by Mick Berry
Ruyton XI Towns Shop
A meeting was held at St John the Baptist school on Friday at 7pm on 20 November to discuss what the people of Ruyton could do to ensure the future of our village shop, bearing in mind it is up for sale. Fifteen people attended and apologies were received from 10 others, most of whom were involved with RATS
The ideal outcome would be for someone to buy the shop and continue trading as a shop and post office.
However Mary Drinan, with Dee Plozsay and Jason Bent, have set up a working party to look at the possibility of starting a community shop should anything happen to jeopardise the future of the shop.
Mick Berry who had recently joined the working party gave a brief history of what the group had done so far.
They have explored the funding options with particular reference to the Plunkett Foundation http://www.plunkett.co.uk/
Plunkett provide advice and support to local enterprises in the funding and running of such enterprises.
Mary, Mick and Dee had visited the community shop in Cheswardine to see how they started and operated.
They had received a lot of information which could be helpful if the community decided to set up such an enterprise.
Dee gave details of the visit.
They have also contacted a community shop in Wigmore near Hereford and Brian Casbourne from their committee provided details of how they had set it up and how it was run.
There followed a brief discussion about the possible options,
Continue as is,
Rent the shop from a new owner,
Open another outlet somewhere in the village, possibly in the pub, the flower shop, Café Eleven or a portacabin.
The purpose of this meeting was to get volunteers from the village to form a committee to take this forward.
Yoland volunteered to do any marketing and Jo Brobeck-Brown said she was keen to help.
Mick suggested the others go away and think about it, speak to friends and acquaintances and hopefully volunteer to join the Committee. Interested parties can contact
Yoland brownhill@eleventowns.co.uk
Mary mary.drinan@gmail.com 01939260392 or
Mick thanked Dee, Mary Jason and Brian for their contributions and thanked those attending.
Ideally the shop will be sold and continue to trade but we need people to work out contingency plans in case this doesn't happen.
Mick Berry
-- Yoland Brown Brownhill House B&B & Garden, Ruyton XI Towns nr. Shrewsbury SY4 1LR Tel: 01939 261 121 brownhill@eleventowns.co.uk www.eleventowns.co.uk www.eleventowns.org uk www.eleventowns.com ShACC - Shropshire Alternative Car Club - www.ShACC-uk.org MAILING LIST for Ruyton XI Towns area Yo`s blog: http://Yo-emails.blogspot.co.uk
