January 2010 News Round-Up

Over the last few months the Board running the project research have adopted a number of strategies to shape their plans.

A number of workshops have been attended on many subjects as we attempt to upgrade our skills base, network and refine our plans. Most of these have been run by www.wcva.org.uk , www.ncfi.org.uk and www.walescoop.com and have tackled the themes:

• Care farm commissioning and securing paid placements
• Legal structures for social enterprises
• Developing sustainable funding procedures
• Creating business plans
• Grant funding provision

Several more have been booked including:

• Loan provision for social enterprises
• How to tender workshops

Secondly the Board has conducted a number of visits to land projects all over the UK but particularly in Wales seeking best practice procedures, the practicalities of land-use as a community resource, looking at different business models, assessing the viability of existing models and their relevance to this model, looking for mentoring opportunities that can teach us how to do things in a wide ranging fact-finding mission that has informed and guided the project plans sometimes directly and often very subtly. Amongst the many bodies we have visited are:

• http://www.vision-twentyone.com in south Wales a visionary placement provider for adults with learning difficulties in community and land projects
• www.hillside.org.uk a farm sanctuary in Norfolk
• www.nugentcare.org run residential homes with a grounds maintenance project for the residents run by adults with learning difficulties
• www.gowerbirdhospital.org.uk a hands-off rehab bird unit that maximises camera use to guide their procedures and provide images of their work
• www.camphill.org.uk a large land based collection of communities working with adults with learning difficulties in a structured self sufficient way that allows self determination, semi independent living and a model to admire

In  the next few months there will be other site visits in Wales.

Thirdly each of the Board has taken an area of interest and is slowly developing the skills and knowledge that will be brought to each strand of the project. So for an example, food provision is the thing that motivates Vee Longton, she has a skill, an incredible skill for producing the most incredible food, ethical, organic, yummy. That is her resource, what can we do with that resource, we can produce it for visitors, for volunteers, for the conference centre and training programs Empower will run from the site, we can supply off site catering, we can centre it to themed awareness days or events on the site to celebrate Pancake Day or whatever. We can produce a business plan for this project, we can tailor Vee’s  passion to training programs around Health and Well-being, we can offer hospitality and basic catering courses and paid placements to adults with learning difficulties…..We identify the resource, we set out how the resource can generate revenue, we explore each of those revenue paths, we identify the skills and expertise we need to gain or bring in to deliver each path and then we draw up the business plan. And each of these resources we will be adapting for a community use.

In the next 16 weeks 3 key issues will be addressed and implemented:

• The move from UnInc Assoc to a more formal body will be undertaken
• The first formal business plan for the coming 12 months will be signed off

The support structure for induction, assessment and all procedural policies will be prepared for the first land placements the Centre will be welcoming after purchase.

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