Christmas 200 Club Draw

Many congratulations to Alix Smith who has won the £200 prize in the Grand Christmas Draw, what a great way to end the year!
We are pleased to say the refurbishment is on schedule and really transforming the shop into an up to date place fit for the purpose. The back room has been incorporated into the shop and will make a big difference to the space. Today we went on a shopping trip to Woolworths in Redhill and managed to pick up some nearly new shelving units, weighing scales and some rather battered but useful baskets in the closing down sale. By saving money in this way, we can afford to spend some of the budget on more expensive items such as air conditioning and software packages for stock control.
We look forward to an exciting 2009 with plenty of hard work ahead but with the opening in March, a rewarding time too.

November 200 Club Draw

The November 200 club draw was held on the 24th. The lucky winners are
1st prize £50 Nbr 73 Mr J Beaven
2nd prize £25 Nbr 20 Mr S Morgan
3rd prize £10 Nbr 177 (unsold)

Congratulations to the winners.
The next draw will be the big Christmas £200 draw!!!
Numbers are still available for only £1 per month so please contact Jane if you would like to participate.

Building work under way

We are preparing for the knocking-through into the back room which is scheduled for 8 December and are busy scheduling the building works with electricians, plumbers etc. Most of the dust should have settled by the end of January we hope! Meanwhile we have been in touch with all the shareholders with a questionnaire and newsletter, and have had a great response - over 30% have returned their questionnaires within 2 weeks. Thanks to a handy contact we have been able to talk to people very high up within Post Office Ltd, who did some research and area-modelling and (as we expected) have confirmed we cannot have any kind of an official PO branch. However, our plans for alternative services continue to evolve, and we shall have PayPoint for paying bills, free cashback up to £50, and a Postal Point modelled on a couple of other community shops in the West Country where it has proved to be a very useful service.
We are delighted to have a new committee member in Alix Smith, who is bringing her energy to the project and has already helped us with tasks such as liquor licence etc. At the same time we are sad to say goodbye to Chlodia Morton who is having to resign from the committee due to personal and work pressures. She has been invaluable in setting up the project and we shall miss her support.
We are looking actively for volunteers in any capacity as this is a large but short-term project and the small committee is working flat out. Even an hour or two's Googling would help. Anyone know where we can get some old sweetie jars??

The Building Work Starts

Finally the building work has started. Last weekend Darren, with volunteer help from David Ludlow and Mickey, set about stripping the ceiling and the side room to prepare for the work ahead. They made great progress and it's exciting to see the transformation begin. The new shop front should be installed around Christmas. We have visited a similar project in West Meon and got lots of practical advice which is invaluable.
We are on course to open in mid March, so it's going to be a very busy time over the next few months. There are still plenty of opportunities for you to get involved, so please get in touch and join us as the vision becomes a reality.

Pumpkin Paradise

We spent the weekend in Pumpkin paradise! The quantity and diversity of Richard Ramsden's pumpkins and squash amazed us and had to be seen to be believed. We sold £230 worth over the weekend, making a further contribution to the shop fund. We all learnt a great deal more about these wonderful vegetables and really look forward to the exciting locally grown produce that Richard and others will be able to provide for the shop.
We also drew the October 200 Club numbers. The 1st prize was won by number 101 (unsold), 2nd prize by number 22 (Mrs Palmer) and the 3rd prize by number 135 (unsold).
We eagerly anticipate the start of the building work which should be underway by the end of November. We are now confident of being open for business by the middle of March 2009.

Huge Boost!

We received a huge boost today with news that we have been allocated a RASP grant of £20,000. This is amazing news, we only applied for £18,700 but they liked our project so much, they have offered us more. The only stipulation is that the shop is up and running by March 31st, so we have to make sure it is.
We have put out a request on Freecycle for any building materials people might have left over from other projects, if anyone knows of any treasure troves of breeze blocks and plasterboard, please let us know.
We really feel we are able to plan in detail now for the interior layout, lighting, flooring etc which is very exciting.

Really Nearly There!

We are really nearly there!
I know we've been saying this for a while,in fact we were starting to flag a bit ourselves. However after many nail biting weeks of negotiation, you would think we were planning a superstore with a sky high block of flats attached, it looks like an agreement has been reached and we 'should' be in a position to move in properly and plan our renovations by the end of next week.
The fantastic news is that Helen and Chloe received a phone call on Friday to say the Core grant and loan have been approved!!!!! The money is ours and is a huge boost to morale as well as funds. Helen took that call in a meeting for another grant with a possible £18,000 at stake. This looks promising but we will not take it for granted (!!) until we hear from them, which should be later in the month. We have also applied for a grant through Mole Valley, which after all the delays and obstructions we have had with their planning department, would make us feel a great deal happier with them if we receive it. That will be announced in November.
So all the hard work is starting to pay off and The Shop at Strood Green is inching towards a Grand Opening sometime in the New Year.
In the meantime, we are planning a pumpkin fest. We are hoping to sell pumpkins from Richard Ramsden's smallholding at the shop on October 25th, with judging of the best carved one on the 30th October. So look out for further details in the shop window.

Nearly there!!!!!!

We are nearly there now!!!
Last week we had a visit from the Coop Bank which gave us, after some stiff questioning (well done Helen and Chloe!) the green light for the £20,000 loan. This also then triggers the £20,000 grant, so hopefully, within the next couple of weeks we should have our coffers tripled to £60,000. This is a truely remarkable effort by all involved, apparently these community schemes are normally fronted by retired solicitors and accountants, so we are quite an unusual committee.
The other piece of equally good news is that after a great deal of wrangling with Mole Valley's planning department, our Landlord has agreed to give us the back room without any equivalent payback on the first floor. This is very generous of him and it has been a difficult few weeks for all of us, trying to understand the rationale (if any) of the planning department.
So, all in all, we are creeping ever closer to a successful renovation and opening of the shop. we hope to start the building work very soon, with a combination of paid work and volunteer effort. Anyone who would like to help, please let one of us know.
It's fantastic news and, although we hardly dare believe it,it looks like we're nearly there!

Teas on the Green

Yesterday was the final fundraiser for the season, our Teas on the Green slot. We were incredibly lucky with the weather and were able to use tables inside and outside on the church lawns. Many thanks to everyone who provided cakes, we had a fantastic choice of small, large and the extra large triple decker Toby Songhurst Special. We made £250 which we were very pleased with as in addition to it being a Bank Holiday weekend, it turned out to be the closing ceremony for the Olympic Games that afternoon!
We had the first of the 200 club draws after the teas. An independant resident drew out numbers 97 (£50), 127 (£25) and 21 (£10). The 3rd prizwinner is Mrs L Palmer, the first 2 numbers have not been sold yet.
We are eagerly awaiting the outcome of September's planning meeting and the Co-op loan application and hope to be start the building work as soon as possible.

Family Barbecue

Yesterday, the Friends of the Elizabeth Bailey Field laid on a family barbecue with proceeds to the Shop at Strood Green. It was a lovely afternoon and many people turned up to support the event. The magnificent sum of approximately £400 was raised, which is a great boost to our funds. Many thanks for all the hard work to Paula, Debbie and Chris.
Our next and final fundraiser for this season is Teas on the Green on Sunday 24th August. All offers of cakes and help gratefully received.
See you there!!

Phew, what a scorcher!

We enjoyed a scorching afternoon at the Leigh Flower Show. It was a fabulous event, much bigger than the Brockham Village Fair and blessed with better weather. We did a good job selling fruit punch, organic apple juice, books new and old, local honey and oil. The hamper raffle was very popular, we're getting good at these! The prime motive for the event was to show our faces in Leigh as we will be the nearest shop for many of the residents there. We took around £190 as well, so more for the fund raising total.
We are going to whitewash the shop now and close on Thursdays. We all have holidays coming up and there is little left to sell anyway. Unfortunately the planning application for the extra space and the new shop front has been put back to the September planning meeting and so there is little more we can do until we hear the result of that. We will have to delay the building work as we cannot guarantee a successful outcome, but we will be lobbying hard.
So please bear with us if it looks like nothing is happening, as ever most of the work is going on behind the scenes.

Successful Village Weekend

We had a very successful day on the Green on Saturday. As always it was a great event organised brilliantly and well attended despite the threatening looking clouds.
We sold out of our stock of Pimms and lemonade and the hamper raffle was very popular. The strawberries and cream went well as did some of the sweets and local produce. Thanks to all those who helped and who came to visit us. We took over £550 on the day. We launched our 200 club, the first draw is scheduled to be made at our teas on the green on 24th August, so please contact us if you would like to buy a number. It's just £12.00 a year and every month you have a chance to win and twice a year there is the £200 prize up for grabs.
All the prizewinners from Saturday have been notified and a list posted on the shop window.
Next event is the Leigh Flower Show on Saturday July 26th, we'd love to see you there.

Strawberries and Cream on the Green

Look out for us on the Green this weekend, we've a prime spot in between the pubs, on Millionaires Row! We'll have lots to sell and plenty to occupy the children too. We're selling glasses and jugs of Pimms, bowls of scrummy strawberries and cream (thanks to Ashurst Farm), sweets, local produce and new books. You'll also be able to guess how many sweets there are in the jar, the name of the cuddly teddy and buy a ticket for our gorgeous hamper raffle as well as a number in our 200 club draw. Phew!! We're going to be very busy, let's hope the weather is glorious, well at least dry.
We were very sorry to have to cancel the New Orleans Night. It wasn't a decision we took lightly, but we just didn't have enough of an audience to make it profitable. We may try something later in the year.
We are going to be at Leigh flower show on July 26th. There will be a barbecue in the Elizabeth Bailey Field on August 16th. We will still be in the shop on Thursday evenings until the renovation works start, hopefully in August.
Hope you'll come and visit us at any or all of the above.

Fourth of July! Plus - some skills needed

The Committee have had their heads down a bit this week as we finish planning our 4th July event. The music should be good, the food great! and we have a good catalogue of promises now, including a Chocolate Ecstasy Tour and computer maintenance contracts, football party etc etc. So please get your tickets as soon as possible to help us organise the catering.
On another matter - we would like to hear from anyone interested in organising the publicity for our launch - newspapers, radio, etc. Also we would like to hear from anyone interested in sourcing equipment. We still need help on seeking grants as we are eligible for all sorts of public money.
Many hands WOULD make light work!

Our first target reached!

Good news on the fundraising front - we have definitely raised more than £20,000 in share sales, donations and small grants, so we are now eligible for our £20,000 match funding from the ViRSA CORE scheme. Now the committee has to complete the business plan and apply for the loan that is the other condition of the match-funding, so that we can have all funds ready to start renovations in mid-August. [As Mole Valley District Council planners wish our application for a new shop front and the extension into the room at the rear of the shop to go through the Planning Committee, and the earliest they can schedule is August, we have to wait to start work until that meeting is over.]
We are continuing with our fundraising efforts as we hope to invest as much of the loan as possible to keep our repayments to the minimum. SO we are steaming ahead with the 4th July fundraiser and we are getting quite a catalogue organised for our Auction of Promises!

June open morning

Our Open Morning on 7th June was a resounding success, taking over £700 gross and an additional £190 in shares and donations. The weather was perfect, the croissants, donated cakes and coffee were as good as last time - it all went swimmingly. it was great to see completely new faces and to find that the catchment area for the shop becomes ever bigger. Norbury Park Farm set up their stall and had a good tasting session - their new cheese, Dirty Vicar (!) (their adaptation of Stinking Bishop) was very successful.

Another grant awarded!

This week brings the news that O2 have awarded us £1000 from the It's Your Community Award scheme, and they have declared us to be one of their top 15 projects of the month, so that should mean substantial publicity on their website and in local media. We haven't decided when we can take up the publicity opportunity yet, as we are still in negotiations about the extra space at the rear of the shop that we hope to acquire, should everything meet Mole Valley planning regulations. But it is another big boost to our fund-raising and we draw ever closer to our target.
Frazer Burchell (aged 15) has been incredibly helpful and has composed not only a poster advertising the kids' team (to give us their ideas for the shop) but also the posters for the open morning on Saturday and for the 4th July. Thanks, Frazer, they're just great! and our Village Shop Adviser has emailed them to other community shops to show them the benefits of involving the younger people in these projects from the start.

More good news

Our Fundraiser Extraordinaire (aka Wonderwoman, Jo Songhurst) has been speaking to Midmar Energy and they have very kindly contributed £500 towards our cause. Also, O2, the telecomms company, has expressed interest in the project and we hope to hear back from them in the next few weeks.
Plans are firming up for the Independence Day fundraiser (Friday 4th July, 8 - 11, Brockham School Hall), which is to be a New Orleans Night with Cajun food, Southern Comfort (or wine, lager or beer of course!) and the music is to be provided by the Blue Moon Jazz Band, a six-piece band specialising in Dixieland and New Orleans jazz. So it will be a night with a difference! and great fun. It will also mark the point at which we should meet our initial fundraising target of £20,000. The Auction of Promises catalogue is growing... but we need some more suggestions - nothing is too big or too small! perhaps you don't mind an afternoon taking someone to Heathrow - that's worth at least £50! Perhaps a bit of gardening? Or perhaps your company specialises in something extraordinary we've never thought of? Be imaginative! Please let us know if you can help.

A grant and a cookery party!

We have just received the news that we have been awarded a grant of £2000 by Gatwick Airport Community Trust towards our project. this is fantastic news and takes us much nearer our match-funding target.
Another fundraising idea has come from Liz Knight who is organising a Pampered Chef party in aid of the shop on 18th June, in conjunction with Paula Mitas and Debbie Cawley. For those who don't know what The Pampered Chef is, it is a fabulous range of quality kitchen tools which are demonstrated at parties. Liz can take orders on the evening or you can visit www.pamperedchef.biz/lizknight - Click on 'order products' and enter 'Shop' when prompted. Generous commission to the shop, plus free raffle with all orders. If you wish to attend the cooking show on 18 June (it's at 7.30pm; they're very sociable events so please bring a bottle) please ring Liz on 844032, Paula on 842468 or Debbie on 844315.

Latest total

We have received a pledge of £1000 from the Poland Trust - a fantastic contribution. This brings our total of contributions and pledges to £15,260, and the number of shareholders to 399 (however, there is someone not too far from here who turned 18 on Wednesday and has resolved to buy a share now she's come of age! so we can say we have 400 now).
We are working towards our next open morning on 7th June, and also our New Orleans night on 4th July, plus we intend to have a stall on the village green at the Village Weekend on 11th July. So it's a busy time! Darren Flashman has very kindly offered to lend a hand with the project management when we get to the building stage. Once we hear from Mole Valley about the new shopfront etc, and assuming we reach our financial target which is less than £5000 away, we shall be able to start
planning the build.

Local support

Great news on the fundraising - Brockham Bonfire Committee have voted to give us £500, Unum have sent a cheque for £100, and last night the Brockham Women's Institute handed us a cheque for £100. These take our total to approximately £14,750. Also last night, Michael Smallbone arrived with a double stainless steel sink and worktop for our kitchen. Now all we need is a plumber!
Thanks so much to everyone involved.

Latest fundraising total

The total of funds received and pledged to date from the community is just over £14,000. That's less than £6000 to go, to receive our match funding of £20,000!
The number of shareholders is 394, and we hope to increase that to 400 within the next few days. This is a huge number, definitely one of the best-supported community shop schemes in the country, and shows what a committed and caring community we live in.

A huge success!

The Open Morning on Saturday 3rd May went far far better than we expected. We reckon about 200 people came through the door at various times during the morning (and for a period of about two hours we could hardly move!). The takings were £700 and on top of that we sold another £250 worth of shares. So that is a staggering total of £950 in three and a half hours!!!
Many thanks to all those who contributed - either by your generous gifts of cakes, plants, garden produce, books, magazines, sweets - or by joining us to sit in the sun and have a cup of coffee and a croissant.
Our bake-off oven worked perfectly and we were pretty impressed with our first effort to bake croissants (even if we say so ourselves!). Slight panic when Alan Wyle turned up with loads of stuff straight from a Sussex farmers market, as we didn't have a fridge, but Amy (upstairs) rushed off and found us one!
we sold a lot of freshly made Sussex butter and cheese, and the local ice-cream went very well too. We were very lucky with the weather, and people's enthusiasm for the project has left the committee very buoyant and ready to crack on.

Thankyous

Last night was a busy evening in the shop - we generally make sure the committee has a presence in the shop on Thursday nights, 5 till 7, when the fish and chip van is outside! Lots of people came to visit and chat, and quite a few came with armfuls of donated goods.
A big big thankyou to Adrian's Electrics - Adrian spent four hours of his own time in the shop yesterday morning wiring in the bake-off oven (we tested it last night on some danish pastries!) and making safe some of the electrics elsewhere in the shop.
Also a big thankyou to David Jacques (and apologies for incorrect spelling of his name in the last blog) for organising the chiller cabinet pick-up for today. we are crossing our fingers that the move goes okay and that the equipment survives the rest it has had for a couple of years, as well as the move.

Donations and preparations

We are working frantically to get things ready for Saturday morning, which will be our first Open Morning offering merchandise. We have ordered newspapers, fresh eggs, local icecream, croissants, sweeties and chocolates, and have many samples of local produce to show people. We hope to have our bake-off oven up and running, and on Friday we are collecting (thanks to David Jakes and his van!) a chiller cabinet, drinks fridge and upright freezer kindly donated by Paul Teague. In addition Paul and Tony Moriarty are giving us an electronic till. Alan Wyle is bringing us some Sussex produce.
Meanwhile Gordon Saxby has sorted out the website and that should be live in a day or two. It gives people the opportunity to download share application forms, should they wish!
The donations keep coming in steadily at the rate of about three or four hundred pounds a week.

Logos and certificates

With a great combination of artist and graphic artist, Tania Coffey and Trevor Reaveley respectively, we've got a terrific logo and the artwork for the share certificates, to be printed by Netherne Print shortly, and then Liz Knight has volunteered to writes people's names on certificates with her calligraphic skills. She may need some help as 350 is a tall order for one person!
Kelvin Bagley of Netherne Print is being tremendously helpful - we have just had 1500 leaflets about the Open Morning on May 3rd printed at incredibly short notice. These have now gone out in the May parish mag, thanks to Graham Power and all the distributors.

Open Morning on 3rd May

We are having an open morning on Saturday 3rd May from 9.30am till 1pm, and we hope plenty of people will come and sample what we're offering: a range of local Surrey and Sussex produce, including ice cream from St Joan's Farm in Leigh (which we shall offer by the cone as well as tubs - so we hope the weather improves!), newspapers, local eggs, croissants, sweets, cakes etc. We are asking people to donate to this by providing us with home-made and home-grown produce (we understand allotment produce can be donated but not sold by the grower), good quality magazines, books, CDs and DVDs, and plants - both seedlings and divided perennials to help with everyone's spring planting. So please - get baking and growing! We'll also be serving tea and coffee and fruit juices. Hopefully this will become a regular event in the fund-raising months.
We have been donated a large bake-off oven from a shop in Burgess Hill (just need to figure out how to plumb it in!), and we are hoping to receive some other equipment shortly. The committee has been a bit depleted during the Easter hols but hopefully everyone will return full of vigour!
Share applications keep coming in - we're up to approx £12600 - and Leigh Residents Association have made a generous donation - thankyou all so much!

Climbing the mountain of red tape

Progress with share sales continues - over 330 sold to date - so we are preparing to print the share certificates. The website is progressing well and we hope to have it running soon. Meanwhile Jane has struggled to get some feedback from Surrey CC Highways, as we hope to have the footpath/kerbs altered to make for safe access in and out of the new shopfront. Finally she got through to Helyn Clack, our County Councillor, who has sent us a message of support - "I wish you every success in your new venture!" - and has arranged for the Community Highways officer to give us a call. Here's hoping!
We have lots of fundraising plans which we hope to put into operation next month onwards. Everything seems to have rules and regs attached, so that takes up a lot of time!
The Dorking Advertiser has published a good article this week on our Core grant. Hopefully that will remind a few people to fill out their share applications! If anyone wants a new application form, please email us on stroodgreenshop@gmail.com.
We'd love some feedback!

Fundraising update

We are almost 3/5 of our way to £20,000. The latest total is £11,960, which is magnificent. We have to keep the momentum going and Jo is contacting various local organisations to appeal for more. We've also got some fundraising schemes in the pipleline, the biggest of which will be the event on the 4th of July, so keep the date free. Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far, it keeps us going when we see the support we have in real terms. If anyone has any other ideas they think would create more money we would love to hear from you.

Another step closer

We took another step closer towards the shop opening this week when we heard that we have been granted funds from the Core Village Programme. They have offered us £20,000 subject to some conditions being met, the most important one of which is that we raise £20,000 from the community to match it. This is great news and a huge thank you goes to Megan and Helen who prepared the application so successfully. We are well on the road to raising the £20,000 we need to but we still have some way to go. So please keep reminding your friends and neighbours to buy shares and donate, and if you haven't yet sent in your forms please do so. As we've said before, we can't do this without you!
Helen and Jane had a meeting with local building contractor Tony White of ADV (UK) Ltd who was very helpful and gave us plenty of advice. It became apparent that there will be a great deal more to separating the shop unit from the accomodation than we had realised. The shop has always been part of the accomodation and they share all the mains services. Once the development of the apartments starts, some of the work will affect the fabric of the shop, therefore it looks like we will have to consider waiting for this work to be completed before we fit out the shop.
So, although it may look like nothing is happening for a while, be assured plenty of planning and investigating is going on in addition to the continuing fundraising.
It will all be worth it in the end!!

Latest update on fundraising

As of today, the community has contributed £10955 in shares and donations and there are 289 shareholders on board already. This is a fantastic response in a relatively short space of time. Work is progressing on grant applications and we hope for some good news soon. The share certificates are going into production shortly, we are making them as special as we can to reflect the importance of shareholders to this project.

A fillip on Good Friday

The tall figure of Peter Pemberton loomed on my doorstep this morning, bringing the wonderful news that the Vicarage Fund trustees believe our project to be a worthy one, so they have made a pledge of £2400. This brings our running total to £10,465, with 264 shareholders.
We are still receiving offers of help left, right and centre. It is fantastic. If ever a community deserved a good shop, it's this one! Not all the offers are from Strood Green and the other villages - we've even had Lloyds TSB (which we are using for our banking) offer to send the staff along as a team of decorators!
As far as timing is concerned, we need to stress that the planning, building regs and all the other paperwork involved with such an enterprise is going to take time. Added to this we have to work closely with the larger development at 1 Tynedale Rd, as the drainage and other services have to be sorted out. Realistically therefore, we anticipate the planning stage to take another 3 to 4 months, before we can start the refurb. We hope to have a big fundraiser - an Auction of Promises, within a social event - in early July. Please let us know if you can offer a promise! No matter how small - or large!

New total

We now have £7500 in shares and donations, and 235 shareholders!

Village shops and POs

There is quite a bit in the news today (particularly The Daily Telegraph) about the plight of village shops losing their sub-post offices (in the current massive cull) and then having a restriction put on their compensation by PO Ltd, whereby they cannot use alternative postal services within a year of the sub-post office closing down, if they wish to receive their compensation. This will have a terrible effect on some village shops and may force their closure in some instances.
While we have huge sympathy with other communities in this plight, we just want to make it clear at this stage that we have no such obligation to PO Ltd and we are free to offer any alternative postal services we choose. We are currently investigating the various ways we can do this and hope to be able to announce our chosen route before too long.

new total

As of 13 March, the new total is £6620 and we have 202 shareholders. Fantastic response!
We are contacting Surrey County Council to help us with the cost of disabled access and we hope they will be obliging!
We have received confirmation that the Strood Green Shop Association is registered with the FSA, so we can get ready to produce share certificates. Tara and Tom Rothery have volunteered to work on the design of the share certificates; they will be in colour and Tara hopes to source some parchment-style paper. We are going to auction off the share numbered 001 - this may be included in what we hope will be a big fundraiser in a couple of months.

Something in the air

We are overwhelmed! The reaction so far has been extraordinary - we have had over 10% return on our mailing within one week - and have received 170 share applications and over £5500. Every day the letters pile through the Treasurer's door, along with more and more offers of professional help - a very welcome one today from a local building company. Our local architect, Bob Pritchard, has produced drawings for a new shopfront, and Tania (who is stuck at home with her foot in plaster and we are all missing her very much) is back on her laptop with design ideas. Alan Wyle has found some active recruits for his Crop-for-the-Shop ideas and there seems to be quite a lot of interest in the idea of a youth team. If we have enough computer terminals in the shop then we can have a homework club, either for kids with no computers at home or if their home computer has gone down or has lost internet connection etc. For those who think we might be a little mad, watch this space ...

Open Day

Sunday 9th was our first Open Day and exceeded our expectations. We had a steady procession of people all day, from 9.30 till 5, and estimated about 100 came through the door. At the end of the day we found we had over 100 shareholders and we have nearly £4000 to bank. The shop is becoming a reality!
We are actively pursuing all sources of funding and we have acquired a lot more volunteers from Sunday. We have a shop-interior designer coming to see us shortly and we are preparing the drawings for a new shop front, to include disabled access.

Setting up for Open Day!

Cheered by two good days when we received over £1000 in donations, we spent the afternoon setting up the shop for our Open Day on Sunday 9th. Amy managed to clear all the furniture out of the shop by 3pm so we had several hours to sort out our various displays and set the window up. We just hope we'll get plenty of visitors! We have lots of information for people to read, we have pleanty of tea, coffee and biscuits, we have a stupendous raffle now, and we are giving away some gorgeous calendars. We're hoping to sign up a few volunteers and we shall help with share applications.
The more we learn about community shops the more we realise that we are so lucky to have this opportunity. An incredible four out of ten English awards from the prestigious Best Rural Retailer awards have been won by community shops. Please - come and support us!

People power

The 'stuffing evening' went brilliantly, with 14 women and two kids collating and stuffing over 1500 envelopes in an hour and a half! Thanks so much to all who helped; we've got a photo coming (we hope, Mary?) because it was a spectacular sight and very noisy! Then Simon got into gear very impressively, and a huge amount of the distribution was done yesterday, with his team of helpers. Once again, a massive thankyou to everyone participating. All the packs should be delivered by tomorrow.
Jo Songhurst is organising a fab raffle for Sunday and is extracting promises of prizes from all over the place. The shop will be cleared and empty by Saturday night which gives us a few hours (!) to prepare for the Open Day, when we hope plenty of people will come and talk, and look at the literature we're providing, and have a cup of tea or coffee with us.
We are still looking for volunteers! If everyone lends a hand and uses their particular skills we can save a lot of money - when the village of Tackley set up their community shop they had more than 120 people supporting their project in kind - and estimated the value of that help at around £75,000.

Getting ready

We are gearing up for our first Open Day this Sunday. At the moment 1550 information packs are being printed and tomorrow night a team of people will collate and stuff envelopes. Another team will distribute them all over Strood Green, Brockham and Leigh from Wednesday onwards. (We had a little panic attack when, having instructed the printer to produce 1500 of everything, Simon counted all the addresses to find we had 1515 households ....Luckily, the printer is very friendly.)
We are working on our first hard-copy newsletter which will be available on Sunday for those who pop in. It will feature ads for local businesses and news about the shop, and we hope it will be a success.
Tomorrow our first grant application will go in, to the Village CORE programme. We should hear within six weeks as to whether we've been successful. Wish us luck!

Blinds, Banks and Solicitors

Surrey Blinds and Awnings (formerly Brockham Blinds) are more than pleased to consider sponsoring an awning and shop sign - watch this space. Lloyds TSB are very keen to continue helping the venture and we are meeting them next week to discuss fine detail. Our solicitors are now in correspondence regarding the lease, and Mole Valley's legal department is sorting out the 106 Agreement that binds the penny-a-year rent. ViRSA has confirmed that our registration documents are being processed by the FSA - so all the official stuff is falling into place. Don't forget to let your neighbours and friends know about this blog - it keeps everyone up to date!

Other shops, other examples

We visited Mannings Heath and Rusper today to look at their community shops. Both are thriving, but they are very different examples of the genre. We came away with lots of advice and ideas! We had a meeting with Bob Pritchard today who looked at the shop front and layout for us. He had several ideas about how to maximise the internal space, and will help us with the planning application. There will be a lot of practical work to do ...
As regards next week's mailshot, Distributor Extraordinaire is on the case. Don't make him laugh! We need Leigh distributors as Leigh is so spread out.
Megan Aspel and Jo Songhurst have both agreed to be on the Management Committee - many thanks!!

The More the Merrier!

We're looking forward to receiving advice on Thursday from local architect Bob Pritchard, who is coming to see the shop front with us - we need a good new look! Also Tony from Brockham Blind Co is coming to look at the fascia for us this week. Nick Green has agreed to use his expertise by helping us with the setting up of the IT in the shop. And Jane Holmes is compiling a list of her 'stuffers' - people who can collate the mail-out next week and stuff the envelopes. Unfortunately our Distributor Extraordinaire decided to fall on his chest while skiing last week and is nursing cracked ribs so the distribution is going to need a few more helpers..... hope you feel better soon, Simon! x

Post Office

We are very pleased that John Washtell, parish councillor and former district councillor, has agreed to research the Alternative Post Office, as we like to call it. We have been given quite a bit of information from Alan Wyle and ViRSA about this. Anyone interested in reading about how other villages cope without post offices can look at the Gloucestershire example on www.virsa.org - the website is a mine of information and its shop directory is full of case studies of other community shops.

Amy's sale

Saw Amy last night during her furniture sale - she was delighted as her stock was flying out of the door! She has another sale day on Saturday and again next week, Thurs and Sat. The shop is looking much emptier!
We've had a great meeting with those working on fund-raising - full of ideas. The Big Mailshot is getting closer and we're working hard on that. Meanwhile we've got to come up with ideas for a new shop-front, ready for the planning application to go into MVDC.
Two computers are arriving today, donated by Surrey Community Action. They are a few years old but have been cleaned off and are ready for use. We could do with some furniture to put them on! Anybody got anything usable?

More recruits!

Things are moving fast and people are working hard on various tasks. Jo Songhurst is going to help with fund-raising and Alison Owen is going to help with the database that will be set up when we get our first share-holders. Jane Warren is going to lend us her many years' marketing experience and Gordon Saxby is building the website - www.theshopatstroodgreen.co.uk .
Claire Bryant has agreed to talk to Alan Wyle (Village Shop Adviser) about his Crop for the Shop ideas - this is a concept that is being carried forward by community shops as a way of helping provide sustainable environmentally friendly living within villages and communities. Megan Aspel is working hard on the first grant application (Village CORE Programme).
There is an enormous amount to do and more people are needed!!
We've had our first offer of a donation and the application form is nearly ready, should anyone else be feeling the need to get their chequebooks out! Just contact us by email or by responding to this blog.

Progress report

Talented local artist Tania Coffey has agreed to look at designing the logo for the shop - we are so very grateful to have this sort of support.
We are moving closer to the issuing of shares - due to start 9th March. There will be several Sale days before then at the shop, when Amy (current occupant) will endeavour to shift the furniture stock. It's worth a look! she has some nice pieces.
David Hall who runs the excellent Leigh village website has been in touch and is now featuring Strood Green shop news on the website. This is great news as Leigh was very supportive last time round.
Today Amy gave us a key to the shop, to help us when we want to post our bulletins in the window or have shopfitters in for estimates etc. It was quite a moment, after the long history of this campaign, to have that little piece of metal handed over so sweetly!

Progress

Great news - Gordon Saxby has agreed to organise a website for us. We are delighted that a really exceptional team of people is gathering around us! Please give us some feedback on this blog - it keeps us going - or email us.
The shop is due to be emptied of furniture by 9 March which is the date we are setting for our 'Open Day' and when we will start the process of issuing shares. In the next few weeks an application will go into Mole Valley DC for a new shopfront - the old one is in a pretty awful state and we also need disabled access (you have to step up into the shop at the moment).
Fundraising is an urgent issue - we don't want our loan overheads to be too high before we start.

Urgent tasks

Correction to last blog - Jo Songhurst has actually volunteered to set up the database and also is investigating the possibility of a Quiz Night fund-raiser - fantastic.
Is anyone interested in spending an hour or so designing a share certificate? We are getting a master from ViRSA for the wording, but we just want it to look good. They are becoming collector's items and people have been known to frame them! We need them printed by
7th March latest, so this is now getting urgent.
Also someone creative might like to come up with a logo that we can use on certain products and stationery. There is a large ash tree on the green, and the buildings are predominantly 1930s, so maybe a stylised version of a tree and a 1930s gable??? Maybe someone will have a better idea of how to represent Strood Green!

Today Strood Green, tomorrow the world!

Very cheered by good article in the Dorking Advertiser even though it was p.37! We finished the mailings to previous contributors so everyone should have their letters by the weekend. Recruited more volunteers: Ali Griffiths, Alix Smith, Jo Songhurst, Jane Hoggarth, Joy Huxley are all helping distribute the letters this time and - BIG STAR! - Simon Goddard has agreed to organise the next distribution which will be a whopper as it will be the share application forms for the entire villages of Brockham and Leigh. (We love you Simon! xx)
On a more serious note we have also sent off our application forms today to register the Association as an Industrial and Provident Society.

VOLUNTEERS!!

We have some wonderful new volunteers on board. Jane Mahony has agreed to work on publicity, and has contacted the Dorking Advertiser with a comprehensive press release for an article for this week's edition. Megan Aspel has agreed to work on grant applications and is preparing a template application at the moment. Paula Mitas has agreed to lend her eye for style and come up with some ideas for the interior. Charlie Goodship has agreed to help with the electrics .... We hope to add a few more names to this list by the end of the week.

WE NEED:

• someone artistic to design a share certificate (along the lines of old bank or rail certificates)
• someone prepared to design and help maintain a database
• someone to design a website
• help with research - into funding, regulations, other community shop ideas
• help with mailings and distribution
• painters, decorators, builders, floorlayers
• fund-raising ideas and fundraisers
• someone to contact all the local organisations and seek sponsorship

We are starting with a clean slate! All that we have inherited are two greetings-card holders and an ice-cream freezer. We need everything and anything - even a fire-extinguisher! This makes it more exciting - don't you agree?

This is just the start!

Today we had a meeting with Alan Wyle, the Village Shop Adviser from Surrey Community Action. He was full of ideas for the shop and all the community activities it can host. We've started our project management system and have a daunting list of jobs to do. So we will be ringing and knocking on doors to find people that can help. If we have enough enthusiastic individuals who are prepared to put in a little time, and use their own particular skills, we shall be able to pull this off.
It will become a place we are all proud of!