Wiltshire Business
Keeping it local
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| The Community Shop at Blunsdon |
The Devizes-based charity, Community First, is continuing to live up to its name, as LEIGH ROBINSON reports.
A major boost for Steeple Ashton's village shop development plans has been received from Community First, the Devizes-based charity devoted to supporting innovative community projects in Wiltshire and Swindon.
A cheque for £8,500 (40 per cent grant and 60 per cent loan) has been received from the charity's Business Grants and Loan Fund, to enable the shop to install air conditioning and also buy an open chiller, in a drive to increase shop sales.
The air conditioning will be installed during February, along with the new chiller.
It will provide a better, more comfortable shopping environment for customers, shop staff and volunteers alike.
And the new chiller will allow
the shop to expand its range of delicatessen foods and make them more accessible for customers.
The shop sales have been going well through the winter months, with October and November figures holding at autumn levels and December being the shop's best ever sales month.
However, chairman of the shop's management committee, John Aeberhard, said: "The challenge facing the shop in the longer term is to continue this trend such that the shop can in due course support more paid staff and lighten the load currently being placed on our volunteers, who cover 75 per cent of the hours during which the shop is open."
The Community First grant and loan will, it is hoped, help to accelerate this process.
Community First's Business Grants and Loan Fund has provided combination grants and loans amounting to over £38,000 to village retailers across Wiltshire in the past two years, helping shops set up, re-furbish, diversify or replace essential equipment.
The range goes from £500 to £10,000, and interested small businesses and social enterprises can contact Marion Whitehead at Community First on 01380 722475 or mwhitehead@communityfirst.org.uk.
Steeple Ashton village shop opened for business in September 2005 after six years of planning and effort by the local community.
Set up as an industrial provident society, or exempt charity, it is owned and operated by the community, and serves as a local convenience store and Post Office, replacing the last privately owned shop in the village, which closed in 1998.
The shop, one of several such community stores in Wiltshire, received initial funding of £57,000 from a rural renaissance grant.
It won the community section of the Royal Bath & West Show's annual rural business development awards in 2006.
Community First is a private charity, founded in 1965, and has an expert staff of more than 30.
It works in close partnership with local grass roots communities, voluntary organisations, statutory agencies, parish and town councils and funders to help develop and deliver wide-ranging community programmes that bring economic and environmental benefits to people living in Wiltshire and Swindon.
It is part of a national network of rural community councils supporting and promoting the work of the voluntary sector in rural communities and market towns.
For further information see www.communityfirst.org.uk
11:21am Wednesday 5th March 2008
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