Bath Meeting hosts ‘Co-operative’ event
Friends in Bath hosted an event called ‘Do It Ourselves! How Can We Make Bath a Co-operative City?’
Bath Quaker Meeting hosted an event called ‘Do It Ourselves! How Can We Make Bath a Co-operative City?’ It was supported by the Bath & West Cooperative Party and Bath Cooperative Alliance.
Those who attended on 2 June heard about the newly community-owned Komedia comedy club, tech cooperatives and the new Bath Cooperative Alliance, which is enlisting local residents and organisations to reshape the Bath economy and reflect ‘the values of social need over competition and private greed’.
William Heath, from Bath Meeting, told the Friend: ‘Bath has had a history of cooperatives with which Quakers have been involved, including Bath and West Community Energy, The Bell Inn and Bath City Football Club. A momentum has gathered.’
According to William Heath, Quaker involvement in setting up cooperatives is acknowledged in the recently published A short history of co-operation and mutuality by Ed Mayo, secretary general of Co-operatives UK. The book acknowledges the Quaker influence on the movement and uses an iconic Quaker image for the front cover: ‘The two mules.’
