| County | Wiltshire, South West |
|---|---|
| Postcode | BA14 6HP |
| Opened | 2005 |
| Post Office | No |
| Legal | ViRSA IPS model rules |
| Premises | Conversion |
View a map of where to find us
Volunteer Dee Dee Wilde
7.30am - 6.30pm Monday to Friday
8.30am - 4.30pm on Saturdays
9am - 11am on Sundays
Determined volunteers who campaigned to keep their village shop, then took it over themselves are celebrating after winning an award.
Steeple Ashton''s village shop was named winner in the community section of the rural business development awards, held at the Royal Bath and West Show.
Committee chairman Ines Crucefix said the money would be used to pay for a special outing as a big thank you to everyone who worked for years to make the project happen and make it a success.
Mrs Crucefix said: "It is a pleasure to see people walking about the village again on their way to the shop, which really is acting as a community centre at the heart of the village."
Article by Morwenna Blake, from http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/headlines/display.var.
789583.0.shop_wins_show_award.php
The Steeple Ashton village shop is a community venture throughout with over 200 village shareholders and staffed largely by over 50 volunteers from the village. The shop which opened its doors in September 2005, replacing one that closed in 1999, was launched on the back of a £57,000 rural renaissance grant from the Wiltshire and Swindon Rural Regeneration Partnership, supplementing the £12,500 raised from villagers’ own pockets.
Set up as an industrial provident society and, therefore, a non-profit-making charity, the shop, the first community shop in West Wilts, meets the need for a convenience store for local residents who have otherwise had to travel some five or six miles to the larger retail outlets in Trowbridge or Melksham. It also serves as an outlet for local produce of all kinds.
In the months since it opened, the shop has been averaging monthly turnover of some £10,000, more than enough to cover costs. It has also been responsible for a renewal of community spirit in the village, as it includes a coffee shop and offers a range of other services from dry cleaning and shoe repairs to postal services. It is also due to be connected to e-Trowbridge offering residents Internet services, including training.
The shop is located on the village High Street in a listed building that was previously the village school.
A troupe of some 50 regular volunteers and a number of occasional helpers are the backbone of the community-owned and operated village shop that has brought a revival to the community spirit at the heart of Steeple Ashton. The new shop, opened last autumn, is more than holding its own against the unrelenting pressure of the supermarket advance that is seeing 50 independent stores a week close for good and has already established itself as a vibrant centre of village life.
Typical of the volunteers is Dee Dee Wilde, a founder member of Pan’s People,
the sensational dance group that brought zest to the BBC “Top of the Pops” show for ten years from the swinging ‘60s. Dee Dee, who continues to have a very active life as a writer and business partner in a video company, as well as taking roles in TV projects and product advertising, still manages to squeeze a regular two hours a week serving in the shop.
“I love it,” she said. “I love the friendly atmosphere and I think it’s a brilliant thing for the community to have a shop again, especially for some of the older people in the village who can’t easily get to other places.”
Dee Dee comes to the shop from Rood Ashton with her neighbour, Anne Little, who looks after the shop’s coffee bar whilst Dee Dee works the till. Other volunteers come from Keevil, as well as from Steeple Ashton itself.
They include ex-teachers like Colin Brett Green and Alan Baker, a practising dentist, Ros Thompson, who comes in on her day off, a former pilot with Cathay Pacific, David Williams, a hairdresser, Krystina Richards, an army Lieutenant Colonel, Mike Beard, and his wife Jill, who works in the American Museum in Bath, and Anne Accolla, who runs a very active programme of yoga classes. The youngest volunteer is James Smith, 19, who comes into the shop regularly on Saturday afternoons, and one of the oldest is Lystra Berrett, who is 80 this month and tackles everything in the shop including the complexities of the till. Another octogenarian volunteer is Dorothy Broadley, who is also the super efficient secretary of the shop management committee. And Ron Plum, a health and safety adviser with children’s charity, Trident, and also on the shop management committee, regularly takes on the opening of the shop at 7.30am and covers the first hour before going to work.
Other tasks around the shop are also handled by volunteers. Malcolm Crucefix, for example, husband of the shop management committee chairman, Ines Crucefix, looks after fixtures and fittings and all routine maintenance and together the husband and wife team also help out by serving in the shop.
“They’re all stars as far as I’m concerned,” said shop manager, Dawn Galey. “We couldn’t keep the shop open the hours we do over seven days a week without them,” she added.
Dawn and her shop assistant, Sheila Jones, are the only paid staff in the shop and, between them, they are contracted to cover 52 hours of opening time. That leaves a further 13 hours for volunteers, but, since the shop aims to have at least two people serving in the shop at any time and three on Saturday mornings when it gets really busy, this translates into over 100 hours of volunteer time a week.
“It really is a community venture from all viewpoints and it’s working, Dawn Galey concluded.
John Aeberhard
6 February 2005
Wine expert Declan Walton
Click here to link to case study
Steeple Ashton Village Shop
01380 871211
John Aeberhard, media relations
01380 870602
Back to the shop directory
