All Cannings Village Store
Hard work pays off for villagers
The single aim of the revived All Cannings Community Store Association Ltd (ACCSA) committee in late 2004 was to re-establish a working village shop in All Cannings. We believed that it would service the needs of the surrounding village communities in Allington, Cannings Cross, Stanton St Bernard and other outlying villages such as Patney, Etchilhampton and Alton Barnes. It was hard work, but by December 2005 we had re-opened the shop in a smartly re-furbished portacabin and in January 2006 we enjoyed a successful ‘launch event’ with the help of local and regional radio and press and a cook-up sponsored by our own home-grown celebrity chef, Peter Vaughan, of ‘The Healthy Life Bistro’ in Devizes.
Our shop is already achieving better than the desired turnover of £1500 per week and it enjoys the general support - and enthusiasm - of the village. We have over 130 shareholders, about one third of the village, and more are coming on board all the time. The shop has 20 trained volunteer staff on the roster and, at last count, another half dozen volunteers were awaiting training and induction. These numbers already ensure that, together with the paid staff, the shop is a viable economic proposition.
Our way-forward vision encapsulates a sense of localness, ownership, fairness and community: “ACCSA aims to contribute strongly to the quality of All Cannings community life by providing a viable, valued, attractive, responsive and not-for-profit shareholder-owned shop on a central permanent village site.”