Your Fruits in Season

A catch-up day today with back to back meetings with Peter, our funding adviser, Rose, our Volunteer Centre organiser and the Chair and Manager of the Community Fruit and Veg project which gives me the link to our Lyric reference today. This comes from an obscure Stone Roses 'b' side but here are the boys singing one of their more familier tunes http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=k4bHMVAKDao

We talk AGMs and accounts and the kind of stuff which organisatins need to have in place to be effective. They are ideal candidates fora PQASSO Quality Assurance framework as this will guide them through the basics and enable them to see the work they have ahead of them. I like this project which is a social enterprise delivering low cost fruit and veg and the uptake of the 5-a-day mentality in some of the most deprived communities in the UK. But whatever the ethos there also needs to be some firm business planning sense here as well as, quite apart from all the good intentions they are also flogging a commodity which goes off in 2-3 days. So their stock control, pricing and distribution has to be spot on. Anyway Neil the new cooprinator is offered support and has Louise as his Chair who ran the PULSE project and is one of the best project planners in the local area. HVA are also chipping in by employing the staff andn handling the money until they are robust enough to float off into a CIC (Community Interest Company).

Am working tomorrow at a Church and Community seminar tomorow some am taking the rest of the day off to compensate, get pummled into shape by Sean and then walk the dog. What with cats, community asset transfers, casework and all it has seemed a bit of a long week.

By the way yesterday's episode with the cat set us back £260 - I don't mind you kind of buy into such costs when you own pets - but if you see someone chasing a badger along the road wielding a baseball bat and swearing - it'll be me. (must remember to ban the badger protection society from the membership of HVA!!)