January 2021

We’ve been incredibly impressed with the way so many Co-ops and Community businesses have managed through the Covid-19 situation and lockdown. The commitment to serving their communities and the resilience and ingenuity they have shown has been amazing!

We’ve spoken to a number of our clients about how they have managed – here we share the story of Sheffield Live! after speaking to Sangita Basudev in December 2020, before England went back into lockdown in January.

What was your immediate challenge?

The first thing was around our radio station – we have over 200 volunteers so we had to work out very quickly how we could manage this, so they were safe. Many are in vulnerable groups, so we had the challenge of saying to people, ‘please don’t come into the studio’, while at the same time finding the most reasonable way possible to get equipment and software to people so that they could make programmes from home.

Some people – like our DJ’s – had equipment already, but quite a few people whose programmes are very important to the diversity of what we put out don’t have that kind of facility. So, we had to get the equipment to them, and then train people to use and set up the software and hardware, so they could make their own programmes remotely. We didn’t have enough equipment to do that with everyone – so we were also trying to raise funding to make up kits for people to produce from home. This has all been done with a very small team, which was made more difficult as one of our staff became quite ill from Covid. From mid-March to the end of June, just two of us were coming into the studio and doing everything that was needed to keep the operation going.

What did you do?

As well as equipping our radio volunteers to make programmes at home, we had to start looking at our TV programming and our news bulletins. At the time of lockdown we were airing news five days a week. It’s now gone up to six. We have been interviewing local people about how the pandemic has affected them. We’ve also spoken to local politicians, councillors and public health officials and we’ve worked hard to make sure we get those stories out about what has been happening in the city. There have been so many amazing stories of people working on the frontline or pivoting their business to producing PPE for example. We also joined up with a community broadcaster in Brighton – they have a local TV channel too and for 6 days a week we’ve carried a joint half-hour magazine sharing Covid stories from around the country, with a few European stories too.

What support did you access, including from CCF?

We were very lucky that we have a very supportive Chair – a volunteer – who helped to make sure we could carry on broadcasting. He was there on a daily basis, at the end of the phone. That support was key at the beginning to help to focus those of us coming into the studio. We got a rates reduction and were able to access the Business Support Grant via our local authority. We also secured a Bounce Back Loan. We appreciated the support of Co-operative and Community Finance (CCF) who kept regularly in touch with us, but we didn’t need to take up the capital holiday that was offered on our CCF loan. There seem to have been a lot of grant opportunities but often with very short deadlines and needing to be spent quickly. We were pleased to get a grant towards core costs from Power to Change.

What are you doing now?

At the moment we are been more or less operating as we have been since we went into lockdown in March and then later into tier three, so it doesn’t feel like we’ve really emerged yet from the pandemic. All the workers are back but most of our volunteers are still based at home – we’ve managed to get a few more of them kitted out, to be able to record from home, which is great. A big part of what Sheffield Live! is about is bringing people together – people who might never meet each other in normal life. We’re a really diverse organisation, broadcasting in seven languages and with programmes by and for people with disabilities and from the LGBT+ community. A lot of these people just wouldn’t come across each other without the station and while it’s difficult to replicate that interaction remotely, we’ve had some socials via zoom so people can be in touch.

What are your plans moving forward?

Mainly, we are planning to carry on as we are for now, as we are still in tier three lockdown, however, we want to be able to get enough good equipment, to equip more people, so that they can record from home.

We are also involved in a really new exciting project, small scale digital audio broadcasting (DAB). Traditionally, DAB has been owned by big private media groups, but there’s now a chance in the UK where smaller organisations can get licences to be on DAB and can bid to operate the local DAB transmission. We have an ambitious plan to put up to 25 radio stations on to DAB in Sheffield and Rotherham. We’ve linked up with other community radio stations in the area and between us we want to be further diversify the services available and increase their social impact. The application is now with Ofcom, so wish us luck!

We’ve been incredibly impressed with the way so many Co-ops and Community businesses have managed through the Covid-19 situation and lockdown. The commitment to serving their communities and the resilience and ingenuity they have shown has been amazing!

We’ve spoken to a number of our clients about how they have managed – here we share the story of The Rame Peninsula Trust after speaking to Simon Ryan in December 2020, before England went back into lockdown in January.

What was your immediate challenge?

Our immediate challenge was to work out what we, as the Trust, could and should do. We do so many different things, it was all about prioritising.

What did you do?

We started planning for lockdown on the 10th March – we saw it coming, and as a group said, ‘let’s sit down and get our heads around this’. We called a public meeting as we were still allowed to do that and got set up – 118 volunteers came forward in 3 weeks

Our Trust is a fully community-owned operation with 660 members at that time, including lots of older people in complicated situations, so our first action was to immediately stop all project work and pivot to community support.

We rejigged the community hub to do more. We set up shopping and deliveries for lots of people isolating. The food bank greatly expanded as did crisis loans, and grants, and 1-2-1 support around benefits/housing/welfare in general. We did all that without any concern for the fact that we weren’t generating income – the work was too crucial – and it paid off. We received financial support really quickly from Cornwall community Foundation, Cornwall Council and our local Parish Councils. The Nationwide Building Society opened up a large grant they had awarded us, allowing it to be used for the Covid work.

Where we were able to continue our normal work, we did, for example with contractors on our building projects. We spent over £1000 in our community centre putting up screens, new equipment, and making it as secure as possible. We basically got involved wherever we were needed. One example would be that within a couple of weeks of lockdown starting, our local pharmacy had a massive, massive problem – they had two staff off sick, including their delivery driver. They rang us one morning at 10.20am and by 12.30am we had 12 volunteers waiting outside, and then by 2.30pm all the delivery backlog had been cleared. We were able to remove a huge amount of stress for them. We carried on doing this for three weeks until they were able to recruit a new driver. We’re really proud that we’ve reached the point where we’re the ‘go to’ organisation, we’re connected and known – its’s an amazing place to have got to.

What support did you access, including from CCF?

Two Parish Councils gave us 2k each, and the Cornwall Community Foundation gave us substantial grants. One was to expand the foodbank and another was to support older people – that support came in hard and early, it was amazingly responsive.

The National Lottery funding took longer, but eventually came in with a large grant, and through that grant, our work has been supported up until to the end of February 2021.

Co-operative and Community Finance were brilliant. We didn’t even have to make the call. Within a couple of days, Ian Rothwell called us, asked how we were doing and offered up a capital holiday. It wasn’t just that this was on offer, it was that they actually made the offer, they made the first move. And yes, we took that up. They were so helpful and supportive.

What are you doing now?

We’re achieving some longstanding aims. Since 2014 the Trust has wanted to support local people in need – there are lots of wealthy people where we are based but also substantial rural deprivation and disadvantage. There are lots of unscrupulous money lenders and drugs on some housing estates, and it’s always been hard to get involved with people there. But we’ve been doing door to door leaflets twice a month, asking people what they need and we’re already helping 82 households (that’s 1 in 20 in the local area), with 3-5 new cases coming to us each week. Because of that, we’ve started to see the families with longer term need coming forward – they trust us now, so they are coming forward, which is great.

What are your plans moving forward?

With the need for the local support so clearly in mind, over the last two months, the Board has decided to commit the Trust to running a permanent local support service with paid workers, as an extra major addition to our work on housing, workspace and community activity. We’ve always wanted to do this but were waiting until we had the income. Covid forced our hand and we can’t go back now. So, we’ve committed to £35k a year to provide advice around housing, welfare, benefits, debt, legal, domestic abuse and mental health. We have a huge range of external organisations coming in and working from our centre, and a satellite operation we’re setting up in the next village.

The Trust has been working for some years with a second community benefit society, the Old Ship Inn Cawsand, and within 4/6 weeks we’re going to be running duplicates of our community support from The Old Ship as a satellite operation in that village.