Over the last few months we’ve been keeping you updated on the CIS Tower’s newest residents, the Manchester peregrines. The peregrine couple moved from a secret location in Manchester to the top of the 118 metre tall Grade II-listed building – home of The Co-operative Financial Services, earlier this year.
After the birth of two peregrine chicks, and the unfortunate loss of one of them, the remaining chick is preparing to leave its parent’s nest for good.
Carolyn Jarvis, People Engagement Manager fromRSPBtells us: “The RSPB’s Manchester Peregrine project has been full of excitement from the word-go this season. It took us by complete surprise when the adult peregrines moved nest earlier this year. We still don’t really know why they moved, and we may never know, but who can blame them…what a prime spot!
“We don’t know for sure where the remaining peregrine chick will go when it leaves the nest – peregrine doesn’t mean ‘the wanderer’ for nothing! It’ll stay around until around the end of August or so, then it will be shown ‘the door’ by its parents. It’ll then take a year or two to develop into an adult, then it will find a territory and a mate and hopefully have some chicks of its own.
“TheRSPBteam – Clare, Hugo, Caroline and Lizzy and all the volunteers, wish to thank CFSfor their interest and support. It’s been great talking to staff at the view point in Manchester’s Exchange Square. We also wish to thank Neil Dawson and Ben Downer from CFS – for granting us and BTOaccess to the building. Also, a big thank you to Adrian Dancy for his AMAZING pictures that we all enjoy so much and all the loyal and dedicated volunteers – we couldn’t do it without them.”
The RSPB is a conservation charity that manages over 100,000 hectares of UK land, developing and maintaining rare, diverse and essential habitat. It also fights endlessly for nature, from conservation battles with developers to addressing governments, both nationally and internationally, about the environment and its needs.
The two peregrine chicks took their first flights earlier this week but yesterday, in a very sad turn of events, the RSPB received the news that a dead peregrine had been found on a pavement near the CIS Tower.
The young female peregrine, which appeared to have a broken neck, was identified as one of the Manchester chicks by its unique British Trust for Ornithology ring, which had been attached last month.
Clare Reed, the RSPB’s Manchester People Engagement Manager, who runs the Manchester Peregrines Date with Nature project said: “We think that the poor thing was taking its first flight when it collided with a window. It probably got confused when, mistaking the reflection in a window for the sky.
“This is the first instance we have heard of this happening to a peregrine but, unfortunately, it is fairly common for birds to collide with windows.”
Early this week RSPB staff and volunteers at the Date with Nature viewpoint in Exchange Square, Manchester spotted the remaining peregrine chick taking flight with its Mum and Dad. The surviving chick will leave the nest for good in early July.
The peregrine is the largest of British breeding falcon. It is 38-48 cm long, and its wingspan is 95-110 cm. The female is considerably larger than the male. The upper parts are dark blue-grey, and the under parts are pale with fine, dark bars. The head has a black ‘hood’ with black moustache-like markings on the face. Juvenile birds are browner and heavily streaked below
Peregrines typically pair for several years and may live up to 10 years old – the oldest on record was 15 years and 6 months ol
Both adult birds tend the young, which take their first flight after 5 or 6 weeks
Peregrines feed on medium sized birds, which they catch in high-speed aerial stoops – although more often than not they fail to make a kill
Peregrine numbers crashed in the 1960s due to the impact of pesticides. Peregrines have now increased in numbers, to about 1,300 breeding pairs in the UK.
For regular updates on the Manchester Peregrines and more, simply submit your email address at the bottom of this page.
From the outside a co-operative may look like any other business. It’s what goes on inside that makes us different!
The Co-operative Group is the country’s largest consumer co-operative, and there are over 4,800 independent co-operatives in the UK. From housing to healthcare, farms to football clubs, credit unions to community shops, co-operatives have unique values and principles shaping the way they do business.
And it’s not just in the UK. Across the world co-operatives are an international force for good, with over 800 million members and 100 million employees worldwide.
This year The Co-operative Group including The Co-operative Financial Services, are joining together with co-operators and co-operative businesses across the UK in the very first Co-operatives Fortnight, a celebration of our unique businesses, our values, our people, our innovation and the impact we have on changing business for the good.
Exciting initiatives taking place over the fortnight include:
Co-operative Food store events – one in each of its trading regions on Friday 25 June – to showcase the success of the business and highlight its ethical trading and Fairtrade credentials.
A wide range of inspiring events and activities, including family fun days, ‘Watch Your Waste‘ events, day trips, and more, across the UK – all hosted by The Co-operative Membership.
The display of the new membership website and social networking site, Hive, at Co-operatives 2010 in Plymouth, and vox pop booths to record members views and ideas about co-operation.
The launch of ‘The Co-operative LIVE‘ – the Group’s first online interactive TV programme at 6.15pm on Monday 28 June, including a programme about CFS.
We are pleased to report that the peregrines and their two baby chicks are doing well and the RSPB went to the top of the tower yesterday to ring the arrivals, in order to keep track of the chicks when they fly the nest for good.
Clare Reed from RSPB who was at the top of the tower to see the chicks being ringed tells us, ”it’s fantastic that the peregrines have had chicks again this year. When the RSPB and the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) went up the CIS Tower to ring the birds, both chicks looked extremely healthy and we are hoping that in the next month they will start flying around the city like their parents.
“It’s great that they have moved to the CIS Tower as their eggs are well protected there, much more than in rural areas. Peregrine numbers nearly crashed in the middle of the 20th century due to egg collecting, shooting and DDT. The UK population number is now slowly increasing and we have about 1400 pairs – so the fact that The Co-operative building has one of these pairs is a massive achievement!”
The property market may be in a slump but this has not stopped Manchester’s most famous birds of prey from moving to a new home.
After four years nesting in a secret location in the city centre, the Manchester peregrines have now taken up residence in a penthouse-style nest on a high-up ledge on the Grade II-listed CIS Tower.
At 118 metres tall, the CIS Tower – home of The Co-operative Financial Services, which is the second highest building in Manchester, making it a natural choice of home for the birds who favour living at high altitudes.
Rod Bulmer, Managing Director of Retail at CFS, says: “We fitted a special housing nest to encourage the peregrines to move in 5 years ago and we are very happy to hear our efforts have finally paid off. All of us at The Co-operative are really pleased to offer the peregrines and their future chicks a home”.
Although it is not possible to get a close-up view of the nest at the moment, experts believe the female is currently incubating a clutch of eggs in her new deluxe pad.
Peregrines are the jet fighters of the bird world and are listed in Guinness World Records as the world’s fastest animal with a flight speed of more than 200 miles per hour.
From Wednesday 28 April, visitors, shoppers and commuters will be given the opportunity to watch these spectacular birds fly above city centre at a special peregrine view point in Exchange Square.
Staff and volunteers from the RSPB will be on hand with power telescopes and binoculars everyday (weather/location availability permitting) from 11am to 6pm until the chicks fledge in early July.
Clare Reed, the RSPB’s people engagement officer in Manchester said: “Peregrines are one of the most fascinating birds of prey to watch in action. I’d recommend anyone interested in seeing these record-breaking birds in action to drop by at our viewpoint and see them in their full glory.”
On 29 March we announced our full annual report for 2009. These were the first full set of financial reports that we have published following the merger. Coming together has allowed us to become the most diversified mutual financial services provider, offering a feasible alternative to the stakeholder- led banks who have been severely hit by the credit crunch.
As ever, we have continued to grow in a sustainable way that is in line with our unique and customer-led ethical policy. We are a business with a unique relationship with our customers and our business strategy is built around our customer promise of being fair, responsible, easy and personal.
Highlights
The 2009 profits include the profits of the merged Britannia business from 1 August 2009.
Before taxation profits of £212.8m – £148.7m higher than in 2008
Total operating profits of £177m (2008: £147m)
Customer funding ration of 104%
Current account sales have seen a major year-on-year increase of 38%, with many customers switching from the big four banks
Our chief executive, Neville Richardson commented that: “Despite a year of continued economic turmoil, during which the credit crunch became a global recession, The Co-operative Financial Services has taken a significant step towards its vision of being the UK’s most admired financial services business. As a key part of the country’s most broadly-based consumer co-operative we offer a member-owned, customer-led and ethically guided alternative to the shareholder-owned or government-owned financial services model”.
Our Ethics in Action’ brings to life initiatives to inspire young people, tackle global poverty and combat climate change, as well as our unique approach to ethical finance.
Our short film above shows a summary of The Co-operative Group’s 2008/9 Sustainability Report and celebrates the difference Co-operative members, colleagues and customers make to communities in the UK and across the world.
The BBC is currently airing a series of four programmes presented by Kirsty Young about how British families have changed since the Second World War.
The fourth programme being shown on Monday, 1 February is all about paternity leave. Our very own Rob Dawson, a property Manager here at the bank and his family were interviewed for the programme.
Rob’s children who are now 11 and 15, and back in the 90’s when they were born not many companies offered paternity leave, the Co-op being one of the first to introduce the scheme.
We caught up with Rob to ask how his television debut came about and how he and his family felt about spending a day with a BBC camera crew.
If you missed the programme on 1 February, you can watch it on BBC iPlayer.
The report’s authors, David McLeod and Nita Clarke, visited a wide range of businesses and heard evidence from a number of experts in the field – including Richard Lewis, from our very own culture team.
One of the key recommendations of the report was to provide practical support and advice to businesses on how to engage their people – and the reports authors’ came back to Richard for help.
“As a result of the report, they assembled a panel of people who work in this field, and we get together every few months to share ideas and help shape this advice to business,” explained Richard.
“At one of the meetings they asked people to talk on video about what engagement means to them, and what advice they would offer.”
You can view Richards’ video above.
“The campaign is called the People Interaction, and they have a hub on the internet which can be accessed via the government’s Business Link service,” said Richard.
“Our colleagues at The Co-operative Group were used as a case study in the original report, and now the government are using us as a good example for the wider economy,” he added. “It’s a real boost for our movement.”
Receiving the award are: Neil Pollitt, Sue Cambage-Hughes, David Bishop and Chris Adams.
At the UK Customer Experience awards ceremony yesterday in London, CFS were awarded ‘Best Large Company’. This is fantastic recognition as it recognises CFS in the wider market, not just financial services.
During the assessment for the award, we we’re benchmarked against over 1800 companies across all sectors.
We were able to showcase our brand experience as well as highlight areas in our Strategy, Culture and Customer Intelligence. The recent merger was also reviewed as part of the assessment in particular around the alignment of our values and culture.
All aspects of our customer experience were assessed as above average with a fantastic 100% mark for customer focus and 90% for customer retention. Of course there some small areas for improvement, no one’s perfect, however overall CFS was seen as an “excellent example of a service excellence organisation”.
Have you experienced good or bad customer service from us here at CFS? We pride ourselves on customer service and want to know what you think. Leave your comments below.
Here you can find all the latest news and campaigns in line with our brand values and stories linked to our social responsibility and community involvement.
You’ll hear more about our external campaigns on key areas such as microfinance, responsible driving, renewable energy, and much, much more.
Please email us at, CFSgwmblog@cfs.coop if you would like more information about our campaigns.
In April ‘09 in conjunction with the new goodwithmoney website we re-launched our new and improved good with money blog to encourage greater dialogue with our colleagues, customers, members and anyone else who is interested in the ethical, social responsible and community work that we do. Read on…
