Does Social Enterprise mean business?

Does social enterprise mean business?

As part of the Orkney Business Festival organised by Business Gateway, The Orkney Partnership’s Strong Delivery Group facilitated an afternoon session with presentations from the Deerness Community Association, Papay Development Trust and the Orkney Creative Hub.

They each shared their experiences on their own very unique set of logistical challenges in connection with forming a social enterprise, running a social enterprise and the continuing effort that goes into sustaining the businesses.

Terry Penna from the Deerness Community Association gave a brief history on the formation of the new hall in Deerness. She also explained that the hall was extended in 2017 after a survey of all the houses in Deerness were canvassed to gauge the community’s requirements. Securing funding for the extension was an arduous task with lots of forms being completed but eventually the money was secured from several different funders. Terry’s top tip would be to make sure you have plenty of evidence in place to justify the requirement for the intended project.

The hall is very well used and has something on nearly every day. As well as the hall there is a children’s play park that is always busy and for extra income they have a wind turbine and campervan hook up points.

Next it was the turn of Jennifer Foley with her Papay Development Trust hat on! The fact is that Papay has a population of around 70 people so a lot of people wear multiple hats of all the different organisations and activities they are involved in.

For such a small island the audience were amazed at how innovative, driven and focused the islanders are to make sure they live in a thriving community. Many of the projects undertaken has meant that employment has been created for people on the island.

Tourism by the way of bus tours and ranger walks of the island and boat trips to the Holm of Papay are run regularly. There is a community garden that produces vegetables for sale in the local co-op, this allows islanders to buy fresh produce rather than dated goods that are sometimes delivered twice weekly by the ferry service. Accommodation pods at the co-op for tourists provide an income for the trust to cover running costs. There are also rooms in the co-op that are used for aspiring artists or workshops for various other activities including cinema nights or just a good old knees up!!

The trust is very pro active in encouraging families to Papay to live, they received funding to renovate a house and a family with children have recently moved to the island. This in turn helps the sustainability of the local school. The trust has recently purchased another property through an asset transfer from the local council, this will also be renovated in time.

The last presentation was from Jan Judge on behalf of the Orkney Creative Hub. Jan passionately shared her experiences on the path to becoming the Orkney Creative Hub. From the “Strond Gallery” in Holm to the progression to Voluntary Action Orkney on Bridge Street Kirkwall where the organisation continued to grow. Eventually the opportunity arose to allow them to take on a property that fitted all their needs at 25 Bridge Street Kirkwall as well as taking on rooms in the old Ortak building at Hatston.

During the time spent at VAO they had exhibitions of art on show from over 400 local artists an amazing achievement.

Upstairs at the “Hub” they offer artists space to work as well as offering workshops on various topics. They have the shop downstairs stocking a huge variety of products. At Hatston they have a “messy” room and a “loom room” both have been extremely popular with the weaving being especially in demand. There will also be knitting machine classes run in the future as these are also very popular.

Orkney Creative Hub receives no external funding streams and therefore must make their own profit to cover running costs and pay wages. The time given by voluntary workers has been invaluable to the success of the Creative Hub over the years. They don’t have a captive community audience like in Deerness or Papay and must rely more on footfall through the shop/workshops, as well as strong marketing promotions to make the business sustainable.

Thanks to Terry, Jennifer and Jan for taking the time to give their presentations; everyone in attendance thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon.

Thanks must also go to the catering staff at the Blide Trust for supplying the delicious cup cakes for the event.