So it is now full steam ahead with design, planning, ordering, talking with suppliers, recruiting of staff, forming the Cooperative/Social Enterprise structure…and about 99 other items on a rather long spreadsheet to tick off.

We will update you soon with the first Before photographs…and a proposed layout.

Exciting times indeed!

We are very excited about this now as it means that we can start drawing up plans for the interiors, talk about definite timelines and start to ramp up the online presence of the shops, the marketing of the shops, the engagement with the local community that the shops are in. Add to this assessing staffing levels and then employing people in the next couple of months and we are due for an extremely fraught, busy but exciting couple of months.

Slightly cheesy and obvious picture showing signing of a legal document!

We have now create Totally Locally Shops Ltd which be a totally transparent company for the shops to operate within and we are now looking at the various legal mechanisms that best fit the community model that we are trying to create with the shops whether this is a Limited Company, Social Enterprise, Community companies, Co-op society, etc. More will follow in the next two weeks along with other first looks at layout and other more interesting things like that.

Pete has beavering away down his checklist of things that we need to stock and has sent in this little report…

Although we didn’t post last week we weren’t resting on our laurels. We have been out looking at places in the Calderdale area for suitable properties, etc and we will continue looking for the next couple of weeks.

We have now managed to recruit people to the project to help in terms of the consultancy that we will need to get the shops going and up and running. 816 Espresso and Suma have agreed to help us moving forward so that is great news for us as their experience in the areas that we will need for our shops will be invaluable. Also they have the same sort of approach and outlook to how we want to run the shops. E.g. Ethically and for the benefit of as many people locally as possible.

This week we will be taking a look at the numbers and financing of things…slightly duller perhaps thatn looking around at potential locations but nonetheless important.

We are hoping in the upcoming week or so to create a framework/guidelines for how the Totally Locally Shops should run.

What we are hoping to achieve is Totally Shops that are owned and run by the communities that they are in, staffed by local people and using mainly local suppliers. Totally Locally will play a part in terms of providing ongoing PR, marketing, etc but the intention is also to put any profits back into the community through projects and charities.

We are currently doing research on Cooperative models that could be used so we have a fair bit of reading to do from Cooperatives UK, which seems to be a great resource. Hopefully we will be looking at how Suma Wholefoods in Elland (one of the Total Local Heroes in Calderdale) have set up their business to and how it practically runs for ideas.

So far we think that this might be the best approach for the type of shops and businesses we are hoping to generate from the project.

It has been a busy first week on the project, but we have now finished setting up the Project Office and are starting to put into place all of the process and procedures that we will need to run the project. It may not be the most interesting part of the project but it is needed.

First job created

To go with the project office we have recruited our project administrator, Sam to help run the project and keep us all in order and on track. It is a full time role and therefore she is the first beneficiary in terms of people employed through using the grant monies awarded to the project.

Sam will be also advising on financial process as well as running the day to day project along with the Nigel.

Creating Interest

As part of our launching the Shops project we have been able to publicise it in Go Local magazine with the hope that it will generate interest from the public and any interested parties really to give their opinions and input into the project.

While we are only into the first week of the project we are all very excited about the prospect of trying to create jobs, income and better places in the Calderdale area with the project.

We will be keeping a blog of the Totally Locally Shops project as a public record of how we have used the grant funding from the PRG bid that has been provided by Calderdale Council and partners.

Totally Locally Ltd are running the project and are looking to setup shops within the Calderdale region to help to promote local shops, producers and be of benefit to the communities that they are located in.

Nigel Goddard from Totally Locally Ltd will be the main project manager and contact on the project so if you have any questions or queries about the project please do not hesitate to contact us.

Details of the original proposal can be found on the about page which also gives a summary of what we are going to achieve.