...all six members received a pot of primulas Photo: Photo: Louise Docker / flickr CC
Eye - 14 June 2013
From blossoming membership to cooperative bookworms
Blossoming membership
Maldon Meeting, in Essex, has recently welcomed six attenders into membership; something that records show hasn’t happened in over fifty years!
In April, Friends held a welcoming party and a ‘bring and share’ lunch, along with others from the Area Meeting.
Sue Smith, clerk of the Meeting, said: ‘We enjoyed an entertaining quiz and a delicious lunch at tables decorated with pots of primulas donated by a Friend. Afterwards, readings were shared and chosen books presented. All six members received a pot of primulas.’
She added: ‘The day was very enjoyable and provided an unforgettable way to be welcomed into the Society, making each new member feel special and very much part of the group. It would be interesting to hear how other Local and Area Meetings welcome their new members.’
Cooperative bookworms
In August 2011 Clevedon in Somerset was facing the closure of the last bookshop in town. Twelve people gathered in the Quaker Meeting house, a mixture of both Friends and members of Transition Clevedon. There they each purchased ten of the first £1 shares in the Clevedon Community Bookshop Co-operative.
They certainly didn’t rest on their laurels… by the end of the first public meeting in September the twelve had become 150. With the help of publicity from Co-operatives UK, and after eighteen months of trading, there are now over 600 members across the world.
Angela Everitt, a local Friend, got in touch after the Salter Lecture inspired Friends to share their experience. Although not a ‘Quaker bookshop’, she writes, ‘Quaker values and experiences guide our thinking’.
‘Our aim is to maintain a sustainable bookshop. And, through events and courses, to enhance the literary and literacy profile of our town: there is hardly an evening when the lights are not on.’
The bookshop is a real community effort: ‘Members work voluntarily for and/or in the bookshop… fifty shopworkers mean that we never close; cataloguers upload books for internet selling; bookbinders repair books for the bookshop and for customers; a team organises and caters for events; people read stories for children; and the window-dressing team. Member workers are invaluable, as are the many people who donate and buy books, often themselves cooperative members, shaping a different relationship between retailer and customer. Trading figures look good.’
Having celebrated their first year as a community-owned enterprise, there is no sign of the group slowing down: ‘The experience has been exhilarating and not without difficulties. We now have time to reflect, and will prioritise the need to address complex processes of working cooperatively.’
Comments
Wonderful story!
By Friends House Moscow on 13th June 2013 - 13:55
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