Update on Strong Roots CIC
This has been a great year for Strong Roots CIC.
We started it by investing a proportion of our profit in our first Planting the Seeds Programme in Feb / Mar 2014 and trained five people who were out of work and had aspirations to start their own enterprise. We have watched participants either get their ventures off the ground (https://www.facebook.com/thebottlelab & http://www.lindseysandland.com) or rethink their career choices in a proactive and purposeful manner. Feedback on the programme was very positive and we couldn't be prouder of what our #seedlings have achieved and continue to wish them every success in the future and continue to act as a sounding board if ever they need us.
We have also won consultancy work which has included running an impact evaluation of a service supporting ex-offenders and individuals furthest from the workplace to retrain in a working environment to ultimately seek and stay in paid employment. This project involved developing an effective method to evaluate outcomes and incorporated the useful recommendations from the National Children's Bureau's Measuring Employability Skills research. Strong Roots designed then implemented an evaluation toolkit to measure current impact but also ensured that the toolkit was simple and had clear guidance which meant it could be used by Project Managers in the future to ensure that their outcomes would be continuously monitored without the need to further engage with consultants.
Ambitiously we stated in our business plan for 2013-2016 that in year two (this year) we would launch our first neighbourhood enterprise that would be under our umbrella. It needed to be a commercially viable enterprise trading goods and services for profit, which would be reinvested back into the community and offer opportunities for employment and training to individuals finding it difficult to obtain and sustain paid work. Catering With Pride launched this weekend offering Sunday Roast dinners at The Kings Arms (Salford) and not only did we make a profit on the day but we also received excellent feedback and coverage on Twitter (@caterwithpride) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/cateringwithpride).
These are still early days, but Catering With Pride has already taken four big orders to cater for events and Christmas Parties over the next few months and will be marketing to potential new clients to help them with their catering needs. As a social enterprise, we are planning to run a free cookery school (5-6 half day sessions) for single parents in Manchester & Salford early next year with a free crèche available and (tbc) entertainment for the kids by a CBeebies presenter. More news on this to come. Need to make the money first!
Thank you to clients, colleagues, friends, seedlings and most importantly my Mum for helping to make this happen. It has been a challenging journey to start a new enterprise during the ‘age of austerity’ but I couldn't be happier with what has been achieved. As the wise sage Dolly Parton said "the way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain".
Onwards and upwards.
Ben Crouch, Director, Strong Roots CIC