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.

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!