Spring Into Enterprise

Date of event: 7th April 2010
Organised by: Target Wellbeing
Venue: Rice Lane City Farm, North Liverpool
Report by: Rob Squires, Target Wellbeing Network Co-ordinator (3rd Sector)

Spring Into Enterprise is the latest Target: Wellbeing regional networking event focussing on healthy eating, which was held at Rice Lane City Farm in Liverpool, on April 7th.

The event was attended by 22 individuals from accross the region, and from a variety of different organisational types, including Target: Wellbeing projects, Liverpool and Ellesmere Port PCTs and nutritional staff from St.Helens MBC.

The main theme of the day was sustainable enterprise for food projects, including those involved in production, access, cooking and nutrition. To this end we brought in Mark Simmonds and Ruth Kelly from Making Local Food Work, who gave respective talks on Governance and Legal structures, and on Food Co-ops.

Many thanks to Rice Lane City Farm, and Roma in particular, for hosting the day, and making everybody feel welcome.

Also many thanks to the Knowsley based Target: Wellbeing funded project called Village Farm Cooks (or Cafe Society), who did a fantastic job cooking for the event.

Following lunch, we had a workshop session. Despite the fact it was the dreaded 'graveyard shift' and that we were in a stiffling polytunnel, we managed to have an interesting discussion about how to make food projects more sustainable and mutually supportive.

It is nearly a year since I last visited Rice Lane. In this time the horticultural area on the farm has been transormed, as a result of the Target: Wellbeing funding. I am very excited to see how much this project will have progressed by the end of TWB, and what will happen to it after that. Rice Lane is a brilliant project that has been running for 30 years, with the support of the local community, in a difficult economic environment. Walking around the farm, and the woodlands, I could not help feel that there is still much untapped potential for this land. Financial constraints, and the capacity of the small team of dedicated staff are major limiting factors here. I hope that Target: Wellbeing, in addition to providing funding, can help this project, by encouraging statuatory bodies and funding bodies to see the huge contribution this project makes to the area, and to continue to support it in the development of all its potential.

You can download resources from the day, including reports, photographs, and weblinks, here at the main Target: Wellbeing website.

Food Hubs Event

Date of the event: 9th November 2009
Organised by: Making Local Food Work (MLFW) and Sustain
Venue: Luther King House, South Manchester
Reported by: Rob Squires, Network Co-ordinator (Third Sector)

I have been building links between Target: Wellbeing and Making Local Food Work in Manchester. I was pleased therefore to be able to attend this national MLFW event in Manchester, organised by Sustain, the Alliance for better food and farming.

Target: Wellbeing had a presence at the event through Manchester Food Futures, and the Herbie mobile grocery van. There were some very interesting presentations from food hub projects across the country. This was all good networking, and research and feeds very well into the 3rd sector support that I am providing to TWB projects. I am sure that co-operation and enterprise will form an important part of the sustainable funding strategies of many TWB projects in the future.

Building upon this event, and our links with MLFW, I am planning a regional food networking event with Rice Lane City Farm in North Liverpool, for March 10th. This will be headlined by Mark Simmonds and Sarah Alldred from Co-ops UK / MLFW, and will focus on sustainable enterprise. The event is open to TWB projects and other interested groups.

Good Food, Good Governance Training

Date of event: 29/07/09
Organised by: Making Local Food Work Co-operatives Uk
Venue: Leeds Church Institute
Report by: Nancy Brown, Network Co-ordinator - Public Health

This was an excellent all day session on structures and governance for food co-operatives which outlined the different legal structures for community food organisations and the features and benefits these structures. It also looked at common issues with governing these organsisations and how to resolve them to improve governance. It was a great interactive session.

For more information contact Mark Simmonds on 0161 246 2953 or e-mail at
Mark.R.Simmonds@cooperatives-uk.coop

Rob goes on tour - NW Social Enterprise Trade Fair, Sustainable Funding Annual Gathering and Groundwork NW Staff Conference

Wow, three conferences in three days .. intense!

Report by: Rob Squires, Network Co-ordinator – Third Sector

Day 1 (16th Jun 09)

The 1st Northwest social enterprise trade fair

Organised by: Social Enterprise North West

Venue: Aintree Race Course

Day 1 of my grand tour was the first regional social enterprise conference at Aintree Racecourse, in a large building shaped like an aircraft hanger. The event was organised as a trade fair, with around 100 exhibitors, including trading social enterprises, and a wide variety of infrastructure support agencies. As I travelled on the train to the venue I wondered if I would know many people there, and was pleased on arrival to meet many friends, old and new. Of note amongst these were Co-ops UK who assist with the excellent Making Local Food Work project, and can provide free training and advice around food co-ops, legal structures, and governance issues.

Also present were Voluntary Sector North West, who are a Target: Wellbeing partner, and are currently championing the sector in the development of the new RS 2010 regional strategy. In the afternoon, I went to a talk by Simon Nooks who is head of strategy and performance for NWDA and is therefore a big fish in the RS 2010. Inequalities is a current emerging issue within the Strategy, with the release of the Equality Trust's new research which has proof from 50 countries, that economies with high levels of inequality perform very badly, in almost every way.

There is solid evidence of increased physical and mental health problems, obesity, drug abuse, imprisonment, lack of trust in community, violence, teenage birth, and chid well-being - all of which are issues that Target: Wellbeing projects aim to reduce. It would seem that since economic inequalities continue to grow, it is not all about economic growth and trickle down theory anymore. In addition to the business as usual economic growth priority, it would seem that the RS 2010 policy makers are actually considering measures to reduce financial inequalities in the region as well!

Day 2 (17th Jun)

Sustainable Funding Annual Gathering

Organised by: NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organisations)

Venue: New Welcome Centre, London

Day two took me to the capital, for a conference on Sustainable Funding, organised by NCVO - the National Council for Volunteer Organisations. This seemed like a somewhat prodigious occasion, compared with the more gritty northern social enterprise do, the day before. There was lots of rhetoric about civil society, and good examples of 3rd Sector organisations that have diversified their income, in order to develop more sustainable funding strategies.

I am running an Introduction to Sustainable Funding training session soon, for Target: Wellbeing projects, and will be passing on some of the info gleaned from this conference then.

Day 3 (18th Jun)

Groundwork Northwest staff conference

Venue: University of Manchester

Back in Manchester for the Groundwork Northwest staff conference, which was organised by a team in the same office as Target: Wellbeing. I'm feeling a bit more on home-ground here :-)

I went to an interesting workshop lead by Richard Caulfield, Chief Exec of VSNW and Ian MacArthur, regional director of Groundwork Northwest. Richard led a discussion about sector branding, and whether Voluntary and Community sector is more appropriate than Third Sector? Apparently NCVO, the sector lead are not happy with either, and prefer the term 'civil society' or sector. Richard also speculated that if the Conservatives win the next election, the Office of the Third Sector will probably be re-branded as the Office of Civil Society, or something like this. Interesting .. this may explain why NCVO are steering away from the terms VCS and 3rd Sector.

Both Richard and Ian MacArthur sit on 4NW, which is the new Regional Assembly, where they advocate 3rd Sector (VCS?) issues. There was more discussion in this workshop about the influence that the Equality Trust's new research is having on policy makers within RS 2010. Interestingly the Equality Trust report talks about Equality not Growth, and Global Warming. I am interested to see how the RS 2010 will propose to deliver sustained economic growth, whilst simultaneously reducing CO2 emissions, and increasing the health, well-being and happiness of people in the region.

A highlight of the day was the Green Triangle Awards, for the best Groundwork projects in the NW. Offshoots Permaculture project, which is part of the Target: Wellbeing portfolio won the prize for the Environmental Action category. Pictured is Phill Dewhurst from Offshoots, along with two volunteers, receiving their award from Cllr Neil Swannick (Manchester). You can watch the the promotion film for Offshoots that was shown at the ceremony, here on Youtube.

Good Governance and Legal Structures for local food enterprises

Date of event: Weds 13th May
Organised by: Co-ops UK in partnership with Manchester Ensemble
Venue: Miles Platting Library, North Manchester
Reported by: Rob Squires


Hello everyone,

Last week I assisted with an event about Good Governance and Legal Structures, which was delivered free of charge, by Co-ops UK who are delivery partners within the national Making Local Food Work programme. The training was organised in partnership with Ensemble who are a Manchester based Cameroon refugee support group, who have funding from Manchester Food Futures, and are in the process of setting up a community cafe social enterprise.

The training focussed more on legal structures than governance issues. and looked at different forms, including unincorporated associations, company limited by guarentee, community interest companies, bonafide co-operatives, and community interest societies. We also had a good look at investment models made available through Industrial and provident Societies, including loan stock and membership share issues.

The training was delivered by Mark Simmonds, with support from Sarah Alldred, both of whom were excellent. I have arranged a meeting with them and they will be coming into the Groundwork office at the end of May, to discuss how we can work with Co-ops UK, to provide training around good governance, leagal structures, and local food, to projects within the Target: wellbeing portfolio.