The Fifth National Rural Social Enterprise conference – 24th and 25th November 2005, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.

The Plunkett Foundation fifth National Rural Social Enterprise conference was held in the East Midlands, in collaboration with Social Enterprise East Midlands. If you would like to access the conference papers, please visit www.plunkett.co.uk/rse5 or email info@plunkett.co.uk.

Tackley Village Fayre

New ViRSA Manager

Older People and Rural Social Enterprises - Their role as providers and beneficiaries of service provision in rural England

Last Updated: Sept 05

ENTERPRISE FOR INCLUSION EXCEEDS TARGET

Enterprise for Inclusion, the £1.5 million Defra programme managed by a Plunkett-led consortium has beaten its own targets in receiving some 236 completed applications in advance of its 30th September deadline. The programme will provide support to 100 rural social enterprise initiatives which tackle social exclusion in rural communities. All projects to be supported are to be selected by the end of the year. Enterprise for Inclusion uses the delivery approach developed under Plunkett’s Rural Revival campaign. Beneficiaries are provided with integrated support packages comprising of cash grants, averaging £6,000 per project, and linked support from a specialist social enterprise adviser.

The programme has assembled an impressive roster of around 100 approved support providers able to work in the four targeted regions.

The East Cleveland Housing Trust (pictured) is a typical beneficiary of the programme. This is a charity which provides training opportunities in the construction industry for disadvantaged young people in one of Defra’s lagging Districts. The Trust, which has previously been dependent on grants and donations, sees the potential to develop parts of its activities as a form of social enterprise, conducting fee-paying construction work for the public sector and other voluntary and community organisations. Enterprise for Inclusion is providing support to help the group to decide on the most appropriate organisational structure and to prepare a detailed business plan.

Beneficiary projects which have been approved to date cover a very wide range of initiatives, ranging from community-owned village shops, community transport schemes using enterprise-based approaches and community buildings aiming to raise income through the pursuit of trading activities.

The programme is managed by Plunkett, ACRE and Co-operativesUK and is of interest to Regional Development Agencies now that they have taken on responsibility for the socio-economic functions previously held by the Countryside Agency. Enterprise for Inclusion will spend the remaining months of the programme delivering support to beneficiary projects and researching the effectiveness of this support to provide an evidence-base for rural policy-makers.

For further information contact Jennifer Heim or visit the programme website at: www.enterprise4inclusion.org.uk

RIVER COTTAGE AND RURAL REVIVAL

The relationship between River Cottage (the company behind Channel 4’s lifestyle series featuring Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) and Plunkett’s Rural Revival campaign continues to develop. A charity compilation CD featuring music associated with the series has just been released, labelled ‘Let it Grow’, and the celebrated Badger Brewery will soon launch its first ever organic beer to raise further funds for Rural Revival.

Revellers at the first Rural Revival Fayre, held in the Oxfordshire village of Tackley in August, had the first chance to sample the new beer. Despite pouring rain, over a thousand people came to drink beer, eat River Cottage sausages and take part in a lottery to win a ride on the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The event was supported by the Post Office, Calor Gas and the Oxford, Swindon and Glouctershire Co-operative Society, amongst others. Plans are underway to roll-out similar Fayres to other counties during 2006. River Cottage and Rural Revival also plan a number of high-profile initiatives in the coming year to raise awareness of rural social enterprise and funds to support their development.

Readers can purchase the CD and follow news on further plans by visiting the River Cottage website at: www.rivercottage.net

NEW VIRSA WEBSITE GOES LIVE

ViRSA, now an activity of the Plunkett Foundation, has used funding provided by the Tudor Trust to develop a new website and associated materials. The website went live at the beginning of November and now features, for the first time, a full directory of all known community-owned village shops in England and Wales.

ViRSA promotes and supports community-owned village shops as a sustainable way of maintaining essential services in rural communities. It achieves this through a regional network of community retail advisers providing front-line support to rural communities; a national hub of knowledge and expertise on community retailing; and now through online guidance, information services and signposting links from the website. In addition to the directory, the website includes a wide range of downloadable information sheets and the facility to make enquiries online.

The website is the latest development in an ongoing restructuring of the organisation following its merger with Plunkett at the start of 2005. It is now in the process of developing a range of partnership agreements with organisations at the national, regional and sub-regional levels to enable it to more effectively fulfil its mission. In particular, ViRSA regards its relationship with Rural Community Councils as being of particular importance.

Visit the ViRSA website at www.virsa.org or contact Gill Withers, ViRSA Manager on 01993 814377

NEW RESEARCH SHOWS POTENTIAL FOR OVER MANY MORE COMMUNITY-OWNED VILLAGE SHOPS

Recent research conducted by Plunkett and Birkbeck College for Defra and the DTI shows that community-owned village shops could be viable in over 3,000 English rural settlements. If this is true, the research suggests that the number of community shops is likely to increase substantially from its current level in the years to come to form a significant percentage of rural retailing activity.

There are currently around 150 community-owned village shops in England. The research studied the geography of settlements which already sustain community shops to identify the factors which are critical to their success. Whilst it was found that a large majority of these settlements have populations of between 200 and 900 residents, shops were otherwise found to thrive in villages with widely differing characteristics. However, the sector is currently most predominant in the south of England, in places with relatively high average levels of affluence.

The research also found that the people behind these ventures are at least as important as the demographic characteristics of the community, and noted that people with drive and commitment are able to establish a successful community shop in most environments. In particular, it was found that shops use volunteers to ‘plug the viability gap’ when the market potential is insufficient to employ paid staff, making these particularly robust social enterprises.

The findings of the research are to be published shortly. They are expected to be of interest to rural policy-makers in the context of the future of the rural Post Office network and in the manner in which they can help to create sustainable rural communities. Almost 100 Post Offices are co-located with community-owned shops, a number which appears certain to grow in the years to come. This is still, however, relatively small in relation to the 8,000-strong rural Post Office network in the UK as a whole.

For further information contact Richard Moreton.

GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY!

Plunkett’s work on the identification of agricultural co-operative models which are ripe for replication is nearing its completion, with six basic enterprise-types currently under development. Work is now underway on the documentation of these ‘franchise models’ in a format which will enable them to be used by farmer groups throughout the country.

The project, co-financed by Defra’s Agricultural Development Scheme and Co-operative Action, has worked with existing and emerging agricultural co-operatives to help them to refine and develop their own business models. Groups supported include a producer-owned farmers’ market operator, an energy crop marketing co-operative, a local foods distribution hub and an organic food marketing group. The project has worked with these existing groups to develop their models into a sufficiently robust form to be suitable for subsequent replication.

The term ‘franchise model’ is used loosely. Unlike with a normal business franchise, future users will not have to pay royalties for the use of the format. They will, however, have access to instructions and guidance on the manner in which they should conduct the business in order to gain the expected benefits. Similar approaches to ‘social franchising’ are being developed in other parts of the social enterprise sector by the Community Action Network and Social Firms UK.

For further information contact Alistair Clark.

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE GOES REGIONAL

Support structures for social enterprise at the regional and sub-regional are continuing to develop, stimulated by the ongoing regionalisation of public funding streams. Having developed its Rural Revival campaign as a partnership-based delivery infrastructure at the regional level, the Plunkett Foundation is now being asked to advise on and support the emerging social enterprise infrastructure in several parts of the country.

The Cheshire and Warrington Social Enterprise Partnership (C&WSEP) have contracted Plunkett, in association with CMS, to research and evaluate the implementation of their action plan, using funding provided by the North-West Development Agency. The action plan provides direct training and support to social enterprises whilst working at a strategic level to identify growth sectors and reduce the barriers to their development. Plunkett are facilitating a development plan for the partnership itself and evaluating the effectiveness of the action plan. It is hoped that this will pave the way for more sustained support towards the development of the sector from NWDA.

In the same policy area Plunkett recently contributed to a consultancy assignment to prepare a proposed social enterprise support infrastructure for Dorset, financed by the regional social enterprise support body, RISE. Plunkett’s role was to research best practice on social enterprise support from other regions and to use this as the basis to facilitate a workshop of support providers within the County. Following this, local consultants prepared a detailed proposal.

The growing importance of regional social enterprise support structures is also reflected in Plunkett’s decision to hold its fifth national rural social enterprise conference in partnership with Social Enterprise East Midlands (SEEM). This will provide the opportunity to give national prominence to flagship initiatives within the region and for delegates to better understand the role of regional support structures. It is intended that future conferences will follow this lead and be held in partnership with further regional social enterprise groupings.

For further information contact Elodie Malhomme.

GROWING INTEREST IN LOCAL AND REGIONAL FOOD

The Plunkett Foundation and its consultancy subsidiary Rural Partnerships are developing a growing portfolio of experience in supporting sustainable approaches to local and regional food development. Interest in local and regional food, although increasing, is not a new phenomenon in itself. The two organisations are using their respective skills and experience to ‘make local work’ by advising partners on structures and strategies to achieve financial viability.

Rural Partnerships are currently working with the East of England Development Agency on the preparation of a local and regional food strategy for the region. The strategy will aim to link successful initiatives at the local level, such as farmers markets and farm shops, with the need for producers to gain regional scale. Initial outcomes of the work, which is still underway, focus on the need to create ‘development paths’ for producers to move from local, to regional, and finally to the national marketing of foods with local provenance. At the micro-level, Plunkett is using its group enterprise expertise to work with a number of collaborative initiatives which seek to achieve scale and overcome the logistical barriers of getting products to buyers.

‘Making local work’ will also be the theme of a new partnership between the Council to Protect Rural England and Plunkett, which will combine the strengths of the two organisations to raise awareness of the importance of localism in the wider context of globalisation. The two organisations are to co-operate on a new policy publication on this subject early in the New Year.

For more information contact Shona Allison at Rural Partnerships.

NEW MEMBER/SUPPORTER RATES

Proposals were approved at the 2005 Annual General Meeting to reduce the fees payable by Plunkett members to a flat rate of £100 per annum for organisations and £24 per annum for individuals. This move is intended to symbolise the fact that most members choose to join Plunkett as an expression of support for the work which we do, rather than as a payment in return for services received. It is intended to combine the reduced fees with a drive to substantially increase the number of member/supporters.

Despite the reduction in fees, members are set to receive enhanced information on our activities, through the development of a monthly e-newsletter. This will complement Rural Connections, published twice a year and the Plunkett Weekly News service. As the hub of most of these services, the Plunkett website is to be developed further to allow online registration for the newsletter and online payments for membership and donations. We hope that these changes will meet with your approval and that you will encourage many of your partners to support the work of Plunkett.

For further information contact Karen Ewart.

PLUNKETT: SOCIAL AND ENTERPRISING

The Plunkett Foundation describes itself as a charity which improves rural livelihoods through co-operative and social enterprise. The structure of our income sources is such, however, that we could be described as a social enterprise ourselves. Moreover, we intend to take steps during 2006 to introduce a number of new enterprise-based fundraising initiatives. We increasingly aspire to combine social and enterprise in everything we do.

A social enterprise is commonly defined as a business with primarily social objectives, which earns more than half of its income from trading activities. The vast majority of current Plunkett income is won on a competitive basis by bidding to manage or implement publicly-funded projects. A smaller proportion of our income derives from income from our investments, membership fees and donations from companies or charitable trusts. As such, we could be formally classified as a social enterprise.

In reality, we don’t use this label for several reasons. We believe that there is more to being a business than the source of income alone; we believe that the character of our work is essentially charitable; and we would prefer people to support our work because of its value to rural communities, rather than as a cold payment for services rendered. We do, however, pride ourselves on our professionalism and entrepreneurial culture which enables us to ‘walk the talk’ when promoting and supporting social enterprise.

Our organisation of the first Rural Revival Fayre in Tackley this year was our first foray into another form of social enterprise, developing and implementing an enterprise-based fundraising event. We were sufficiently encouraged by the results to set in train plans to further develop thia format during 2006, and to combine this with further fundraising products. These include two cause-related products in association with River Cottage (see Page 2), a national competition in partnership with the Post Office, and a web-based fundraising venture currently under development. All these initiatives will raise funds towards our charitable objectives, create value for rural communities and utilise social enterprise approaches. Social enterprise we may not be, but social and enterprising we certainly are!

PEOPLE

After five years of outstanding service, Quintin Fox is moving on to take up a position as Manager of Member Services of the Canadian Co-operative Association in Ottawa. Whilst this is a loss to Plunkett, we are delighted that his skills and experience will not be lost to rural co-operative development and that we will have the opportunity to maintain contact with him in his new role. We wish him and his family well.

Jill Roberts and Elizabeth of Mar have been appointed as Trust Fundraising Manager and Public Relations Adviser respectively. These are both new positions which reflect the growing profile of Plunkett and the need to scale up our internal infrastructure to match this.

Neil Spooner has been appointed as Interim Manager of Rural Partnerships following the recent departure of Oliver Mathieson. Neil has an exceptional track record in the international development consulting sector, having established and built up his own company during the 1990s. Rural Partnerships will recruit a permanent Chief Executive in the New Year.

Buy Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall’s new compilation CD and support Rural Revival!

Following River Cottage’s decision to adopt Rural Revival as its UK charitable partner earlier this year, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has released a compilation CD to raise funds for their chosen charities. The CD is appropriately entitled ‘Let it Grow’ and Includes tracks from bands as diverse as Lemon Jelly, Snow Patrol, The Clash, Manic Street Preachers and many more besides. All royalties from the sales of the album will be donated to charity, thereby supporting the growth of community and social enterprises in rural England.

Hugh says, “This compilation of songs inspires me, and I hope will encourage others to embrace the River Cottage way of life. It contains mainly acoustic, ’Sunday morning’ tunes like, ’Let it Grow’ by Clapton and ’Wild Wood’ by Paul Weller, which I like to play as I potter around the kitchen or the veg patch or when driving across the countryside, just watching the cows!

It’s proved a hugely enjoyable project to be involved in - and although I can’t claim that buying the end product will change one’s life, I can claim that the money raised will, through the hands of our Charities, Rural Revival and Care International and help change the lives of others.”

To buy the CD, for £11.99 (ex. P&P), visit the River Cottage website on www.rivercottage.net.

THE FIFTH NATIONAL RURAL SOCIAL ENTERPRISE CONFERENCE

The first day of the conference will be completely dedicated to the subject of community-owned village shops. Community retailing is the hottest growth area of the rural social enterprise sector. Billed as the first Community Retailing Conference, it is aimed at all of those who are involved and interested in this sector. Day two will concentrate on the broader rural social enterprise sector. The general theme for the conference is to be finance and funding – the most fundamental issue for all involved with supporting, establishing and maintaining social enterprise in rural areas. Workshops will be held on a range of subjects concerned with the access and use of funding. As with previous conferences there will be a selection of case studies presented by existing enterprises giving first hand accounts of the challenges and successes they have encountered. High level speakers from regional and national government departments and agencies will also set out their vision for the sector as well as participate in open debate and discussion during the day.

For further information about The Plunkett Foundation fifth National Rural Social Enterprise conference, please click here.

If you would like to receive further details on the conference, please email info@plunkett.co.uk or call
01993 810 730

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Updated: June 05

RIVER COTTAGE 'ADOPTS' RURAL REVIVAL

River Cottage, the television series and lifestyle business venture created by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, has adopted Plunkett’s Rural Revival Campaign as its very first UK charitable partner. The relationship kicked off with an auction of promises associated with the last series of the programme to raise funds for Rural Revival. This is the prelude to a range of mutually beneficial events and activities to be held over the coming year.

River Cottage describes itself as a form of social enterprise, using commercial approaches to advocate and demonstrate ways in which people can reconnect with their natural environment. From a television programme with viewing figures of up to four million, the company has now established a permanent base in Dorset from which it runs courses, sells local food products and prepares for future productions.

The relationship with Rural Revival is an expression of the ethical values which Hugh and the company espouse. River Cottage believes that everyone can gain by eating high quality, locally produced food and, even more so, by participating in its production. There is a direct relationship between these values and those of Rural Revival, which believes that people can use enterprise-based approaches to address local problems themselves in a sustainable manner.

Activities under the framework of the new partnership include a forthcoming charity River Cottage CD, to be produced by Universal Music, the launch of a cause-related River Cottage beer by the celebrated Badger Brewery and the organisation of a national competition in partnership with the Post Office Rural Network. Whilst no target figures have been placed on the funds which could be raised through these initiatives, they should be sufficient to support the establishment of a number of new social and community enterprises benefiting many hundreds of rural residents.

The relationship with River Cottage is not a one-sided one. Plunkett are looking at ways in which it can bring its expertise of rural social enterprise to assist River Cottage to develop its embryonic food products activities. These currently include yoghurts, a range of soups, and a local organic products box scheme. Expanding the scale of the business without losing its local characteristics is one of the key challenges of the operation.

Anyone who is either a fan of River Cottage or who is interested in following the activities of River Cottage and Rural Revival over the coming year can visit the River Cottage website and subscribe to the free monthly newsletter online.

www.rivercottage.net, www.ruralrevival.org.uk

NEW DATA ON COMMUNITY-OWNED VILLAGE SHOPS

ViRSA have recently established the first ever database of community-owned village shops in England, financed by the Small Business Service. Compilation of the database provides a snapshot of this rapidly growing sector, showing not only that it is the fastest growing part of the social enterprise sector in England, but that its constituent enterprises are both sustainable and extremely valuable to their communities. The database will enable ViRSA to track the progress of the sector and better support its development. ViRSA already knew that there are around 150 community-owned shops, almost all of which were established in the past 15 years. The database shows that the vast majority of these are profitable, albeit small, businesses, which engage high proportions of their communities in their activities, as customers, members and active volunteers.

As an associated activity to the compilation of the database, the project team interviewed 24 representatives of community-owned village shops to assess The impact which they have on Their communities, discuss their plans for the future and consider the support which they need to make these happen. The survey found that these are businesses which are so close to their communities that their only desire is to better meet their immediate needs. Unlike conventional enterprises, they have little desire to expand beyond the village or to diversify to conduct other activities. On the other hand, almost all would like to improve the range of the retail services which they provide, particularly in the provision of local foods.

The manager and Board of ViRSA, which has been part of Plunkett since January, are now considering how best to support the sector in the light of these findings. Plans include the facilitation of joint purchasing amongst community-owned village shops, making better connections between local food producers and village shops, and the arrangement of more opportunities for individual community-owned shops to meet and interact with each other.

For further details contact Gill Withers, ViRSA Manager on 01993 814377

FIVE LIVE

Plunkett’s National Rural Social Enterprise Conference, now in its fifth year, has firmly established itself as the must-attend event for policy-makers, practitioners and participants in the rural social enterprise sector. This year’s event is to be held in association with Social Enterprise East Midlands, marking the start of a commitment to host the event with a regional or national partner which is actively supporting rural social enterprise in their area. The key theme of the event this year will be money, in all its forms. The conference will feature a range of presentations and case examples which explore ways in which rural social enterprises can both acquire capital and ensure that it is used effectively.

The conference will take place over two days on 24th and 25th November 2005 and will be held at PERA Innovation Centre Melton Mowbray Leicestershire.

The first day of the conference will be devoted to the subject of community-owned village shops and will be a stand-alone event, the first national Community Retailing Conference, for those who are particularly interested in this sector. The conference will provide the opportunity to present new research on the current state of the sector and to outline ViRSA’s new plans for the development of the sector since its recent merger with the Plunkett. Further details on the two conferences, including speakers and sessions will emerge over the coming months.

For further details contact Quintin Fox or James Pavitt.

ENTERPRISE FOR INCLUSION

The Enterprise for Inclusion Programme, which was formally launched at January’s Social Enterprise Coalition conference, recently received its 50th application for support. The programme will support 100 rural social enterprises or voluntary organisations adopting social enterprise approaches over the coming year. The Programme is managed by a Plunkett-led consortium and wholly financed by Defra.

The Programme provides packages of advisory support and grant funding to successful applicants. Current beneficiaries include community centres and charities diversifying to run social enterprises, community transport schemes wishing to run on more of a commercial basis, new-start community-owned village shops, and a planned co-operatively-owned employment agency for former shipyard workers from an isolated rural community. Support providers are allocated by means of a transparent brokerage system from an open roster of qualified social enterprise development advisers.

Defra is financing the pilot programme in order to assess the extent to which social enterprises are effective in tackling social exclusion in rural areas and, if so, to consider how best to support them. The programme managers are researching these issues with the support of the Judge Management Institute of Cambridge University by closely tracking the development of each project throughout the duration of its support. It is expected that the results of the programme will be of particular interest to Regional Development Agencies now that they have assumed responsibility for the co-ordination of both Business Link and the rural social justice objectives previously managed by the Countryside Agency.

Projects located in one of the four target regions (the North East, North West, East Midlands and South West) are able to apply for support until the end of September and the Programme will run until the end of March 2006.

For further details contact Jennifer Heim, Programme Co-ordinator

FARMER DIRECTOR TRAINING

Plunkett continues to be the foremost provider of training for farmer-Directors of Farmer-Controlled Businesses (FCBs) in England and has recently obtained further funding from the Government’s Vocational Training Scheme to continue its popular Milk Group Director Development Programme.

Milk groups are the largest FCBs in the UK, with the big three co-operatives (Dairy Farmers of Britain, MilkLink and First Milk) moving further into processing and a combined membership of over 10,000 farmers. Each have adopted council-based corporate governance structures and have all participated in the Director Development Programme, suggesting that business success goes hand in hand with good corporate governance.

Dairy Farmers of Britain has also recently contracted Plunkett in association with RABDF to deliver its Foundation Programme to all of its current and prospective Council members. Matt Sheehan, DFB’s Membership Director, said “We are very pleased to be working with Plunkett and RABDF again, having valued the training inputs they have previously provided to our council members and farmer-directors. Dairy Farmers of Britain recognise the value of ensuring that the skills, knowledge and attitude of Council members and farmer-directors are maintained at the highest level to provide sound strategic direction and guidance and enhance communications throughout the business. The DFB Foundation Programme provided through Plunkett and RABDF will go a long way to achieving this.”

For further details contact Quintin Fox, Head of Consultancy and Training

COMMUNITY TRANSPORT SET TO BECOME MORE ENTERPRISING

Richard Moreton, CEO, Plunkett

Beyond community-owned village shops, community transport is set to become the next big growth area of social enterprise in rural areas. This follows the growth of prominent city-based community transport enterprises and is further stimulated by the growing needs of public sector supporters to get more ‘bang for their buck’. The community transport sector is, in turn, warming to the idea of using enterprise-based approaches to achieve its social goals.

The ECT Group (formerly Ealing Community Transport) and Hackney Community Transport are amongst the shining lights of the entire social enterprise sector. Both have shown that having social objectives doesn’t need to be a barrier to commercial success and have grown through their ability to effectively bid for and manage public sector contracts, not only in the transport sector. In the rural part of the sector, whist the scale of these successes has not been matched, organisations such as Northumberland-based A.D.A.P.T. have driven growth by earning the majority of their income from charges for services and public sector contracts.

These developments are changing the culture of the entire community transport sector. As little as two years ago many in the sector would have regarded it as heresy to suggest that fees, rather than grants, should be regarded as the core income of community transport schemes. When I spoke to a packed workshop at last November’s community transport conference and asked how many of those present regarded themselves as social enterprises, almost all raised their hands. What has happened to bring about this change in mindset?

There are three important factors. Firstly, local authorities themselves are pushing community transport in this direction, by requiring more explicit demonstrations of value for money and making comparisons between schemes which are run on enterprise lines and those which are not. Secondly, developments in technology in the field of demand-responsive transport are making it more possible to raise income by responding to demand. And finally, social enterprise has become more fashionable as a concept, both within the sector and in public policy-making as a whole.

The Community Transport Association estimates that there are 700 community transport schemes in rural areas, and that around 200 could be said to run on an enterprise-basis. We think that the time is right to raise these numbers, and with this in mind are planning to work with the CTA and the Department of Transport to see how we can make it happen. The prize is worth fighting for. Local services, affordable housing and transport are the three most important issues of rural development in England today. Social enterprise is already playing an important role in the first two. Its time to do the same for transport.

TACKLEY VILLAGE FAYRE

The small village of Tackley, just two miles from Plunkett’s Woodstock offices, is to become the location of the first Rural Revival Fayre as a result of a partnership with the Post Office, Calor and River Cottage (see page one). Up to 5,000 revellers are expected to join the fun on August 13th to engage in a variety of traditional rural pastimes.

Tackley already has a close association with Rural Revival, with the community-owned shop, Post Office and café being one of the first beneficiaries of its support programme. Following a request from River Cottage to find a way to ‘use’ a batch of its unique home-made sausages, one thing led to another, and the villagers pounced on an opportunity to revive their very own Gala Day, last held in 1998. The event will kill several birds with one stone (and probably end up eating them too!) by drawing attention to the successful community enterprise, raising money for both the village and Rural Revival, and allowing everyone to have a really good time.

Attractions already in place include an appearance of the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a cast member of the Archers, a River Cottage food stall and a unique duck sheepdog display. Sponsors are joining the party too, with the Post Office, Calor Gas, Oxford Swindon and Gloucestershire Co-operative Society, MCC Design, all chipping in. Don’t miss it!

For further details contact James Pavitt, Local Foods Development Executive.

PEOPLE

Gill Withers has been appointed as the new Manager of ViRSA, taking over from Anthony Weldon who assumed the role on a transitional basis following the merger with Plunkett. Gill was one of the driving forces behind the Tackley All-in-One Centre, and has previous worked for BP and as a consultant to GP fundholding practices.

Richard Moreton, Plunkett Chief Executive, has been appointed to the Board of the Government’s Rural Development Service as one of five non-Executive Directors. The Board has an important role in overseeing the merger of the RDS into the forthcoming Natural England agency.

Shona Allison has been appointed as a Project Manager for Rural Partnerships. Shona previously worked for Highlands and Islands Enterprise and for the Edinburgh office of SQW Consultants.

RURAL PATHFINDERS

Plunkett’s rural development consulting subsidiary, Rural Partnerships, has been chosen by Defra to support the development of its Rural Pathfinders initiative, one of the central planks of the Government’s Rural Strategy 2004 and the Modernising Rural Delivery Programme. Rural Partnerships will work together with consultants from Birkbeck College to identify and map all Defra funding streams in the eight Pathfinder areas, one for each of the Government regions.

The aim of the Pathfinder Programme is to test new approaches to integrated rural policy delivery in specific areas, showing how central and regional programmes can be better ‘joined-up’ on the ground in pursuit of common developmental goals. The research being conducted by Rural Partnerships will improve the traceability of Government funding and provide a valuable tool to enable Regional Development Agencies to better understand and influence funding flows.

Rural Partnerships has recently completed its third full year of operation, which turned out to be its most successful to date. During the year the company managed or participated in projects in Pakistan, Kosovo, Mongolia for the EU and the Asian Development Bank and has at the same time broadened its portfolio of work in the UK where it has worked on contracts for Defra and the Countryside Agency.

For further details contact Oliver Mathieson on 01993 810927.

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