Co-operative College Receives Funding Boost from Central England Co-operative

Posted by rob smyth | Published: 29/07/2021

The Co-operative College has received a significant funding boost from Central England Co-operative, who have donated £15,000 towards its training and project work in the UK and across the globe.
The donation comes at a key time for the College, with a new leadership team now in place and plans underway to develop a strategy that meets the needs of the co-operative movement and beyond in a post covid world.
Neil Calvert, CEO and Principal, Co-operative College said: “We are extremely grateful to Central England Co-operative for their support, both financially and also in the form of their ongoing commitment to work in partnership with the College. Our new leadership team is already hard at work developing our new and enhanced learning offer, and this donation will go a long way towards helping us bring those plans to fruition to benefit co-operators at home and abroad.”
Jim Watts, Central England Co-operative Society Secretary, said: “All of us at Central England are delighted to have been able to support the College and its work in this way. As one of the key principles of co-operation, education is crucial to not just our co-operative movement but society as a whole. In addition to installing the College as our learning provider of choice, we look forward to strengthening our relationship and would encourage all organisations across the movement to use the College’s wide range of services.”
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To request interviews with spokespeople, please contact:
Andrew Mallinson
Marketing and Communications Manager
The Co-operative College
Email: andrew@co-op.ac.uk
Tel: 07419 210 082
Notes to Editors
About the Co-operative College
● Founded in 1919, The Co-operative College is an educational charity that’s regarded as a leading provider of education, training and research across the UK and around the world.
● As a membership based organisation, the College promotes co-operative values, ideas,
principles and practices, equipping individuals with the skills and knowledge to transform their
lives for the better.
● The College has successfully completed projects across the globe, working with communities
in Rwanda, Malawi and Sri Lanka, as well as closer to home in towns such as Rochdale, the
birthplace of the modern co-operative movement in the UK.
● As an educational charity, both individuals and organisations can donate towards the
College’s life changing work, enabling further growth and expansion of its activities in the UK
and around the world. More information is available at www.co-op.ac.uk/donate.
About Central England Co-operative
Central England Co-operative is one of the largest independent retail co-operative societies in the UK
with interests in food, funeral, floral and property investment.
Owned by hundreds of thousands of members, its over 7,800 colleagues serve customers across 400
plus trading sites in 16 counties in the East and West Midlands, Yorkshire, Suffolk, Norfolk,
Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
Its purpose is to inspire communities to create a sustainable Society for all.
It actively campaigns for the Government to increase sentencing for violent attacks on retail workers
and works with FareShare Midlands and hundreds of food banks, generating enough food donations
to create over 2.1 million meals for people in need.
The Society embraces inclusivity and equality and is a signed-up member to the Business in the
Community (BITC) Race at Work Charter, while it is also fully committed to addressing the impact of
climate change and is on track to be Carbon Neutral by 2030.
It invests a percentage of its trading profit into local communities through its Community Dividend
Fund scheme which has seen over £175,000 shared out between 116 good causes over the past 12
months.
Central England Co-op was named Leading Co-op of the Year by Co-operatives UK in 2021.
Press office contacts: Rob Smyth and James Brindle
Phone - 01543 421390
Email - publicrelations@centralengland.coop