The £221,275 donation guarantees funding for the clubs for three years More than 190 primary schools are set to benefit from Lincolnshire Co-op’s Community Champions scheme, with a £221,275 donation for breakfast clubs. This is a record-breaking tally for the co-op,...
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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
Newton Farm deserves a better deal
Newton Farm, Hereford By Amelia Washbourne, Director, The Robert Owen Society I am concerned about the people in poverty and suffering from the effects of deprivation in the South Wye area of Hereford. Across the county there were 18,500 people living in deprived...
Butterfly Events – Off to a flying start!
The Butterfly Events logo Our reporter in Uganda, Jimmy Oryema Martine recently interviewed three dynamic, young entrepreneurs in Gulu, Uganda about the work they are doing in the hospitality sector. Butterfly events started in March 2020, right at the verge of the...
Meet … Mike Smyth, chair of Energy4All
Mike Smyth has been chair of Energy4All, a family of 30 independent renewable energy co-ops, since 2014. He also chairs the Schools’ Energy Co-operative and the Wey Valley Solar Schools Energy Co-operative. Previously, he was chair of Friends of the Earth Trust from...
Community wins £500,000 in funding for remotest mainland pub
Image caption,Owner Jean-Pierre Robinet has spent 10 years as Britain's remotest mainland publican A community hoping to take over Britain's remotest mainland pub has won more than £500,000 in funding. The Old Forge in Inverie is on the Knoydart Peninsula in Lochaber....
Esther: “My heart was always in community development”
What most people don’t know about me is that I’m a fully trained engineer, but I veered off that path to pursue that which sets my heart on fire – working with underprivileged children in the slums of Nairobi. I studied telecommunications and information engineering...
Tradition broken in Hereford
The Hereford Diocese has a woman Dean for the first time in its 1,300-year history. The Very Revd Sarah Brown was installed October 2 during a special choral evensong, opened her sermon by thanking everyone who had made her so welcome in Hereford. She joins Hereford...
Turning a cafe into a supermarket – how a Salford social enterprise is transforming how a community can address health inequalities.
If you were asked to picture our health system you’d probably think of hospitals, GP practices, ambulances and care homes. What you probably wouldn’t think about are gyms, childcare, woodland adventures and supermarkets. In Salford, Greater Manchester, one social...
Ruba Media – Changing the World!
Meet Douglas Rubangakene, a Ugandan social entrepreneur or as he says “I am a young go-getter, fully determined and inspirational.” He grew up and lives in Uganda in the town of Kitgum district (once a war zone area) and loves loves sports and Music. Douglas...
Meet Zoe from Free Range Family Co-op
Interview with Molly Kendall, Coop Federation “Sorry about the rooster in the background” Zoe chimes into our Zoom call from her parent’s farmhouse on the Darling Downs, Queensland. Zoe has taken time from her busy life as a new Mum, full time vet and...
