A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization. Building societies offer banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage lending. Building societies exist in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and used to exist in Ireland and several Commonwealth countries. They are similar to credit unions in organisation, though few enforce a common bond. However, rather than promoting thrift and offering unsecured and business loans, the purpose of a building society is to provide home mortgages to members. Borrowers and depositors are society members, setting policy and appointing directors on a one-member, one-vote basis. Building societies often provide other retail banking services, such as current accounts, credit cards and personal loans. The term "building society" first arose in the 19th century in Great Britain from cooperative savings groups.
A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. Cooperatives may include:
The Abbey National Building Society was formed in 1944 by the merger of the Abbey Road and the National building societies.
Rediff.com is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City.
Companies House is the United Kingdom's registrar of companies and is an executive agency of His Majesty's Government, falling under the remit of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. All forms of companies are incorporated and registered with Companies House and file specific details as required by legislation. All registered limited companies, including subsidiary, small and inactive companies, must file annual financial statements in addition to annual company returns, and all these are public records. Only some registered unlimited companies are exempt from this requirement.
Give-away shops, freeshops, free stores or swap shops are stores where all goods are free. They are similar to charity shops, with mostly second-hand items—only everything is available at no cost. Whether it is a book, a piece of furniture, a garment or a household item, it is all freely given away, although some operate a one-in, one-out–type policy. The free store is a form of constructive direct action that provides a shopping alternative to a monetary framework, allowing people to exchange goods and services outside of a money-based economy.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is the regulator for nursing and midwifery professions in the UK. The NMC maintains a register of all nurses, midwives and specialist community public health nurses and nursing associates eligible to practise within the UK. It sets and reviews standards for their education, training, conduct and performance. The NMC also investigates allegations of impaired fitness to practise.
The Freecycle Network is a private, nonprofit organization registered in Arizona and is a charity in the United Kingdom. TFN coordinates a worldwide network of "gifting" groups to divert reusable goods from landfills. The network provides a worldwide online registry, organizing the creation of local groups and forums for individuals and nonprofits to offer free items for reuse or recycling and to promote a gift economy. In contrast, although flea markets and swap meets also contribute to the 3 R's, they involve mainly buying and selling or bartering rather than gifting.
Co-operative Group Limited, trading as Co-op, is a British consumer co-operative with a family of retail businesses including food retail, wholesale, e-pharmacy, insurance and legal services, and funeral care.
A social enterprise is an organisation that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners.
The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is a non-departmental public body of the Home Office of the United Kingdom. The DBS enables organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors to make safer recruitment decisions by identifying candidates who may be unsuitable for certain work, especially involving children or vulnerable adults, and provides wider access to criminal record information through its disclosure service for England and Wales.
The United Kingdom is home to a widespread and diverse co-operative movement, with over 7000 registered co-operatives owned by 17 million individual members and which contribute £34bn a year to the British economy. Modern co-operation started with the Rochdale Pioneers' shop in the northern English town of Rochdale in 1844, though the history of co-operation in Britain can be traced back to before 1800. The British co-operative movement is most commonly associated with The Co-operative brand which has been adopted by several large consumers' co-operative societies; however, there are many thousands of registered co-operative businesses operating in the UK. Alongside these consumers' co-operatives, there exist many prominent agricultural co-operatives (621), co-operative housing providers (619), health and social care cooperatives (111), cooperative schools (834), retail co-operatives, co-operatively run community energy projects, football supporters' trusts, credit unions, and worker-owned businesses.
In organization theory, mutual aid is a voluntary reciprocal exchange of resources and services for mutual benefit. Mutual aid projects can be a form of political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions.
Humanity First is an international charity that provides disaster relief and long term development assistance to vulnerable communities in 52 countries across 6 continents. The organisation is run by volunteers with diverse skillsets across the world and has access to thousands of extra volunteers worldwide. Volunteer staff in all areas often pay their own expenses to support the international projects.
UK Property Shop Ltd – trading as UK Property Shop – publishes an online directory of UK Estate Agents and Letting Agents known as The National Directory of Estate Agents.
Wikimedia UK (WMUK) is a registered charity established to support volunteers in the United Kingdom who work on Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. As such, it is a Wikimedia chapter approved by the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns and hosts those projects.
The Big Society is a political ideology developed in the early 21st century. The idea proposed "integrating the free market with a theory of social solidarity based on hierarchy and voluntarism". Conceptually it "draws on a mix of conservative communitarianism and libertarian paternalism". Its roots "can be traced back to the 1990s, and to early attempts to develop a non-Thatcherite, or post-Thatcherite, brand of UK conservatism" such as David Willetts' Civic Conservatism and the revival of Red Toryism. Some commentators have seen the Big Society as invoking Edmund Burke's idea of civil society, putting it into the sphere of one-nation conservatism.
Mark Boyle, also known as The Moneyless Man, is an Irish writer best known for living without money from November 2008, and for living without modern technology since 2016. Boyle writes regularly for the British newspaper The Guardian, and has written about his experiences in a couple of books. His first book, The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living, was published in 2010. His fourth book, The Way Home: Tales from a life without technology, was published in 2019. Boyle lives near Loughrea, in the west of Ireland.
A diving instructor is a person who trains and usually also assesses competence of underwater divers. This includes freedivers, recreational divers including the subcategory technical divers, and professional divers which includes military, commercial, public safety and scientific divers.
Waste House is a building on the University of Brighton campus in the centre of Brighton on the south coast of England. It was built between 2012 and 2014 as a project involving hundreds of students and apprentices and was designed by Duncan Baker-Brown, an architect who also lectures at the university. The materials consist of a wide range of construction industry and household waste—from toothbrushes and old jeans to VHS cassettes and bicycle inner tubes—and it is the first public building in Europe to be built primarily of such products. "From a distance [resembling] an ordinary contemporary town house", Waste House is designed to be low-energy and sustainable, and will be in continuous use as a test-bed for the university's design, architecture and engineering students. The building has won several awards and was shortlisted for the Royal Institute of British Architects' Stephen Lawrence Prize in September 2015.
