Neon Street are delighted to announce the completion and delivery of the “Co-Operative Shorts” project; a six part audio series on the co-operative business model.
A group of media students from across the East of England have produced series of radio programmes to be broadcast across several community radio stations.
The students worked with The Co-operative Central and Eastern Membership team to produce the six-part series of programmes, named “Co-operative Shorts”, which detail the development of the co-operative business model from its roots in 1844 Rochdale, to modern day.
The project comes as part of Co-operatives Fortnight 2011 (25 June – 9 July), an annual campaign from the UK’s co-operative sector that aims to raise awareness of how co-operatives offer an alternative, innovative and successful way of doing business.
Media students from Cambridge Regional College, City College Norwich and CSV Ipswich used the project to develop their understanding of media production and gained practical skills and experience in broadcasting throughout the project, which ran from (November 2010 to May 2011. Broadcasting professionals, Pamela Mungroo and Phil Pethybridge, supported the students during the project and worked with them to develop their understanding of the co-operative movement.
As well as looking at The Co-operative Group’s ongoing worldwide initiatives, such as Fairtrade and tackling global poverty, three episodes from the series have been dedicated to local co-operatives across Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. The local co-operative’s were chosen by the students and demonstrate the diversity of co-operative’s across the region; from jazz clubs to amateur theatre companies, bee-keeping and markets.
The series of “Co-operative Shorts” are also now available to listen to and download online, or pick up one of the 1,000 limited edition CDs which have been produced to celebrate Co-operative’s Fortnight.
Sabina Crouch, Co-operative and Membership Officer for Cambridge and East Anglia said: “The theme of this year’s Co-operatives Fortnight is ‘Yours to Share’ and this project is a fantastic example of how we encourage local communities to work together and share their experiences co-operatively.
“The students have created an inspiring series of programmes, which demonstrate just how diverse the co-operative group is, and the vast number of co-operatives that currently thrive in the local region, as well as demonstrating the roots of the early co-operative movement in Rochdale.”
To listen to, or download the series, please visit www.neonstreet.net/coop