We’ve had a great day at Co-op Congress on 4th/5th July and talked about all the great stuff that some of you have been part of and made happen.

You can watch the session we were part of here. It was a panel of ‘New Pioneers’ sharing some good work that is happening all over Greater Manchester and nationally - our Kal is on from 14:55 & there’s also Grace Blakeley, exciting author who writes about economy, speaking before him + Steve Coogan chats to Grace about why he’s excited about our work too.

The Rain Came Down. Middleton Still Turned Up!

Middleton Cooperating's Annual General Party | 18 September 2026

Despite the torrential rain, members and friends joined us at Bo-Jangles Theatre for Middleton Cooperating's Annual General Party (AGP), an evening of celebration, reflection, community connection and looking ahead.

We kicked things off with poetry from the wonderful Skye Lily, who encouraged us to take a moment to ground ourselves, before sharing updates on the work happening across Middleton.

We’ve got great news to share with you all!

We’re ready to go massive and do even more amazing things with you all in Middleton.

In the early 1970s, local government decided it was time for a tidy-up. As part of the Local Government Act 1972 (which actually kicked in during 1974), places across the country were reorganised—including Middleton and the Langley Housing Estate.

We would like to invite you to the party that our AGM (Annual General Meeting) will be on Tuesday 10th September from 5pm at the Edgar Wood School Rooms on Long street in Middleton.

The doors will open at 5pm.

We’d love to invite you to the Middleton Co-operating Launch Party!

It's time for us to officially launch the movement & celebrate our achievements so far.

We're excited and delighted to say that Lankelly Chase, a major national grant-funder, have granted us £100,000 to support our work in Middleton.

Most of this money will go towards employing our first person - a "Development Lead" - who will work alongside our management committee over the next 18 months or so to build on the foundations we have put in place, and help us start to deliver the changes we want to see.

We're hoping they will be in place by the spring/early summer.

The “community wealth building” movement has grown out of a recognition that, in many places, rather than staying and circulating in local economies, money and wealth are extracted and tend to be concentrated in wealthier locations elsewhere. Added to this, over recent decades, attempts at regeneration or economic development have struggled to deliver in a sustained way across communities – partly because of this wealth extraction, but also because the idea of “trickle-down” or “trickle across” hasn’t worked well in practice.

We try to teach young children to be kind to each other and to share things; but when they're older, they're often told that the world’s not like that and they’ll have to be careful and look out for themselves - that it’s competitive out there, everyone for themselves.

But we know it needn’t be like that, and that it’s better to work with others to solve problems.