In November we have facilitated the final two meetings for the Community Shop Network in Devon, together with Plunkett Foundation (Plunkett Foundation). These two network meetings took place in Ilsington, Teignbridge and Ide, Exeter and in total there were 34 attendees representing 13 community shops.
During the meeting the representatives networked with each other and as a group we discussed how to recruit and retain volunteers, non-food items including cards, calenders, local art and books, bamboo socks, Eco refills, soap and fresh flowers as well as how they would like future meetings to look like. Each shop were sharing how they go about running their community shop, sharing best practice and challenges. Many got new ideas which they will incorporate, after the meeting many attendees visited the hosting shop.
This phase of the project has been funded by Devon Community Foundation (Devon Community Foundation Homepage (devoncf.com).
Quote from the day;
- "The meetings were useful as we were all operating in isolation dealing with issues not knowing what we were doing was right or the whether issues we faced were faced by others and these meetings provided on outlet for support information and problem solving."
These network meetings were a recommendation from a previous Contain Outbreak Management Fund (COMF) project, the final report can be found via the link below: