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CoScan MAGAZINE
CoScan has for many years published CoScan Magazine
which includes a varied selection of essays, articles and comments of cultural, historical and general interest covering all the five countries; Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
We encourage readers of this website to consider the advantages of membership to receive your personal copy of the magazine.
One of the aims of our magazine is to paint pictures of the five Nordic countries. Those who know the scenes well may be moved by nostalgic memories. Those who do not will hopefully be stimulated to seek out the exitement they have not yet experienced.
It is important for the magazine and this website to cooperate with and compliment each other.
The opportunity to communicate on two levels, to share information by two means, sets us in a privileged position; many have a website, not so many have a magazine. Matters we cannot cover fully in one medium can be explored in greater depth in the other.
The future of the Magazine very much depend on the contribution of material from CoScan members and others. Please keep on sending in stories and articles!
Anna Sophie Strandli
Editor
anna_yawron@yahoo.no
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THE CONFEDERATION OF SCANDINAVIAN SOCIETIES
60 YEARS
Mark Elliott, President of CoScan
In Liverpool, on 8 October 1950, representatives of seven Anglo-Scandinavian societies from various parts of England met and agreed to work together. Sixty years later CoScan, the offspring of that gestation, is celebrating a remarkable history and developing a new approach to the challenges of the twenty-first century.
The initial expansion was rapid. By 1963 the “Conference of Scandinavian Societies” had grown to include 22 societies from most corners of Britain and even Ireland. Over the years they were joined by groups from Eastbourne to Inverness, from Belfast to Norwich, from universities where Scandinavian studies then featured on the curriculum. The Conference became a Confederation in 1968, and adopted its first constitution in 1970. Conferences were held at intervals of not more than 18 months at different places around the country, with a chairman (usually from the society organising the conference) who then served as president of the confederation until the next conference.
The focus of CoScan and its member societies was essentially practical. The secretary fielded enquiries about Scandinavia from a wide range of individuals and organisations. Conferences discussed matters such as the availability of Scandinavian periodicals, ways of putting visitors from abroad in touch with appropriate local societies, and the creation of a common list of speakers on which individual societies could draw. In each area societies were urged to serve as focal points for the provision of support, social contact and good local advice. Two or more societies might join up to go on expeditions or attend study groups at a local university. A conference report in 1980 asserts that there was “plenty of gratifying evidence that CoScan was to some quite notable extent revitalising societies and providing access to additional activities”. The five Nordic embassies in London were certainly impressed, and used the regular CoScan newsletter as a vehicle for publicising forthcoming events and circulating information.
Times have changed and our structure is a little different. The almost unlimited availability of information and home entertainment on the internet has brought a reduction in the appetite for joining local societies. But we all still need friends with a shared Scandinavian interest or heritage and sixty years on there is still a place for CoScan.
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CoScan is an autonomous non-profit making organization funded by subscriptions from its affiliated member societies and individual members, and by voluntary contributions and fund-raising activities.
CoScan has close links with the five Nordic Embassies in London and is run by an Executive Committee elected by its affiliated societies at the Annual General Meeting. The AGM is held alternately in the UK (usually in York) and in a Nordic country during the biennial CoScan Conference.
The AGM elects the Committee's Chairman and other officers. There is also an Honorary President who is not elected.
The Trust Fund maintains a separate budget devoted to the award of travelling scholarships, funded from the CoScan main budget, contributions by societies and individuals, and its own fund-raising activities.
All interested in Scandinavia and matters Nordic are most welcome to become CoScan members
In 1946 Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden formed a Nordic postal alliance to improve postal coordination between the five countries. One outcome was the joint issue of Nordic postage stamps with a common theme.
Today there are many channels for co-operation between the Nordic countries. They include the Nordic Council and the Council of Ministers, which in 1985 adapted the symbolism of the ‘white swans from the North’ to launch its own stylized swan logo. Designed by Finnish artist Kyösti Varis it features a single white swan with eight quills on a blue background encircled by a white ring. The eight quills represent the five Nordic countries and the three autonomous territories: Greenland, Åland and the Faroe Islands. The symbol was used officially for the first time at the session of the Nordic Council in Reykjavik in March 1985.
The first pan-Nordic stamp issue was released in 1956. The participating countries were Sweden, Norway and Iceland and the design was the same for each country.
Five flying swans symbolizing the five countries of Scandinavia!
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