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.

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 Denton West End Library after speaking to Ian Wilson.

What was your immediate challenge?

The immediate challenge was a loss of trading ,we have three forms of revenue and we lost two of them. We rent space in the library out to yoga classes and the like, and that income stopped. And we have fundraising events, monthly quizzes – and they stopped. The only income that kept going from March until we could reopen, albeit at reduced hours, in July – was monthly standing orders from our supporters – £2 standing orders.

We’re currently in Tier 3 and so we obviously can’t do quiz nights and the like now, but we are fortunate in that we have had other people raising money for us. There are folks who dress up as famous characters – a dinosaur, or Super Mario – and go walking round the estate and trying to cheer people up a bit.  As it’s Christmas, now they are dressed up as Christmas characters. While we can’t take orders as such, we are arranging for them to go to different streets at certain times and they are giving out selection boxes for donations.

What did you do?

 We got the team together and said unfortunately we have no options, we have to shut, so that was that. Everything pretty much stopped. A couple of weeks into lockdown, we started thinking about whether we could we do anything and we left a few books outside so people could come and exchange books. This relied a lot on trust but it was a success. We also had a lot of success with the children’s activity packs. We’ve had loads of great feedback on these, and we give them out free of charge to keep the children entertained.

More recently, we put out an appeal out for the Christmas Tree and lights around the library, and the community funded that.

What support did you access, including from CCF?

Co-operative and Community Finance got in touch straight away and asked if we needed to take a repayment holiday. We had been very fortunate and had got the £10k grant from the local authority, which helped us a great deal and stopped a lot of worry for the Trustees, so we didn’t have to take that offer up.

We also got a grant from Action Together to pull together the children’s activity packs. And the community have been amazing, running raffles and making things and selling them to support us.

What are you doing now?

We started opening again in middle of July. We’d normally open every day from Wednesday to Saturday, and now we’re just opening on a Wednesday in the afternoon and Saturday morning. We’re limiting the numbers of people coming in, and we’ve changed the layout and made a one-way route around the library. There’s no access to computers but we are still trying to offer some kind of service.

For Christmas, we have our tree and new lights outside – we really want to help to cheer people up. The community came together amazingly to fund this. We’ve also got winter craft packs going out and our regular, annual ‘replies from Santa’. The children can come in on Saturday and collect their letters, which they really like. We had a Christmas trail in the liberty last weekend, limiting numbers all the while, and even managed to set up a little photo opportunity in one corner. We’ve also been a drop off point for Action Together’s Christmas Toy Appeal and we have had loads of toys dropped off.

What are your plans moving forward?

It’s a kind of wait and see – we’re still in tier 3 so we just have to ride it out. When we can, we may think about extending our opening hours and adding another session – we trialled a monthly late night on a Thursday and we might look to do that again. We’d also like to bring back an outdoor market – we did this once and people loved it. For now, we will continue to send out craft packs out until the New Year and continue to open as we are.

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 co-operative pub The Maybush Inn after speaking to Mark – do note that the photo shows happier, and more sociable, times which they look forward to getting back to soon!

What was your immediate challenge?

The first question really was, ‘what do we with all the beer’?

Luckily, we had support from the brewers we use who had managed to negotiate a tip away credit with the government, so we salvaged what we could, and we weren’t too badly affected by that. To be honest, in the few days before the lockdown, trade had dropped off as people were starting to be wary about venturing out to the pub – lockdown was almost a blessing as it made the situation clear. Then we decided to do takeaway beer, and we also helped out with the community scheme, we got home delivery of beer up and running, and got involved with local food box delivery – we helped publicise that and we’re now putting some of our beer in those boxes. A couple of our volunteers have been doing deliveries for them, so it’s been a real combined village effort

What did you do?

Other than serving takeaway beer we didn’t do much, so the big challenge was paying the mortgage – we didn’t have much income coming, which caused us a bit of a problem until we got the grant from the government.

What support did you access, including from CCF?

The main thing was the £10k rate relief. We run on 100% volunteers, so we don’t employ anyone – which meant we weren’t eligible for furlough support.

Co-op and Community Finance offered a capital holiday literally within a day of the first lockdown – bang! they were right on it! They were really good – we decided not to take that at the start as we weren’t sure how long it would go on for, and we want to pay our loans off as quickly as we can. In the second lockdown, we did accept that capital holiday on two of our three loans. It was so nice to be offered and not have to ask, the email from Ian just dropped into the inbox – here you go, we’re here to help, give us a call, let us know what we can do.

What are you doing now?

We’re thinking about food.  We have a kitchen, but we don’t do much food – doing food brings a whole load of headaches – but we’re in tier two, so we are thinking about it. Today (this interview took place by phone on Wednesday 2nd December 2020, the day the second lockdown lifted we’re opening only for takeaway beer and then we’re going to discuss some food options with our volunteers – some volunteers are keen to put on some food, one day a week, and we’ve been discussing this back and forth for a while now.

What are your plans moving forward?

We’ve got three big issues to consider:

One. Do we carry on with just volunteers? This was becoming a struggle even before the lockdown, so we may have to revert to our original model which had some paid employment in it.

Two. Food. This was part of our original business plan five years ago and we’ve tried it in different ways, but we’ve not had a regular food offer for various reasons. So, once we get out of lockdown, we need to try it – we have someone prepared to do it, we should just give it a go.

Three. We bought the building next door in 2017, and we need to get the planning through to develop that. There’s very little room to sit and eat in the pub as it is now so we plan to connect that building to the pub and develop an eatery space on the ground floor of the connected part, with three flats – two, two bedroom, one, one bedroom – above.

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 Veg Box People after speaking to Helen Woodcock.

What was your immediate challenge?

I think the immediate challenge for us was that a lot of our collection points shut overnight, as they were restaurants and universities, meaning we simply couldn’t distribute food as normal. Plus we needed to move units, which became more vital as we needed extra space to distance during packing. Also, a number of our customers stopped being able to collect their veg as they were isolating or were keyworkers, who just couldn’t get to the collection point.

At the same time, interest went up from 350 bags a week to almost double that. So it was tricky – we had lots to juggle.

What did you do?

We had to set up a waiting list as we just had so much to sort out, keeping the team safe, getting veg to all our existing customers and looking for new collection points, etc. People were great – pubs that had outside space for example, let us go and set up there. Other places, like Bridge 5 Mill, who had to shut their own business opened up just for the veg collections and volunteered to staff it themselves.

We also set up two packing teams that never met, so that if one group was affected by Covid the other could continue working. Then we did a shout-out to our customers asking for two things – could they help pack, or could they take a veg bag to another customer who was isolating, or a key worker.  We got a good lot of responses – it’s really amazing, people came forward and there was this real sense of community connection.

We are connected to the Kindling Trust and they also stepped in, for example covering some of the collection points and getting Stitched Up to make masks so all our packers could have them. Kindling also run social prescribing programmes, including regular growing, cooking and shared meal sessions. These had to stop, so instead they took our veg bags to all the participants, which for some customers was the only in person contact they had each week.

What support did you access?

Co-op and Community Finance offered a capital holiday but we didn’t need to take that as interest in our veg bags went up so much. It was lovely to be offered it and to feel people were looking out for us, we were really grateful for that.

We successfully applied to Farming the Future, and as a Winston Churchill Fellow, I was able to access support there too, which helped us help us to move to a bigger unit, to make sure we could pack at a safe distance. No-one went on furlough as we were classed as essential workers.

What are you doing now?

Going back into the second lockdown did mean reorganising the collection points again, but it was easier this time round and we went straight back to peak numbers again, which is great. We’ve also got a chef doing cooking sessions on Instagram where our customers can vote what he cooks and people are loving that. It’s been really good to be able to support people practically through this time, by providing good healthy organic veg as well as a friendly face at collection points. The team have been incredible, they are working really hard and have done all the way through this. They will all be ready for a break over Christmas – and it will be a really well deserved one!

What are your plans moving forward?

We’re looking to strengthen and grow our co-operative, with a future target of 1000 weekly veg bags. We work really closely with Kindling, who helped set up Veg Box People at the start. Kindling are buying a 100+ acre farm next year and we’re really looking forward to sourcing more local organic veg from them.

The huge increase in local food, not just for us but nationally, has been really noticeable during the last eight months and we think a connection with a local farm will be really important to people. Kindling Farm is community benefit society and it is very much about people owning it and being part of it. We’ve seen a lot of people re-evaluating what’s important to them in this last year, not just in terms of local food, but being able to chat to someone when you pick your food up – people are really excited to volunteer on the farm and see where their food comes from.

So, the next concrete step for us as a family of organisations, is a community shares launch in spring for Kindling Farm – so that Veg Box People can have even more lovely local organic veg for our customers to eat!