Co-op News (August 2019)
What is co-operative culture - and why does it matter? This issue looks at how co-op values intersect with the values in organisations, across movements and between countries. Plus 100 years of the Channel Islands Co-operative – and how the new Coop Exchange app is tackling the capital conundrum.
What is co-operative culture - and why does it matter? This issue looks at how co-op values intersect with the values in organisations, across movements and between countries. Plus 100 years of the Channel Islands Co-operative – and how the new Coop Exchange app is tackling the capital conundrum.
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“ROGER’S<br />
FAITH GIVES<br />
HIM A STRONG<br />
BELIEF IN<br />
EQUALITY.<br />
CLEARLY, THERE<br />
ARE CROSSOVERS<br />
BETWEEN<br />
A RADICAL<br />
CHRISTIAN<br />
POSITION<br />
AND CO-OP<br />
PRINCIPLES”<br />
as a student at Cambridge, where he met<br />
an American missionary and experienced<br />
a transcendental moment. This made him<br />
realise that he had to find ways to put his<br />
faith into action.<br />
In later life, his experiences in the<br />
workplace convinced him there was a<br />
role for Christians in business; but the<br />
structures where he worked did not allow<br />
him to do what he felt was needed. He<br />
pr<strong>op</strong>osed changes but the shareholders<br />
disagreed with him.<br />
But then came a visit to Israel, where he<br />
worked on a kibbutz making tools – and<br />
devel<strong>op</strong>ed his ideas about worker co-<strong>op</strong>s.<br />
He says the Quaker business method<br />
helped his thinking on consensual<br />
decision-making – and he decided the<br />
co-<strong>op</strong>erative model was the most suitable<br />
for putting his values into practice<br />
because it lacked the paternalistic<br />
dimension of Quaker businesses.<br />
Mr Sawtell was also one of the<br />
co-<strong>op</strong>erators who helped to draft the rules<br />
of the <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>erative Production Federation,<br />
later known as the Industrial <strong>Co</strong>mmon<br />
Ownership Movement (ICOM) rules. ICOM<br />
would merge with the <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>erative Union,<br />
forming <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>eratives UK – and the new<br />
rules were put to test at the Daily Bread<br />
<strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>erative, which Mr Sawtell founded.<br />
Daily Bread <strong>op</strong>ened its store in October<br />
1980 and it has been seeking to live up to<br />
its original ideals ever since, providing<br />
quality, wholesome food at a fair price. Its<br />
continued success saw it win the Growing<br />
<strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>erative category in the <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> of the<br />
Year Awards 2017.<br />
Even today, almost 40 years later, Daily<br />
Bread has a strong Christian ethos, with<br />
u his congregation in Mondragon,<br />
the Basque <strong>Co</strong>untry, as the town tried<br />
to recover from the Spanish Civil War.<br />
In 1956, he created a social business based<br />
upon the principle of equality. He saw<br />
co-<strong>op</strong>eratives as the perfect solution to<br />
the town’s unemployment crisis.<br />
Since then, Christian groups<br />
around the world have set up similar<br />
co-<strong>op</strong>erative ventures. Among them was<br />
Roger Sawtell, founder of Northamptonbased<br />
Daily Bread <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>erative – recently<br />
given a Lifetime Achievement Award at<br />
the <strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong> of the Year Awards <strong>2019</strong>.<br />
Talking to Nick Matthews, chair of<br />
<strong>Co</strong>-<strong>op</strong>eratives UK, he explained how<br />
after a 20-year career as an engineer<br />
at Spear and Jackson in Sheffield, he<br />
started looking for ways to put his faith<br />
into practice.<br />
“Roger’s faith gives him a strong belief<br />
in equality,” says Mr Matthews. “Clearly,<br />
there are crossovers between a radical<br />
Christian position and co-<strong>op</strong> principles.”<br />
An Anglican, Mr Sawtell lives in<br />
a Christian community with his wife of 61<br />
years, Susan, a Quaker.<br />
Although he attended church at<br />
Wortley, Yorkshire, during his childhood,<br />
the turning point in his faith came to him<br />
30 | AUGUST <strong>2019</strong>