Community Shop - Making Local Food Work Study Visit

Host Organisation: Ashton Hayes & Mouldsworth Community Shop
Representatives: Lisa Allman (Chairman) and Deb Deynam (Manager)

Visiting Organisation: Pwllglas Community Shop Group
Representatives: Sharon Newell, Helen Roberts, Catherine & Grayson Walker, Steven Kell and Sue

Facilitator: Charlotte Foster

Date of Visit: Monday 24th January 2011 – the shop’s first Anniversary!

Background:

The idea for a community shop began last year with an open meeting for the residents of Pwllglas chaired by Eryl Williams, local county councillor. A steering group was formed and Pwllglas Village Hall committee kindly offered the group a permanent home for the shop within the hall.

As there was a lot of support for a shop, Sharon Newell has taken on the voluntary task of getting the ball rolling and she is working with Helen Roberts from Cadwyn Clwyd, the rural development agency, and other members of the steering group.

As well as stocking the everyday basics, they are hoping to stock local produce and with the installation of the new kitchen in the village hall, shop volunteers will be able to make tasty products and snacks to sell in the shop.

Original objective of visit:
Pwllglas contacted the Plunkett Foundation for help and support. As well as receiving a set of advice sheets, a visit to Cheshire was also arranged for the group so that they could gain further information about the whole process of setting up a shop from scratch.

Key areas of interest include:

• Income, profit and pricing
• Finance and fundraising – writing and developing the business plan
• Sourcing and managing suppliers, stock, local produce
• Shop design, fixtures and fittings, extra services etc.
• Getting ready for trading, promotion and marketing
• Legislation and best practice
• How the shop makes the best use of volunteers
• How did the shop involve other members of the community

Summary of visit

1. Introductions followed by background information on the organisation:

Ashton Hayes and Mouldsworth (the Community) are two rural villages in Cheshire with a population of around 1200 living in 500 households. Both Villages were served by one village store that offered general convenience items and a Post Office. However, due to a change in circumstances, the current proprietor was no longer able to continue to operate the general store.

As both villages were in a rural location, and the next available stores some miles away and public transport links were poor, a Steering Committee was formed to investigate the possibility of establishing a community run shop within the village. There was strong public support to set up an Industrial and Provident Society, returning any profit generated to the Community.

The aim of the Ashton Hayes and Mouldsworth project was and still remains:

‘To provide a shop run by the community that meets the needs of the community and provides a consistent offering and reliable service at a fair price’

The benefits of maintaining a shop in Ashton and Mouldsworth also include:

• Provision of a Post Office Facility within the village and
• Maintaining services locally supports the values of the Carbon Neutral Project

Other discussion points:

Premises; legal structure; opening hours; local produce, stock, Making Local Food Work; staffing; volunteers; issue of shares, loans and grant funding; match funding; steering group/management committee   
     
What was useful for the visiting party and some of their comments both on the day of the visit and afterwards:

Visiting Party

“Learning more about the range and seeing the quantity of goods that can fit into a small space.”

“Seeing the actual shop ‘up and running’ in reality is very helpful.”

“The enthusiasm was inspiring and contagious.”

“It is good to be able to put names to faces.”

“The whole combination of seeing everything.”

“Finding out about companies like Palmer and Harvey – very useful.”

Sharon wrote: “Thank you very much for organising and meeting us at Ashton Hayes. Fantastic role model for us to work towards and we are all buzzing now to get going and have our own Ashton Hayes. Wow and making a small profit in year 1. Our floor space is similar width and length (bit shorter) but we are going to look at copying their layout as it seems very successful. They gave us so many useful tips and advice - I am still processing it all.”
           
Host organisation:  “It’s lovely to have such positive feedback from people and to help and impart knowledge to others.”

Lisa wrote: “We all really enjoyed the day on Monday; it was a nice way to reflect on the past year and the milestones we have reached along the way. It is good to take look at the business through someone else’s eyes.”

Deb wrote: “It was so nice to show you all around our shop and to share some of our experiences with you. I think Susan and her team are sure to make a success of what sounds like a very promising project, they all seemed so driven and enthusiastic. Please let us know if we can be of any more help and I would love to visit Pwllglas community shop hopefully in the not too distant future!”

The visiting organisation asked “If you had the opportunity to go back, what would you do differently?”

Lisa replied: “We would not recommend opening two weeks after Christmas and remember it takes a lot longer to stock and stack the shelves than you think!”

Facilitator:

It was particularly exciting and rewarding to visit the shop on such a special day – the first year has gone by and a profit has also been made, which is fantastic.  It was also lovely to welcome Pwllglas to Ashton Hayes and witness the enthusiasm that everyone shared. I enjoyed meeting the staff and volunteers and it was interesting to compare how the shop used to look.

Lisa and her team deserve to enjoy themselves after all their hard work and they can now look back on the challenging times and what they have achieved with confidence and pride.

Impact:

• The visit provided valuable information and insight which will help Pwllglas to develop a their shop project in the future
• The visitors acquired a good understanding of how Ashton Hayes has developed their shop
• Discussion between the visitors will help them to determine the most appropriate and immediate goals for their current project
• The visit provides an example of how ‘seeing is believing’
• The visit delivered what it was supposed to and the visitors were highly satisfied with what they discussed and learned.

Final message to Pwllglas from Ashton Hayes and Mouldsworth Community Shop:

“It was lovely to meet you and your team Sharon. We hope you got everything you wanted from the visit, but we are more than happy to provide further help as you plan for your opening day. We wish you all luck with your venture.”

Lisa, Debs and all at Ashton and Mouldsworth