Niagara Sustainability Initiative (NSI) is the not-for-profit organization engaging and connecting businesses in Niagara in an effort to advance economic and environmental sustainability. We work to help businesses identify, understand and reduce their carbon...
THe MArches hive
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Stay up to date with all Marches Hive activity by viewing our news posts below.
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
New £16m Social Enterprise Support Fund targets 50% minority grantees
The Social Enterprise Support Fund will deliver a further £16.3m in grants to social enterprises across England, with inclusion, diversity and equity a “top priority”, the fund’s partners announced today. Applications open on 25 November, with around...
Letasi – With Love
Gertrude Gum is a 25year old from Northern Uganda who developed the idea for Letasi Oils and crafted and implemented it in 2020 having realized the effects of the first lockdown on young mother’s especially. In March 2021 Letasi Oils was registered as a Community...
The platform helping pet owners find the paw-fect match
Finding someone to look after your pet can be a struggle. It’s why Deb Webber created Pet Cloud, to connect pet owners to carers across the country, and make an impact along the way, writes Maggie Coggan in this month’s Spotlight on social enterprise. Regularly...
The new brew that’s saving young lives
Suicide is the biggest killer of 18 to 24 year olds in Australia. Mood Tea, a new social enterprise selling tasty blends of tea, is on a mission to change this, writes Maggie Coggan in this month’s Spotlight on social enterprise. For the past 16 years, social...
Change Please – A successful English social enterprise
Change Please, started in 2015 in London by giving homeless people the opportunity to run their own mobile coffee shop. Since then, the company has been very successful. Change Please’s coffee is now available in Virgin Atlantic’s aircraft, the company has started...
Building schools out of recycled plastic
Could a new Eco-Block be the answer to rebuilding 200 schools in earthquake-devastated villages across Indonesia? Nikki Stefanoff speaks to the founder of Classroom of Hope to find out. When Duncan Ward from Classroom of Hope appears on my screen from his home in...
Measuring Values – Is this possible?
Historically, values have been seen as ephemeral, hard to grasp, not quantifiable and in this mistaken belief provides one of the greatest challenges to values being taken seriously. Organisations take income and profit or surplus seriously because it is measurable....
From Tczew with Love
“Szafa serc”/Wardrobe of Hearts/ Charity Shop is a new social initiative based in Tczew, Poland, which started its’ activity in June this year. Recently we’ve visited “Szafa Serc”, as we were interested in finding out on our own how the 1st charity shop in Tczew...
Kuźnia cafe from Gdańsk, Poland – pleace run by people with big hearts!
The Kuźnia cafe belongs to the network of social companies run by the Foundation for Social Innovation. It was established in 2012 as a place of first contact with work for young people from foster care facilities and other educational institutions...
