Coaley Community Shop

County	Gloucestershire, South West
Postcode	GL11 5ED
Opened	2003
Post Office	No
Management	Volunteer
Legal	ViRSA IPS model rules
Premises	Conversion

View a map of where to find us

Opening Hours

8am - 12pm and 3pm - 6pm Monday to Friday

8:30am - 12pm Saturday

9am - 12pm Sunday

Shop Website

http://www.cospa.org/

Services Offered

Coaley Community Shop serves all the daily needs of the Village of Coaley and its surrounding hamlets. There is an emphasis on fairtrade and organic goods, plus local produce of all kinds. Other services include: library, cafe, dry-cleaning, internet and stamps.

Village shop is given go-ahead

Coaley Shop and Post Office Association has finally achieved the necessary clearances to establish a community shop in the village.

Association chairman Dudley George said: "We are very grateful to all those who kept faith and encouraged us to carry on, including our MP, David Drew, and our county councillor, Margaret Nolder. Finally we are getting somewhere."

The two-year legal delay has a silver lining, however. A portable building is now about to become redundant at Coaley Primary School and is to be transferred to the recreation ground, to be used as a temporary shop until a hoped-for new village centre for Coaley, including a shop, can be built.

Now there is definite go-ahead the association will be calling on all villages who offered their help when the project was originally launched. Builder Ron Plumb will be involved in the major task of dismantling the building and moving it from the school to the recreation ground.

"Unfortunately", he told the Gazette, "there is almost as much work involved in moving the building 250 yards as if it were to travel 250 miles."

The move is planned to take place in September as soon as pupils have occupied the new permanent classrooms currently being built.

It is hoped that the shop will be fully fitted out, stocked and opened in the autumn. It is intended the shop will also contain an internet cafe and offer catering for sports events on the recreation field.

"We are determined that this will be a successful and popular amenity for all the village," said Mr George.

Article from http://archive.gazetteseries.co.uk/2003/6/20/9775.html

Case Study

Introduction The village of Coaley is in the south of Gloucestershire. Since the 1970s its good road and rail links have attracted incomers seeking rural peace within easy reach of Bristol and the many jobs of central Gloucestershire, as well as the Stroud Valleys. With a population of around 700, the village has a primary school (30-40 children on roll), church, pub and a well-used village hall. It is active in pursuit of eg village planning, affordable housing and is familiar to officers of the local council and rural community council. The last privately-owned shop closed in the early 1990s and the nearest shops are in Cam, 2-3 miles away and with poor public transport links. In 2001 villagers registered Coaley Shop and Post Office Association (CoSPA) as an Industrial and Provident Society, a process which was supported by Business Link, Co-operative Futures and the Village Retail Services Association (ViRSA). The intention was to build a new shop in the grounds of the village hall, and committee members had a broad range of valuable skills to draw on. However, they experience real difficulties and considerable delays in getting a lease from the village hall committee. In March 2003 and with planning permission secured, these were resolved when it was recognised that some redevelopment at the school would release a terrapin-type building. The village hall committee was willing to grant a lease for this temporary building and it was decided to aim to open the shop in September 2003. With the building becoming vacant for removal up the village high street during the school summer holidays, the committee had a huge number of tasks to complete in a short timescale. At a meeting in early July 2003 between Co-operative Futures and the then secretary of CoSPA it was agreed that help with mobilising 40+ volunteers to be reading for the shop opening would be valuable.

1. Learning Tools Used

Research materials from Business Link and materials in Co-operative Futures’ office were used to inform the adviser about induction processes. In the event it was found to be inappropriate because the informal nature of CoSPA does not lend itself to formal systems.

2. Tasks implemented without the support of learning tools

Officer research suggested there were no materials available for recording volunteer information, skills etc, and matching them to the needs of the shop. The forms designed and produced by the adviser did not suit the informal working methods preferred by the volunteer organiser. As a later file record, however, they are useful for easily filling gaps in the volunteering schedule.

3. Comments on learning tools used

Not applicable.

4. Rural Proofing

The advisory tasks concerned did not require any materials specific to the rural environment. Materials produced specifically for CoSPA might be of use to any organisation seeking to mobilise large numbers of volunteers to staff a facility open to the public for many hours per week.

5. Proposals for further development of learning tools

Community shops are very specific to their localities in terms of how they operate, what competition there is, the skills of their committees and the products and services they supply. In the case of CoSPA, even materials specific to this shop proved to be not workable as envisaged.

Learning tools will only be useful where there is common ground and this may be difficult and very time-consuming to find. There is a risk that standard learning tool will be less flexible and potentially less useful than the involvement of an individual who will tailor-make support to the organisation in question.

Contact Details

Shop

Tel: 01453 899000

Fax: 01453 899042

People

Dudley George
CoSPA Chairman
tel 01453 890459
shop@cospa.org

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