost to you £0
• Principle 6 credibility – Priceless

Held across Cardiff City Hall and the nearby Hilton Hotel, TAI 2013 will look at current challenges in the Welsh housing sector as well as future opportunities.

Over three days – Tuesday to Thursday – a number of keynote addresses and workshops will be held, with the Wales Co-operative Centre among the organisations represented. 

On Wednesday, our Co-operative Housing Project Manager Dave Palmer will be running a workshop that will look into this emerging theme. Dave will provide an outline of the eight ‘pioneer’ co-operative housing projects across Wales, along with details of research that is being carried out into the topic and information on three ‘focus’ projects in Cardiff, Newport and Llanelli.

On the same day, Jocelle Lovell – Project Manager of our Tackling Homelessness through Financial Inclusion project – will be involved in a session that will look at the potential impact of the forthcoming Welfare Reforms and what they mean from a financial inclusion and social housing perspective.

We will also have staff on an exhibition stand at the event (Hall B, stand 42), on all three days, promoting the work of the Centre, including the recently launched Money Made Clear Wales website. If you’re attending the event, find out how the Wales Co-operative Centre is working with the housing sector in Wales and how we can support you and your organisation, to lay the foundations for future success, across the projects that we run.

Sarah’s house

Women around the world are improving their lives through membership of co-operatives and selling their produce through Fair Trade. Through visiting Fair Trade producers I gained an insight into this.

Sarah is a farmer in Ghana with the Kuapa Kookoo Co-operative, which represents over 45,000 cocoa farmers through 1300 co-operative societies.  As a fan of co-operatives I had long admired this organisation.  After a tour of the cocoa fields, Sarah was really eager to show me her house which she was immensely proud of. She explained that it was only through being a Kuapa farmer (and thus their growing exports through Fair Trade), that she had been able to afford to build the traditional mud and clay small house. Women’s Development groups are also run to help women be financially independent, for example, by starting micro-businesses outside the cocoa growing season.

Another remarkable outcome of Kuapa Kookoo’s work is the number of women on its National Executive Council, which at 6/10 bucks the national trend. This is because each farmer has a vote and can stand to represent the local co-operative society at the area and main board. They also send one man and woman from each village society to the Annual General Meeting where main decisions are made.

Sarah working at Kuapa Kookoo Co-operative

So many women I met talked most about their children’s future and education is key to that. Whilst sometimes education is free, there are often school fees, uniforms, books and pens to buy that exclude some of the poorest paid. The basic long term income from Fair Trade helps them do that as well as feeding their children.

Ann Summa and other tea farmers in Kerala, India, live in the Ellapara mountains and own small areas of land they grow tea on. They collectively sell their tea as a consortium and through selling a tiny percentage of their tea on Fair Trade terms, she is able to keep paying their older children’s college fees. At a meeting of the Women’s Group they discussed how to spend their future Fair Trade premium. The amount was likely to be smallish and although they would have liked to have some kind of visiting medical clinic, they decided instead to spend the money on organic farming, so they no longer had to use the same tools containing pesticides. They explained how whenever they tried this their children had much better health compared to regular sickness after conventional spraying.  This correlated with the story of Bella Joachim, a Banana farmer from Dominica who I met on tour in Wales during Fair Trade Fortnight in 2009.  From her point of view, as well as having a better price, the most significant change from Fair Trade was in better health and safety procedures.

Fair Trade garment factory, India

In rural Tamil Nadu, India, I was amazed to visit a garment factory with a crèche on site. The factory only makes Fair Trade goods. This meant women, who formed the majority of the workers, could go to work and earn their own money and hence have some financial independence. As the factory pays relatively well for the area it is also key to keeping people in the community, as many young people in India migrate to large towns to find work. Women’s’ groups, which were small groups of women who were waiting for employment at the factory and did cotton bag sewing, were so successful and in such demand that they had been extended to men’s groups.

Elizabeth Hudson visisted Kuapa Kookoo with Fair Trade Wales in 2008 (to represent the Centre’s Fair Trade Business project) and India in 2007 as a personal trip.

Five years ago, Wales became the world’s first Fair Trade Nation. This was an unprecedented achievement and marked years of hard work from grassroots campaigners, schools, faith groups, business and Government. So this Fairtrade Fortnight there is more reason than ever to celebrate.

And what better way to celebrate than to attempt a Fair Trade themed world record! This year, the people of Wales are invited to share what the Fair Trade Nation means to them by sending in postcards from their own corner of Wales. It can be a simple sentence, a doodled drawing or even a cheeky tune. Whatever your message and however you chose to express it, it will then be collated together to make up to the largest ever post card to be shared with the world later this year. All that’s left is to find a big enough stamp! You can find details of this exciting attempt and download your own Fair Trade Nation postcards on the Fair Trade Wales website.

That’s not all either, Fair Trade Wales and Welsh campaigners have partnered with the Fairtrade Foundation, Zaytoun & Cafe Direct to bring Fairtrade producers from Uganda, St Lucia and Palestine to Wales. They will be sharing their stories about the transformative impact Fairtrade is having on their lives at a whole host of events up and down the country involving school, councils, business and even government reflecting all aspects of the Fair Trade Nation. You can find out where your nearest Fairtrade Fortnight event is taking place by checking our events page.

If that doesn’t take your fancy, why not throw your own Fair Trade Nation party. You could invite your neighbours and celebrate with some Fairtrade bubbly or orange juice and lots of Fairtrade food. If you fancy a more sober occasion, why not arrange a debate? You can invite your local MP and ask them what the Fair Trade Nations means to them. Finally, how about taking inspiration from the Fair Trade Nation and joining the remarkable Enough food If… campaign.

Whatever you choose to do, we can be enormously proud of the contribution Wales has made and continues to make towards the cause of trade justice. So let’s get celebrating!

There’s more information on Fairtrade Fortnight on the Wales Co-operative Centre website.