Fourth National Rural Social Enterprise Conference 24th and 25th November 2004

‘Routes to Sustainable Growth’, Todmorden, West Yorkshire.

The Plunkett Foundation’s Fouth National Rural Social Enterprise Conference develops the theme 'Routes to Sustainable Growth'. Starting with the premise that rural social enterprises already provide substantial benefits for rural communities, the conference will consider what needs to be done to ensure that the scale of these benefits increases. We hope to explore these issues and others over the two days in a highly participative and informative manner. We would be delighted if you could attend the event, and details of our programme and a booking form can be found by clicking on the links.
For more information contact Donna Smith

Cultivating Cooperative Training Workshops

Organisational structures for Local Food Enterprise - a toolkit

Want to know more about organisational structures for local food initiatives? The Cultivating Co-operatives project - a partnership between the Soil Association, Plunkett Foundation & Co-operatives UK funded by Co-operative Action - aims to make advice more readily available for those wishing to develop new local food enterprises. Please click here for details of the training days

Organisational Structures for Rural Social Enterprises - guide published

The 80-page guide provides step-by-step advice for new community groups, leading them through every stage of the complex decision-making process involved in selecting a legal structure. If you would like to order a copy of the Resource Guide, please contact Kathryn Morrison or download the order form

Development and Replication of Franchise Models of Agricultural Marketing Co-operatives

The Plunkett Foundation is undertaking a two-year research project which will identify six high performing marketing co-operatives from across the developed world, and by documenting best practice and key success factors, will build replicable franchise models of these organisations. The models will then be pilot tested with six new farmer groups prior to being rolled-out for use by the agricultural community. For further information about the project, please contact Denise Ault and Quintin Fox

New Appointments at Plunkett

The Plunkett Foundation has recently appointed two new members of staff to work for its new Consultancy and Training Division, headed by Quintin Fox, James Pavitt and Denise Ault joined the organisation in Feb 2004 as Development Executives. James and Denise's experience of working in the local food sector will add an extra dimension to the skills and knowledge of the Plunkett Foundation.
 

Updated: December 04
   

NEW LOGO, NEW LOCATION, NEW PLUNKETT!

This edition of Rural Connections represents the start of what is expected to be a new and exciting era of development at the Plunkett Foundation, as the change of logo and office location symbolises the progress we have achieved in the range and scale of our activities in recent years.

Other news reported in this edition is indicative of the current pace of change. As this edition goes to press, news has just been received that a consortium headed by Plunkett has been chosen by Defra to manage its new national community and social enterprise development programme, a £1.5 million support scheme which will run over the next 18 months. This comes hard on the heels of a decision by the Trustees of ViRSA and Plunkett for a full merger of activities. And as if this isn’t enough, the Rural Revival Campaign continues to gather momentum, and recently celebrated its first dedicated regional launch in the North-West of England.

The new logo and image profile presents a more contemporary visual identity to Plunkett, whilst retaining elements of continuity with the past. The tree is discarded, but is now interpreted in the form of the blocked-leaf shape of the logo, and we believe that the Plunkett name is now strong enough to stand alone without the need of the descriptive ‘Foundation’ to support it.

The image will also be carried through into the new Plunkett offices. Having occupied the current site in Long Hanborough for 15 years, we are moving five minutes up the road into the historic estate town of Woodstock, taking possession of a modern barn conversion which offers space and facilities more appropriate to the character and requirements of our current activities.

The new image and location reflect a significant milestone in a journey of change which Plunkett has undergone over the past three years, and in this regard the new profile is far more than skin-deep. Almost all of our current staff joined within this period and the volume of our work has grown five-fold. We think it’s the right time to show these changes in a visual form which better reflects our aspirations for the future. Read inside for more news on current activities.


THE STORE IS THE CORE

The Trustees of Plunkett and the Village Retail Services Association (ViRSA) have agreed to further strengthen their recent partnership through a full merger of activities. As a result of this agreement, Plunkett will take over the management of ViRSA from its new Woodstock offices from the start of December.

The community-owned village shop movement has been one of the hottest growth areas of rural social enterprise in recent years. Community shops are usually established by rural residents as a way of saving the last shop in the village when privately-owned shopkeepers withdraw or retire. Plunkett estimate that there are now between 150 and 200 shops run in this way in England alone, almost all of which have been established with the support of ViRSA since its establishment just ten years ago.

Plunkett and ViRSA have been working together through the Rural Revival Campaign since January, when a formal partnership agreement was signed to jointly support shops with financial and advisory support. The rationale of combining Plunkett’s broader rural scope with ViRSA’s unique skills in community retailing makes such good sense that it has been decided to extend this relationship into a full merger of activities.

Working together in this way will enable Plunkett and ViRSA to raise the profile of the community retailing movement to policy makers and within rural communities. Opportunities will also be explored to enable community-owned shops to work more closely together and to develop the range of services which they can offer to rural communities. Business in the Community have claimed recently that the ‘Pub is the Hub’ in rural communities. We aim to challenge this assertion by showing that, in reality it’s the store which is the core!

For further details contact Anthony Weldon, ViRSA Manager.


PLUNKETT-LED CONSORTIUM TO MANAGE DEFRA PROGRAMME

A consortium led by Plunkett, and comprising ACRE, Co-operativesUK, PRIME and Enterprising Communities, has been awarded a contract by Defra to manage its £1.5 million social and community enterprise development programme. The programme will support social enterprises and community organisations adopting social enterprise approaches in four of the English regions, with the regions concerned to be formally chosen by the end of the year. Projects will be delivered as packages of financial and advisory support, using the approach successfully developed through Plunkett’s Rural Revival Campaign. The programme aims to support 100 initiatives over a twelve month period, commencing in the New Year.

The programme will act as an action-research pilot, demonstrating and researching how Regional Development Agencies can achieve key rural and social targets through the promotional and development of community and social enterprise. Successful implementation of the programme in the pilot regions could lead to RDAs adopting the same or similar approaches as they take responsibility for the delivery of rural policy under the Government’s Modernising Rural Delivery programme.

The programme will be managed on a partnership basis at several levels.

The managing consortium is a partnership of leading national, rural, social and enterprise development organisations. In addition, support to beneficiary projects will be delivered through regional delivery partnerships of local, regional and national support organisations, ensuring that project beneficiaries obtain the most appropriate support for their specific needs.

For further details contact Jennifer Heim, Programme Co-ordinator.


RURAL SOCIAL ENTERPRISE ENGAGED ON ROUTES TO SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

Plunkett's fourth national Rural Social Enterprise Conference, held in Todmorden on 24th & 25th November explored what can be done to increase both the number and size of social enterprises in rural England. A wide range of organisations were represented and looked at routes to sustainable growth for rural social enterprise. The theme for day one was scaling up the impacts while day two asked the question is small really beautiful?

Presentations from plenary speakers and workshop facilitators can be viewed by clicking on the speaker's name or right clicking and choosing Save Target As... to download. This material is copyright protected and cannot be reproduced by any means without the prior permission of the author.

Day 1 - Scaling up the Impacts

Workshops

Day 2 - Is small really beautiful?

Workshops


Rural Social Enterprise

FRANCHISE MODELS OF AGRICULTURAL MARKETING CO-OPERATIVES

Plunkett has long since taken the view that the main driver of co-operative and social enterprise growth is through the replication of proven business models. This opinion will now be tested in practice in the agricultural marketing co-operative sector through a two-year project co-financed by Co-operative Action and Defra’s Agricultural Development Scheme.

The project will identify the most successful business models of agricultural marketing co-operation in recent years, and assess which of these have the potential to be replicated in other regions or sub-sectors through a ‘franchising’ approach. Following this initial research, six models will be chosen and fully documented as franchise models to be made available to farmer groups wishing to improve their business performance through co-operation. Unlike traditional business franchising, the resulting models will be placed in the public domain, available free of charge to potential uses.

The project is currently in its initial stage, having started in late spring. A long-list of co-operative models is being whittled down to the final six through research and discussions with example businesses. Certain sub-sectors are already emerging as likely contenders for future sub-sector growth. These include co-operatives marketing local and organic foods, renewable energy sources, and products from privately owned woodlands.

For further details contact Alistair Clark.


SOCIAL ENTERPRISES ARE RURAL LIFELINES FOR OLDER RURAL RESIDENTS

Rural social enterprises often act as lifelines for older people in rural communities, providing them with essential services and opportunities to participate in local community life for the benefit of other residents. In many cases, they enable older people to continue to live in villages, rather than moving to a nearby town. These are the revealing findings of research carried out by Plunkett, Age Concern, PRIME and the Countryside Agency early this year. As a result, the project partners are launching a major national programme which aims to build on the relationship between older people and rural social enterprises.

The research examined a broadly representative sample of rural social enterprises, including community-owned shops, community transport schemes, development trusts, and trading subsidiaries of charitable organisations. It found that older people are often the prime beneficiaries of these enterprises in rural areas, but more surprisingly, that older people also dominate their management committees and volunteer networks. In other words, rural social enterprises act as mechanisms through which older people help other older people and their wider communities.

The Rural Lifelines Programme will be formally launched in December as a response to the findings and recommendations of the research. The programme will comprise of an integrated package of projects which aims to encourage the involvement of older people in rural social enterprise and to increase the number and size of social enterprises in rural areas which provide benefits to older people.

For further details contact Elodie Malhomme.


GETTING THE STRUCTURE RIGHT

The Plunkett Foundation's Resource Guide on Organisational Structures for Rural Social Enterprises has been published. The guide, co-financed by the Countryside Agency, helps development advisers to guide fledgling rural social enterprises on choosing the right organisational structure to achieve their objectives.

The guide was researched and drafted in 2002 by Oliver Mathieson, Principal Consultant of Plunkett subsidiary Rural Partnerships. Since then it has been piloted by co-operative development bodies and social enterprise development agencies and refined and amended as a result of the experience. The product is intended to fill a gap in the market between general introductions to rural social enterprise and more technical guides focusing on legal structures alone. As the guide asserts, an organisational structure is far more than just its legal form.

You can order a copy of the guide through the Plunkett website by downloading the order form, or by calling Kath Morrison at the Plunkett offices.


THE WAY FORWARD FOR MARKET TOWN PARTNERSHIPS

With the Countryside Agency’s Market Towns Initiative now in a state of transition following the decision to decentralise rural delivery to Regional Development Agencies, the fate of some 220 Market Town Partnerships now hangs in the balance. In order to address this issue, Plunkett has been contracted by the Agency to run a series of training workshops throughout the country to assist Partnerships to consider their future strategic and structural options.

The training programme draws on Plunkett’s well-received resource guide ‘Organisational Structures for Rural Social Enterprises’. Representatives of Market Town Partnerships use the exercises contained in the guide, supplemented with explanations and other participative techniques, to clearly define what they hope to achieve in the coming years, and specifically how they can put themselves in the best position to carry this out. In some cases, Partnerships see that social enterprise approaches can form a significant part of their future plans, whereas others favour a more traditional grant-led strategy. The training sessions, which will continue until March 2005, are likely to provide valuable information for Regional Development Agencies as they prepare their plans for taking forward their work on market towns from April 2005.

For further details contact Quintin Fox.



Please click on the image
above for more information

PLUNKETT ASSISTS RURAL ENTERPRISE SCHEME APPLICANTS FROM YORKSHIRE AND HUMBERSIDE

Following recommendations from Plunkett to Defra last year that a limiting factor to the use of the Rural Enterprise Scheme by co-operative and social enterprises is the absence of an effective facilitation service for this sector, the Rural Development Service for Yorkshire and Humberside has contracted Plunkett to carry out exactly this role. This is an impressive example of Plunkett’s role as a ‘think and do tank’, contributing to public sector policy and putting the results into action. It is also an example of joined-up thinking within Government, as one agency responds to the recommendations of research commissioned by another Department.

The facilitation service will last for two years from September 2004 and will be available to both rural social enterprises and collaborative and co-operative farming ventures. Under the terms of the project, Plunkett will raise awareness of the Scheme amongst the target groups, help them to formulate their ideas for project, and provide support in the preparation of effective project applications. The project targets to support some 32 successful applications over its duration, considerably raising the proportion of RES funds reaching co-operative and social enterprises. The support services will be delivered in partnership with English Food and Farming Partnerships and local social enterprise support organisations.

For further details contact Quintin Fox.


NEW FACES

The Plunkett team continues to grow. James Pavitt, former Co-ordinator of the National Association of Farmers’ Markets, started work as a Development Executive in the spring, to be followed by financial specialist Alistair Clark in the autumn. Together with Project Manager Jennifer Heim and Project Assistant Donna Smith, this now increases the newly established Consultancy and Training Division, headed by Quintin Fox, to five permanent staff. Plunkett also welcomed a further new face in another sense in October, with the happy news that Charlotte Gilman has given birth to her first child.

Changes are not limited to Plunkett staff. The Rural Revival Campaign Board was also boosted in August when Pam Warhurst, Deputy Chair of the Countryside Agency, accepted an invitation to join its ranks.


RURAL REVIVAL

The Rural Revival campaign is the single most important strategic initiative of Plunkett, and has now grown to warrant its own supplement to Rural Connections entirely devoted to news and current developments.

If you haven’t received the supplement with this copy of rural connections, please contact us for a copy or download one from the Rural Revival website.

For further information contact Jennifer Heim or visit www.ruralrevival.org.uk


LOCAL FOOD LINKS

James Pavitt is drawing on his expertise and previous experience in local food promotion to support the Farringdon Local Food Initiative to formulate and implement development projects to increase the volume of locally sourced foods consumed within the Farringdon area. This assistance is being provided under the framework of the Countryside Agency’s Market Towns Initiative, and is delivered by Plunkett’s rural development subsidiary, Rural Partnerships.

The group’s preferred project is to develop co-operatively-owned farm shop sited within redundant buildings on one of its members’ farms. The Countryside Agency have recently extended the provision of support to enable the group to support the group with the implementation of the project.

For further details contact James Pavitt

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