Plunkett Foundation News

The Plunkett Weekly News is the latest roundup of news from the Plunkett Foundation and news affecting co-operatives, social enterprises, farming, food and rural development.Plunkett Weekly News 02.10.2009 Plunkett Foundation NewsPLUNKETT PERSPECTIVE This week’s perspective captures the essence of the Making Local Food Work Conference and reflects on the ‘desire to connect’ local food initiatives. http://plunkettfoundation.blogspot.com/ To follow the Plunkett Foundation on Facebook visit       http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=79687818921&ref=nf To follow the Plunkett Foundation on Twitter visit http://twitter.com/PeterCouchman INCREASED SUPPORT ON SKILLSHARE MENTORING PROGRAMME Skillshare is a mentoring programme from the Making Local Food Work, Specialist Enterprise Support team and is available to community owned food...

The second Making Local Food Work conference was held in Bristol last week and what an event it turned out to be. The first had sold out its 150 places in just a few days, so we took the bold step of booking a 250 place venue for the second. This sold out too with a waiting list.The main thing that I loved about the day was the wonderful variety of people there. They must have come from every aspect of the local food movement and the learning between them made the event worthwhile.The speakers didn't disappoint with Tim Crabtree...

The Co-operativesUK Good Food, Good Governance Team, as a partner in the Plunkett Foundation led Making Local Food Work programme, is organising further interactive training and advice workshops to help community food enterprises to operate in an accountable, efficient and democratic way.And with just three Good Food, Good Governance training days left before Christmas 2009, we wanted to send a quick reminder to ensure you don’t miss out!Over the next few months, we will be running Governance and Legal Structures training days across the country in the following cities: Sheffield – 17 November at The Circle Newcastle – 25 November...

The Plunkett Weekly News is a weekly roundup of the latest news from the Plunkett Foundation and news relating to co-operatives, social enterprise, farming and food rural development.Below is the Plunkett Weekly News for the week ending 25 September 2009.Plunkett Foundation NewsPLUNKETT PERSPECTIVE This week’s perspective looks into the place of ‘Green Care’ within the wider role of social enterprise following Peter Couchman’s presentation at a European wide Green Care conference in Turkey. http://plunkettfoundation.blogspot.com/ To follow the Plunkett Foundation on Facebook visit       http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=79687818921&ref=nf To follow the Plunkett Foundation on Twitter visit http://twitter.com/PeterCouchman MAKING LOCAL FOOD WORK CONFERENCE IS A GREAT SUCCESSThe...

The Building Community Assets programme levered almost £20m into the East of England following support from the East of England Development Agency an independent evaluation has found.Building Community Assets was a two year capital grant programme totalling an investment of £4.9m which helped social enterprises and other third sector organisations to take ownership of land and buildings in the East of England. Eight flagship projects in total were supported with capital grants of up to £750,000 to fund the purchase and development costs of assets in order to facilitate a greater level of economic and social outcomes.Amongst the successful applicants...

Fascinating trip this week to speak at a Green Care conference of academics looking at Green Care and agriculture. Green Care is a very broad church but can be defined as "to use nature to produce health, social or educational benefits" In the UK, this is best shown by care farms, that provide a wide range of experiences on farms to benefit people faced with such issues as addiction, learning difficulties and many more areas. You can find far more out at the National Care Farming Initiative (http://www.ncfi.org.uk/), a really inspiring organisation.Plunkett was asked to out this work in a...

Making Local Food Work: Community Enterprise and the Future of Food Conference – 30th September 2009, BristolWe look forward to seeing you at Community Enterprise and the Future of Food, the second Making Local Food Work conference.  As with the first conference in March this event is a sell out with 250 people attending which is fantastic and demonstrates the appetite for these approaches.Headline speakers at the event includeProfessor Kevin Morgan of Cardiff UniversityTim Crabtree, Director of Local Food LinksBarny Haughton of Bordeaux QuayMore about the event....The people attending the event are a mix of community food enterprises, support organisations,...

The Plunkett Weekly News is a weekly round up of the latest news from the Plunkett Foundation and the latest co-operative social enterprise, farming and food and rural development news.Plunkett Weekly News 18.09.2009 (pdf)Plunkett Foundation NewsPLUNKETT PERSPECTIVE This week’s perspective looks at the Plunkett Foundation’s ‘Right to Try’ idea and its adoption within the Co-operative Party’s Manifesto.http://plunkettfoundation.blogspot.com/ To follow the Plunkett Foundation on Facebook visit       http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=79687818921&ref=nf To follow the Plunkett Foundation on Twitter visit http://twitter.com/PeterCouchman TWO NEW COMMUNITY SHOPS CELEBRATE SUCCESS  The communities of Hindon in Wiltshire, and Freshford and Limpley stoke in Somerset had reason to celebrate this week. Both...

Two years after the last shop closed, the residents of two small villages near Bath now have a purpose-built, community-owned shop and café building developed with support from the Village CORE Programme.  The grand opening of the Galleries Shop & Café, owned by the Freshford and Limpley Stoke Community Association took place on 12th September with Midge Ure, Ultravox frontman, cutting the ribbon.The closure of the two village shops, in 2004 and 2007, meant that the residents of Freshford and Limpley Stoke had to travel over three miles to reach the nearest small shop and five miles to the nearest...

Congratulations to the Co-operative Party for becoming the first political party to adopt Plunkett's Right to Try idea in its manifesto. Whilst the Foundation is politically neutral and seeks to influence all mainstream parties, we are delighted to recognise this endorsement.Right to Try is a simple idea. All too often communities hear of the closure of a shop just as it is about to close its doors. This then creates an almost impossible task of deciding that the shop could be saved, rallying the community, setting up a new organisation, raising the funds to save the shop etc. All this...