Batheaston Community Store

Dear Batheaston residents

You have expressed an interest in the proposed Batheaston community shop championed by Grow Batheaston. You would either have done this last year when Grow Batheaston was publicising itself within the village or at our recent community day on 4th September.

The Steering group of Grow Batheaston has been working behind the scenes developing our proposal for a community store.  We have reached the conclusion that there is no suitable accommodation within the village at this time.  Therefore, in consultation with the Plunkett Foundation we have agreed that we will set up an online offering and supplement this with pop-up markets, so we will not have a physical “shop”. You may feel that now we have two convenience stores in the village that we don’t need another, but our offering is quite different and will complement the existing, not be in competition. Our store will concentrate solely on healthy foods, which are ethically sourced and will be offered with reduced packing and less plastic.  

It has also been agreed that we should separate the community store from Grow Batheaston, so that it can stand on its own as a separate entity with Community Beneficiary Scheme status. Therefore, we need to establish a new Steering Group specifically for the management of the community Store.

The CBS model works based on individuals buying a share or shares in the store, the price of which will be set at an affordable rate as we want to include as many residents as possible from all walks of village life.

We would like people to have a variety of skills and experience on this group and we welcome anyone with an interest to come forward.  Specifically, the roles we require are as follows: 

·      Chair – someone who has retail experience and a background of working with volunteer groups and/or charities would be ideal for this role.  

·      Treasurer - someone who can look after our finances, advise the steering group on all matters financial and act as the treasurer.  The actual day to day accounts will be carried out by the store’s paid employee, as we have secured funding for this for an initial 3-month period. 

·      Human Resources - we need a person to come forward who has Human Resources skills such as writing job descriptions, employee specifications and has experience in recruitment and selection practices. 

·      Communications/Marketing – this role would focus on increasing awareness of the store and act as a membership co-ordinator.  So, you would need to have good computer/technical skills to be able to manipulate spreadsheets and databases to ensure produce lines are kept updated. 

If you feel that you have some of the above skills, please contact hello@growbatheaston.co.uk to register your interest and we can set up a preliminary meeting to discuss further.

Even if you don’t have the experience and skills, we would like to hear from you if you have the enthusiasm to be part of the steering group who will manage this project and get it “off the ground”.

We are planning to hold a public meeting via Zoom on 18th November at 7.15pm where we will be able to present our current ideas and proposals and receive feedback from residents.

A link directly for this meeting are:

https://achievebreakthrough.zoom.us/j/84039094500?pwd=YU5CRWVDVkdEN1FVRlR1SHNxNlRNZz09&from=addon

Or go to www.zoom.us

Meeting ID: 840 3909 4500
Passcode: 781683 

On behalf of the Grow Batheaston Steering Group

‘Working together from the ground up’