We’re back to the 80’s again with this image from Wolverhampton in 1984 – was the photographer inspired by Flashdance? Would that PPE pass muster today?
JD Fabrications took out a loan to help them buy equipment and kit. They are still running today, providing services as Structural Steel, Stainless Steel and Aluminium Fabricators, and Welding Specialists.
In our series of conversations with friends from our fifty years so far, today we meet David Dickman. David was a trustee for ICOF from 2001 to 2007. David was, and remains, an investor in ICOF, too.
‘I was a regional general manager for The Co-operative Bank and I looked after a lot of the key sectors, including co-ops for them. To be invited onto the ICOF Board was very interesting for me in that I moved from an organisation with a very well known, well established and respected brand, in terms of size and market place, to an organisation that was very sustainable, with an enthusiastic board and a very few employees. What struck me immediately was that they were able to help individual businesses within the social enterprise and the co-op sectors, but they never really had the muscle, the clout, to make a major impact.
But it was a sustainable business, making real change at a community level, and I really liked being part of that. It also had a very loyal investor base – it’s amazing that that’s where they got their capital from in the first place. I still have investment, and I’ve told my sons that when I pop my clogs, I want them to leave it in there.
I think my main contribution might have been to get them to change the name! ICOF – or Industrial Common Ownership Finance – which did not resonate with me or, I thought, the general population. I proposed Co-operative and Community Finance, which I thought summed it up.
I remember working with Ian Taylor and Andrew Hibbert, really dedicated lending officers who really understood community business. Neither of them were trained bankers but they were both bloody good at their job. The Trustee/Director weekend event was always good, too, always well structured and enjoyable. As Trustees, we were well looked after.
I’m delighted to say ‘Happy birthday’ to ICOF. 50 years is a considerable milestone. I can’t help feeling that all the people involved with and concerned with CCF can feel proud of the number of businesses that they have helped over the years and it goes without saying that I look forward to it surviving for another 50 years of doing good in a social environment.
Residents of East Budleigh aim to attract more visitors and secure the long-term future of their community pub with a plan to refurbish the upstairs apartment as self-catering tourist accommodation.
The Sir Walter Raleigh pub has quickly become a favourite in the region after being purchased by residents as a community pub with the help of Co-operative & Community Finance’s ‘More Than a Pub’ finance package in 2022. Since taking ownership the community has come together to repaint, refurbish, provide new signage, as well as make improvements to the rear beer garden and courtyard.
The restaurant and bar areas have also been redecorated along with new appliances installed in the kitchen. These changes have not gone unnoticed with support from both locals and visitors alike taking the Sir Walter Raleigh’s Tripadviser ranking from 15 out of 16 local restaurants to 1st within 6 months. This huge achievement over a short period of time along with very positive reviews has led to the pub being awarded a Travellers Choice Award by Tripadviser.
The Sir Walter Raleigh committee are now ready to begin the next stage of development which includes the refurbishment of the apartment above the pub as self-catering tourist accommodation. The plan is to completely renovate, redecorate and furnish the space including a new kitchen, bathrooms and central heating system which will attract more visitors to the area as well as provide more revenue to the already thriving community asset.
Co-operative & Community Finance were pleased to help secure some of the funding for the accommodation upgrade as a second loan following on from their ‘More Than a Pub’ legacy scheme in 2022. Tim Coomer, Business Development Manager Co-operative & Community Finance said: “We are really pleased to be able to support the Sir Walter Raleigh with their refurbishment plans, the holiday accommodation is a really important part of their revenue stream. East Budleigh is such a great village and who wouldn’t want to stay in the thatched ‘chocolate box’ pub.”
The Pub operates a regular Walt’s Café open weekday mornings from 10:00am to 12:00pm which is staffed entirely by volunteers as well as providing a Silver Service club for Seniors offering a 2-course meal for £10 every Thursday. Regular quiz, music nights and community led events have been extremely popular with locals also. The renovation of the upstairs accommodation will widen the pub’s offer to the walkers, cyclists and tourists visiting the area and means the committee can continue to be proactive and adaptable in how the business is managed ensuring the Sir Walter Raleigh’s long-term future.
Mark Duffelen, Chairman said: “We’re thrilled with the way the Sir Walter Raleigh has developed over the last year and are incredibly grateful to Co-operative and Community Finance for their support, particularly their understanding of the social benefit of what we’re trying to achieve and the speed with which they responded to our needs. The ability to let our accommodation will make a big difference to our financial viability and we look forward to a prosperous future.”
The legacy ‘More Than a Pub Fund’ scheme provides loan finance of between £75,000 to £150,000 available to Community Owned Pubs at a discounted rate of interest for members of the Plunkett Foundation, length of term ranges from five to twenty years. Please contact Co-operative & Community Finance for the full terms and conditions, and to discuss how your Community Owned Pub venture can be supported.
You can find out more about the Sir Walter Raleigh pub by visiting their website.
There’s something very tangible about lending a business money to buy a whacking great piece of machinery.
Ever wondered why businesses that rent our machinery are called ‘plant hire’? Apparently it comes from the verb ‘to plant’ in the sense that we ‘plant our feet’ on the ground and the heavy objects are also planted on the ground, for the hirer to use in their own way.
In 1983, we lent to KER Plant in Northampton, so they could add to their stock of hireable equipment. We’re not sure if the loan funded this digger particularly. KER are still in business, – if you need a skip in Northamptonshire, they can help you out.
In April 2022, we signed The Diversity Forum’s Manifesto.
When we wrote about this at the time, we said ‘We are sharing this with you not just to demonstrate our commitment to equity, equality, diversity and inclusion but also to ask you to hold us accountable and support us on our journey to get there.
We’ve now created a new page on our website which we will update, so it charts the key steps we take on our journey.
We are grateful to all those who have worked with us on this over the last year, as and we thank those people for their continued support in finding a common path forward.
If we want to build a better, fairer world – and we do – all voices need to be included. We know that voices of those marginalised and silenced need not just space to speak but space to be truly heard. When any of us are used to privilege, movement towards equality feels like oppression, and our responses to what is said matter. We’re proud to be on this journey and welcome any feedback you have on our progress so far.
Today in our series of interviews looking back over 50 years of friendship and finance, we meet Cath Muller of Radical Routes, a mutual aid network of co-ops committed to working for radical social change.
One of the things we do at Radical Routes is make loans to our Members using money invested by the public. Many of our Members would not be able to get started or develop without the financial support we provide as most conventional banks are not prepared to lend to the kind of project we aim to support. Over the years we have lent over £1.5 Million to member co-ops without any bad debts.
Radical Routes started in the mid-80s and had started making loans by the time my co-op joined in the mid-90s. ICOF has handled the admin and back office of the loans for us for more than 20 years and I’ve always enjoyed meeting up with them at events and conferences.
I remember hanging out with Ian Rothwell at a Worker Co-op Weekend – possibly the first one? – and we had a nice long chat about his worker co-op experience in Hiziki Wholefood Collective, a fantastic wholefoods shop in Nottingham. We walked and talked politics and it was really nice to find our political connecting points. That’s one of the great things about being around co-ops people – they get where you are coming from. Understanding that people have got into finance – which seems incredibly legalised and stuck inside a capitalist, patriarchal system – in order to create autonomy and challenge inequality – that’s why we organise as worker co-operatives.
I’ve hung out with the CCF team at Future Co-ops and Congress too – I remember a quiz where Ian got pretty excited about being able to ask so many questions about coop finance, and at Congress once, Radical Routes hadn’t managed to get a stall, so we were trying to get rid of stuff out of a suitcase, which the crew were happy to have next to the ICOF table. How very co-operative!
Happy birthday ICOF – a very many happy returns to you. Happy Birthday!
The sign on the van proudly proclaims Hastings Furniture Service to be ‘your community business’.
We think that this photo dates from 1998 when we lent to them to refinance their property. Was this one of the earliest uses of the term?
HFS is still trading, as a charity now. Their website says that they ‘provide affordable reused furniture, helps low-income households to furnish their homes, collects surplus furniture and appliances for reuse, and provides practical opportunities for people to gain skills, experience and confidence.
Every year the HFS team:
We’re incredibly proud to be sponsoring the STIR Magazine 10th Anniversary Lecture Demanding Democracy: Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century, as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations this year
Taking place on the Thursday 18th May, this lecture will mark ten inspiring years of the Stir to Action magazine.
It will be delivered by Carne Ross, a former British diplomat who resigned over the Iraq War, who is now a writer and thinker on new forms of economy and democracy, to meet the demands of the 21st century. Carne founded and led Independent Diplomat, the world’s first ever non-profit diplomatic advisory group, working with democracy groups and liberation movements from Kosovo to the Western Sahara and Syria. Carne has also contributed to many major publications and broadcast outlets, and is the author of two books, most recently The Leaderless Revolution: how ordinary people can take power and change politics in the 21st Century.
We’re really looking forward to what will be an inspiring start to the Stir to Action Festival – will we see you there?
Book now to join us at Stretford Public Hall – itself a community owned and run venue.
Today in our 50th anniversary stroll down memory lane, we meet Charlie Cattell, a former Director and Chair of ICOF, who was involved in ICOF in various ways for almost twenty years between 1986 and 2004
I’d worked full time for ICOM from 1986 to 1996. Part of my role at ICOM was liaising with ICOF. They had been sister organisations since the ‘70s though running independently, and I supported liaison between the two. Then, in 1996 I went freelance and got a contract with ICOM and ICOF jointly to do policy and promotion work. I did that for two or three years – I was out and about and representing them at meetings and events and preparing PowerPoint presentations for others to use at their own events, that kind of thing. Then I was a director of ICOF from 1998 to 2004, and Chair from 2001 until 2004.
The liaison work between ICOM and ICOF was interesting. These were two organisations which had come from one common origin – Scott Bader – but over time, they had evolved to become quite independent of each other. Communications between the two organisations were sketchy at best – meetings were meant to be held every few months but often didn’t happen for one reason or another. The liaison work I did for them in the early ‘90s helped bring the two organisations back together and led to them going on to work together on bigger projects, for example with the UK Co-operative Council.
When the Industrial Common Ownership Fund was launched as a PLC (in 1987), that was a fantastic development – I am sure the organisation would have been long since consigned to history without it, it was visionary and truly brave. PLCs and co-ops had never mixed before – PLCs were big scary things – we were used to little private companies and co-ops. It made a huge difference.
As an ICOF board member, there were always challenges and one I remember was an ongoing debate about the scope for diversification, which some thought necessary to keep the organisation relevant. At one stage, there were ‘the purists’ who wanted to stick with ICOF’s historic mission of promoting worker co-ops and democratic employee ownership, and another wing which wanted to diversify info microloans to support small business start-ups. All agreed that such support was valuable but we could not all agree that it was ICOF’s role to provide it. Over the years, many people had put a lot of work, time and trust into ICOF as an organisation because of their commitment to the principles of democratic employee ownership. There was an argument that if there was no longer a demand for what ICOF was offering, then ICOF should cease to exist rather than go off in a different direction. That particular battle raged for some time but ultimately the decision was taken not to diversify in that way.
One of the things I appreciated about ICOF was that the staff were really good about recognising that we as directors were volunteers. In the voluntary sector, a lot of people who give their time get taken for granted, but the staff of ICOF would always remember that we were volunteers and thank us for that. Once a year we’d have an away day, and it was never a dry stuffy event. We once went on the London Eye and to Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant. Fifteen was set up as a social enterprise, providing training and jobs for homeless people, and we had an extraordinary meal. It was funny. The restaurant staff told us about this incredible five course meal. As directors and good little volunteers, we were trying not to spend too much money and we tried to order just two courses, but the restaurant was adamant that we have the fully curated five course meal. We were all being so cautious, trying to save money wherever we could!
I’m very happy to see that ICOF is still going and has stayed true to its roots through recessions and all the disasters that have hit UK society in last 50 years. So happy birthday ICOF! You have managed to stick to your important if not widely understood mission and I’m proud to have been part of it.
This photo from the archive is a real mystery – we think this was 1985 but that’s about all we know!
Retro Housing Action – a housing co-operative – wanted to buy a property and we were glad to help them. Who’s this little person? Where are they now? Were the chickens part of the scheme? So many questions!
Since publishing this article, we’ve been told by Ian Taylor that this was a Birmingham organisation. The photo is what was an urban city farm in Mitcham, Surrey – the photo was used for promotion but they did not become a borrower.