test please delete

[BrilloPad]

How was yours (obvious injury problems aside)?

The injury issues wrecked everything. Back in the office today - walk to station from home and other station to office took twice as long. I can't even think about cycling yet. Its clearly going to take a long while to recover.

[LondonManc]

The Co-op have redesigned themselves around stores of a certain size. Above that size and the co-op store "concept" doesn't work so they try and offload the store to someone else instead.

Locally I have one co-op to the west of us (in the new Garden Village) which is probably suffering after an Aldi and M&S opened next door 18 months ago and in the shops in the "village" to the East we have 2 co-ops. One store is too big for the Co-op but too small for anyone else to want it so it remains a co-op. I should point out that I live within a half a mile of both - it's just this side of town is expanding rapidly out to the motorway.

They've been trying to do that for the last 20 years! Failed to realise that they needed to keep some of their big supermarkets to maintain buying power with the suppliers - as long as the big stores aren't running at a loss, keep them open to keep cost prices down.

[eek]

They've been trying to do that for the last 20 years! Failed to realise that they needed to keep some of their big supermarkets to maintain buying power with the suppliers - as long as the big stores aren't running at a loss, keep them open to keep cost prices down.

It doesn't work when the big supermarkets run at a loss due to lack of sales caused by higher prices.

[original PM]

Ours has been there for donkey’s years; I used to shop there when I lived near here around 1990. It’s a 1920s or so style building, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was originally built by East Midlands Co-op, or whatever they were called back then.

There’s one in a suburb-that-used-to-be-a-village not too far away that’s being taken over by Morrisons in a month or so

There are still quite a few 'Co-ops' in the UK - many people (like me) just assumed all Co-ops were part of the same business.

Does not help that when they did the re-brand in 2009 the branding was not just used by the Co-operative Group (which is the main one) but also by all the other 'independent' Co-ops which still exist.

I probably know a lot more about this than i should so i won't bore anyone.

[BR14]

There are still quite a few 'Co-ops' in the UK - many people (like me) just assumed all Co-ops were part of the same business.

Does not help that when they did the re-brand in 2009 the branding was not just used by the Co-operative Group (which is the main one) but also by all the other 'independent' Co-ops which still exist.

I probably know a lot more about this than i should so i won't bore anyone.

I'm sure JtB would be happy to discuss it at length should anyone care

[WTFH]

I'm sure JtB would be happy to discuss it at length should anyone care

Has anyone ever seen him and OpM in the same room at the same time? #JustSayin

[NickFitz]

Links are up

[NickFitz]

There are still quite a few 'Co-ops' in the UK - many people (like me) just assumed all Co-ops were part of the same business.

Does not help that when they did the re-brand in 2009 the branding was not just used by the Co-operative Group (which is the main one) but also by all the other 'independent' Co-ops which still exist.

I probably know a lot more about this than i should so i won't bore anyone.

Write it all up, stick it on a blog, and it’ll make perfect Monday Links material

[DoctorStrangelove]

Though apparently it might rain later

Yes it waited until I was a quarter of the way up the hill, by the time I got to the top I had to put the brolly up.

Another broken night’s sleep, once I finally managed to drop off, which itself took absolutely ages

Bummer.

I seem to be getting used to this.

Maybe it's me age, like.

Ours has been there for donkey’s years; I used to shop there when I lived near here around 1990. It’s a 1920s or so style building, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was originally built by East Midlands Co-op, or whatever they were called back then.

There’s one in a suburb-that-used-to-be-a-village not too far away that’s being taken over by Morrisons in a month or so

Ours burned down in the 1970s IIRC, the theory being that it was arson to conceal naughty goings on.

My cousin (adopted) was sent down for 18 months in connection with the naughty goings on, rather than the arson.

IIRC he was paid £150/week when that Was A Lot.

It was rebuilt, then eventually closed the nonfood side of it, the food bit remaining until the Millennium IIRC.

Now the nonfood bit is the JobCentrePlus(tm), while the other bit turned into some sort of primary health place.

One of my mates in Ye Newe/Olde Sloughe of Desponde lives down west and is greatly pissed off that his local Co-op shop in ?Crosshads? is shut or shutting.

A man for food bargains is our Gareth.

Just remembered: 2nd computer I bought came from Swansea Co-op in that large building that now holds TK Max, whatever the feck that is.

It was a Dragon 32, reduced to £30, now essentially valueless, they don't even make the 6809 anymore & haven't for 20 or so years.

The first computer was a Jupiter Ace, for which I paid the princely sum of £38 and which is essentially quite valuable if ebay is anything to go by, assuming that the prices indicated ever get paid.

The Briton Ferry & Neath Co-operative Society (1916-1975) originated in Briton Ferry and later expanded to Neath where in the 1950's they opened the town's first supermarket in Alfred Street.

With over a dozen branches of varyng size in the Borough (Neath and Briton Ferry), they ruled the roost in the grocery and butchery business until their demise in the in the mid 1970's by which time Tesco were on the scene with a supermarket in Queen Street.

Said Tesco is now a Sports Direct emporium, within which I've never been.

The other Tesco that replaced it was itself replaced by the Neath Abbey store, chopped in half to fit a Wilko's in one half, then closed & demolished.

There are grand plans for the site but I'll have croaked before any of it happens.

Lunch was poached tomato and scrambled egg on Morrisons sunflower and pumpkin seed toast (crust), this being preferable to the multi seed variety, followed by 1.05 pints of good Glengettie tea.

This used to be a Co-op branch back in the day:

Google Maps

Funeral home now.

[LondonManc]

There are still quite a few 'Co-ops' in the UK - many people (like me) just assumed all Co-ops were part of the same business.

Does not help that when they did the re-brand in 2009 the branding was not just used by the Co-operative Group (which is the main one) but also by all the other 'independent' Co-ops which still exist.

I probably know a lot more about this than i should so i won't bore anyone.

First and last sentence do not go hand in hand. If you assumed all Co-ops were part of the same business then you don't know much about the Co-operative movement.
Allegedly CWS and CRS was a merger in 2001 - nothing at all to do with the co-operative values and principles of a society having an obligation to save a failing society if possible, honest.