Galleries Shop & Café
The Galleries Shop & Café – which is named after the Galleries Field on whose edge it sits – opened on Tuesday 4th August 2009. It is jointly owned by the communities of Freshford and Limpley Stoke which are on opposite sides of the county boundary – Limpley Stoke is in Wiltshire.
A grand opening was held on Saturday 12th September – Midge Ure, Ultravox front man, cut the ribbon.
Limpley Stoke’s Shop and PO closed in 2004, Freshford’s in 2007. The campaign to get a community shop started in 2006, with a public meeting to gauge just how much support there was for the idea. There was lots – people actually signed on the dotted line to say how much they were going to spend at the shop per month if we were able to bring one about!
It took three and half years altogether. We tried hard to take on the original shop. But it wasn’t available at a price we could justify so, having also checked out all other possible existing buildings, we decided we needed to build a new shop - and some land was donated on the edge of a field, by the Village Hall which is in a good central location for our customers. A Rural Renaissance grant of £90K and quite a number of capital donations from residents to provide the match funding got us off to a good start. Additional funding came from the Plunkett Foundation's Village Core Programme, Awards for All, the Medlock Trust, the COMMA fund and a number of local organisations; as well as several fundraising events. A promises auction raised £6,300!
We now have an attractive new green building with enough space to offer a reasonable choice of goods and to accommodate a small café – which expands out onto our terrace in fine weather. It’s conveniently located next to the Village Hall, with ample parking. The emphasis is on affordable basics, local produce, wholefoods and organic food, with an interesting collection of up-market ranges, too.
The shop has a two-tier structure - a community association which is a charity owns the building as a subsidiary. The shop itself is a limited company whose policies and guidelines are set by the charity, the Freshford & Limpley Stoke Community Association (FLiSCA). It employs a paid full time manager, an apprentice, a very part-time café manager and a large team of volunteers.
For further information on Freshford and Limpley Stoke view the following news item:
http://www.plunkett.co.uk/newsandmedia/news-item.cfm/newsid/231