Is your food-related enterprise or organisation looking to step up to a new level or kickstart a new project? Or perhaps you’re in a position to support a Plymouth organisation looking to do just that by sharing skills, time or making an investment? Either way, the Food Plymouth Community of Dragons event is for you!
Inspired by the ever brilliant Local Entrepreneur Forum events developed by the Totnes REconomy Centre over the past decade and after a successful debut event in 2022, Food Plymouth is set host their second Community of Dragons event for food-related enterprises and organisations, to be held on the evening of Thursday 16th November 2023 at the Plymouth Athenaeum. It will bring a set of organisations working in Plymouth’s food space to pitch their next steps – and what they might need to get there – together with members of Plymouth’s communities who might be in a position to lend a hand, some time or even some money to support them. This year, we’re delighted that the event forms part of Plymouth’s Social Enterprise City Festival 2023 led by Plymouth Social Enterprise Network.
Last year’s Community of Dragons event saw three different enterprises took to the stage at Plymouth’s Community Climate Centre, in the form of The Hedgerow Hound, Leadworks Projects CIC and Heaven’s MicroGreens. As well as a chance to showcase their varied work to date to a room of over 30 people, they were able to seek help they needed to take their next steps.
Offers of support ranged from business mentoring and volunteer support to sourcing carpeting and insulation materials to improve spaces, with a dedicated pledge-making session following all three pitches facilitated by Jabo Butera of Diversity Business Incubator and the Food Plymouth team. We were also delighted that Ferndale Community Radio station were able to offer a host of publicity opportunities to the businesses, in a pre-pledge made as part of promotions for the event.
Could your enterprise or organisation take part in 2023?
This is a great opportunity to raise the profile of your food-related venture, as well as to gain financial and or/non-financial investment and support. Our criteria for choosing which ventures pitch will be as follows:
- the enterprise / organisation is working directly within or directly supporting Plymouth’s local food economy
- the enterprise / organisation is ethical, sustainable and appropriately local, aligning with areas of work within the Sustainable Food Places movement
- the enterprise / organisation demonstrates competence through business plan and/or track record
- the business model does not rely entirely on donations or grant funding
- the ‘investment’ required would allow the venture to ‘get to the next level’ – this investment could be financial and/or non-financial
- the enterprise / organisation contributes to the long-term resilience of the community
Apply to pitch your food-related venture on the night
We’re inviting enterprises and organisations to apply to be one of the pitching ventures on the night by no later than Friday 10th November 2023. Please apply to pitch using this online form. If you have any questions about this process, please email Food Plymouth Sustainable Food Places Coordinator Sophie at sfp@foodplymouth.org as soon as possible and she’ll be in touch to organise a call.
People of Plymouth – you are our Community Dragons!
A Community of Dragons event needs community dragons – that could be you, me, your friend, colleague or neighbour! You may not be involved in running a food-related venture but you can most definitely support one. Everyone has a stake in their local food economy and everyone can be an investor, too. Entrepreneurs need all kinds of support. Financial capital is important, but so are other forms of support, from expert mentoring to child care. You can play an important role in shaping and sustaining Plymouth’s local food economy by being there to listen, share your feedback and pledge actions of support where you can. If you’d like to know more about what this could look like, are keen to gain inspiration from Local Entrepreneur Forum events past and present or have suggestions about who we should be inviting along, please email our Coordinator Sophie.
Don’t forget to register your attendance here via Eventbrite so that we know you’re coming along!
