Growing Well

Origins

Growing Well was founded as a result of development work undertaken by a member of the Enterprising Communities team, Beren Aldridge, during 2003-2004.  Beren had already been working for EC for 12 months at this stage.  He was first hired as Enterprise Manager in March 2002 and was charged with developing an Intermediate Labour Market (ILM) type project i.e. a social enterprise established with the aim of providing work experience and training to disadvantaged people in the labour market.

Beren spent the best part of the first 12-months in post, trying to establish two possible ILM projects. The first centred upon a consortium of social housing organisations offering training for development workers in West Cumbria. This proposal was encouraged to apply for Objective 2 funds but ultimately turned down as too expensive.  The second proposal sought to increase the utilisation of under-used publicly owned workspaces by local enterprises . The proposal involved NWDA making the space available to a newly formed social enterprise at a stepped rent to enable local businesses to occupy the empty space.  In return for the rent reduction the occup ant businesses were to offer employment placements to local unemployed businesses.  The project did not go beh ind the feasibility stage as it was deemed to financially risky for VAC to undertake.

 This failure of the two proposals for possible ILMs led Beren and Viv Lewis, his manager, to revise his work plans for his second year – and allowed them to prioritise Growing Well as an idea. They realised that the previous two attempts to establish an ILM had involved enterprise areas that were new to Beren. He was encouraged to look at his own professional experience for ideas “as he realised setting up a social enterprise required passion”.  This step happened for two specific reasons. The first was that with the collapse of the two ILM-type proposals, Enterprising Communities faced a problem. Their funding agreement required them to establish an ILM-type social enterprise – originally focused on Crofton – and they were an output down. The second concerned a second member of staff in the Development Team who was herself working almost full-time supporting one single social enterprise at Lowick School. This single enterprise focus offered a possible model for other team members to follow. 

Through 2003-2004 Beren carried on working on other Enterprising Communities projects: Storth Post Office and Workbase; and also worked supporting VAC’s proposed Community Asset and Reinvestment Trust. He also maintained a watching brief for the Business Incubator at Crofton. The results in respect of this work were that the Storth community bought its shop and re-opened it as a community-owned shop, whilst Workbase restructured itself, went through a business planning process and put together a new package of funding to re-launch itself as a social enterprise. .  The  Asset and Reinvestment Trust happened in part, resulting in a Community Development Finance Institution but without the asset elements, and Crofton didn’t happen at all. However, outside of these projects, the remainder of Beren’s efforts focussed on the development of Growing Well.

Beren’s involvement with the idea to establish Growing Well arose from his own interests and background and reflected a personal ambition. Prior to joining the Encom team Beren had run an employment placement service for people recovering from mental health problems in South Cumbria, and had recognised there was a lack of structured rehabilitation opportunities for people in recovery, particularly utilising the outdoors.  He was also aware, through the professional contacts he had made in that post that there were contracting opportunities available for this work, and that Kendal College had a desire to run horticulture courses but did not have the facilities to provide them.  Beren also harboured a long-standing wish to develop some form of farm based therapeutic community for people in recovery following his experiences working within the Camphill Community movement.

Beren is honest that one of his motivations for taking the job with Enterprising Communities was that he wanted to develop his professional skills to explore this idea as a potential social enterprise. He is also clear that he wasn’t expecting to do this directly as part of his work role when he joined the organisation.   Instead he was looking for experience of working with a range of social enterprises to gain experience and contacts. Through this, he expected to accumulate the skills needed to establish a social enterprise at a later date. The first step in the development of Growing Well had been an Internet search, which found a workers co-op with farm in Co Durham working with people with mental health issues. Beren arranged to visit, and to take a friend, James, with him on the visit, , as James had expressed an interest in getting involved in development of a farm based growing project as he was both a horticulturalist and a trainer . They visited on 5th November 2002 – and scribbled 3-4 pages of notes on the way back. “These notes” Beren said “became the vision for Growing Well.” A vision, already shared at this very early stage, with James.