A New Social Venture by a Colleague
In my blog post I wanted to tell you about one of my colleagues that has just founded his own Social Enterprise:-
Wrexham Glyndwr University member of staff Dr Peter Hooper has recently started his own social enterprise, based in Wrexham’s Welsh Government-funded Enterprise Hub. The enterprise, Active Writing Limited, runs writing and activity workshops to encourage people to be both more creative and more active. The heart of the business is getting people to write – in their own words – what they love about being outside and active. For reluctant (or very young) writers, Peter encourages them to draw or illustrate what they love about the outdoors. The best of the contributions are published online and as anthologies by Cox Bank Publishing, a social enterprise Peter set up in 2015.
Peter has just completed a three-year project funded by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, to collect sporting stories from around the city of Stoke-on-Trent. He worked extensively with sports clubs, schools, community groups, charities such as YMCA and MIND and local hospices as well as local social enterprises to collect and publish writing and drawing from contributors aged 4 to 84 years. He’s now extending the workshop side of the business, via Active Writing, into North Wales to explore the realm of outdoor adventure. He has lots of exciting projects in mind for 2020 and is currently working on collaborative grant applications in partnership with the University, local outdoor adventure companies, and writers and artists across the region.
Peter is happy to share his learning and the challenges and rewards of operating a publishing model of social enterprise, and he’d be very interested to hear of any other SE’s operating in the creative and outdoor activity space or in publishing; pete@coxbankpublishing.com
Also, I wanted to let you know a couple of dates for your diary:-
Social Business Wales will be holding their annual conference in Llandudno (North Wales), this year on the 25th of September. There are still some places available.
Our final project conference will be held at the Catrin Finch Centre on the 15th of November. A number of the international social enterprise will be speaking at the event. Welsh Government will also be speaking about the work that they have been doing and their future framework to support social enterprise. Booking for the event will be via Eventbrite, so please keep a lookout.
The project will also be publishing its final newsletter in the forthcoming weeks. The newsletter will be edited by our Lithuania partners.