Hi All,
I hope everyone is well.
Wendy from Co-ops UK has emailed to ask if the Co-Tech would be interested in joining the Festival of Co-operative in Rochdale on 20th June. Details as sent by Co-ops UK below. It’s a straight copy and paste, so the ‘we’ is Co-ops UK, not Co-op Web, and the ‘me’ is Wendy, not me 
The public facing festival is replacing Co-op Congress this year, as we celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Rochdale Pioneers, as well as our own 150th anniversary.
We’ll have several marquees (pictured) and a Big Top tent outside Rochdale Town Hall, and we’d love to showcase a diverse range of co-ops, delivering some interactive demos that families can take part in.
Activities planned include:
• Tshirt printing and badge making
• Actors playing the Rochdale Pioneers
• Music, choirs and poetry
• Ceilidh dancing
• Yoga or other wellbeing activity
• Pavement art
• Food and drink tasters
• Street food and picnic area
• Speakers corner
• A collaborate ‘hashtag mosiac’ work of art
• Public debates
• And much more! (That’s where you come in?!)
We’d love to introduce the idea of coding and raise the profile of tech co-ops to the public. Is there an activity that you might like to run with children and young people to introduce simple coding? My kids use Scratch but I am sure there are other activities that you could do. We do have some indoor space in the Town Hall available too.
The aim of the festival is to challenge perceptions of what people think a co-op is, and to celebrate the inspiring heritage of Rochdale as the home of co-operation. We expect people to be surprised to learn that all the businesses taking part in the festival are co-ops!
As well as attracting a local family audience, we’ll be filming the event to share on social media, and hopefully recording a podcast from a couple of the debate sessions. So the event will reach a much wider audience.
There’s no charge to take part, and we may be able to help with travel costs. There is a folk festival also taking part in Rochdale over the same weekend, and we’re holding our AGM and the Co-op of the Year Awards on the Friday, so you could make a weekend of it!
We only have space for around 20-30 co-ops, and we’re inviting co-ops that can run activities that will be of most interest to the family audience we hope to attract.
Please can you let me know if this is of interest and maybe we could have a chat about how your activities might work?
We plan to have all co-op demos confirmed by the end of March. So please let me know either way if of interest.
Speak soon