The Directors, members and staff of the Robert Owen Society share the family grief and sense of national loss of our Queen. She was an emblem of our Nation for most of our lives such that so many of us measured our lives against hers. The national grief is very...
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In 1997 the Robert Owen Group launched a co-operative school centred initial teacher training project through the Marches Consortium and in partnership with the University of Gloucester. The scheme rapidly grew and became the largest of its type in the United Kingdom , successfully training over 3,700 post graduates who now work in our schools and colleges with many at senior leadership levels. Alongside this we launched a Master’s level programme for trainers in schools and for former trainees and teachers to access as career progression.
It became clear that the absence of an institute of higher education in the Marches sub region posed a real impediment to developing research, seminal thinking and platonic discourse. We often ignore the valuable infrastructure that comes with a quality centre of higher education. The Directors of the Marches Consortium developed a Robert Owen Learning Academy in Leominster and encouraged many ‘hub’ schools to have satellite post graduate libraries for their ‘clusters’.
This is all now background history but our 1998 creation of “query” as a radical journal of left field thinking has now in 2021 led to the addition of this section to the Marches Hive website. We want to stimulate thinking, discussion and the sharing of relevant news and knowledge.
We called the original 1990’s journal query because our minds turned to the creation in the 1870’s of the Tredegar Medical Aid Society which started life as as ‘Health and Education Fund’. In 1920 Walter Conway , Aneurin Bevan and others formed the radical Query Club as a new development. The Club was a cross between a debating society, a mutual support group , a focus for sharing contemporary knowledge and a body set on advancing radical thinking to address the issues of the day. In those times adult education was very much in cells following on the model of the early Methodist house groups.
We believe the challenges of today in many ways mirror those of one hundred years ago and we do encourage everyone’s to engage with query and to share your thoughts, views, knowledge and understanding so that we can all grow together . Thank you
News Articles
CIVIL SOCIETY
PART 1 – WHERE WE ARE TODAY By Amelia Washbourne and Christopher Morgan We feel that through query we now need to raise the level of Socratic discussion if we are to salvage some vestiges of UK democracy. At one level civil society can be understood as society...
New report: Co‑operatives help tackle mental health and employment issues experienced by younger people
A chronic lack of awareness is damaging the ability of co‑operatives to provide answers to social issues faced by younger people. Offering Hope to Future Generations, a new report from trade body Co-operatives UK, finds that mental health, job security, career...
Yalla: Co-operative tech careers with greater growth and opportunity
When graduates of digital bootcamps in the UK and Palestine joined forces, they created an international co-op that’s skilling up its young members and giving them a voice. A web design and development agency, Yalla Cooperative is a group of young tech...
Village Greens: A joyous co‑op job that makes you feel better…
Surrounded by a supportive co-op team in a positive atmosphere, 29-year-old Steph found purpose and peace of mind during the Covid-19 pandemic, and beyond… When Stephanie Rutherford moved to Prestwich, just north of Manchester, in her late 20s, she was looking for a...
South Africa: Urban Farm Brings Hope, but It’s a Daily Battle
Members of a farming cooperative in Thembisa are trying to change their impoverished circumstances by turning unused land into a thriving agricultural project. An initiative meant to fight hunger in Thembisa, Gauteng, is struggling to realise its goal amid the many...
Reaping the benefits of cooperatives in Uganda
Abiro Joyce, a 52-year-old mother, smiles and points to her son seated on his new motorcycle, a bike that he’s bought with the proceeds of his cassava crop. “I used to live in a grass thatched house and I am now living in a permanent house and able to educate my...
From Two Wheels to Four
Lukwago Ashalaph, 25, is one of the youth members of Nabukalu Co-operative Savings & Credit Society (NCSCS) in Mukono. For Ashalaph, his success story began when he joined NCSCS, gained access to financial services and was able to purchase a car. Prior to joining...
Sheema Financial Service’s Road to Success
Sheema Financial Services Co-op Society Ltd, one of UCCFS’s first members, weren’t always a cooperative; they began as a small business with only 100 customers. However, the community and members were soon asking for it to become a cooperative, so they converted to...
Co-operative Union trains over 25,000 dairy farmers
Meru Central Dairy Co-operative Union recently held its 7th Annual Meru Dairy Famers’ field day at Meru Gitoro ASK grounds, where over 25,000 farmers were trained on modern dairy farming practices. Over 150 exhibitors attended the event—the county Governor Hon....
