World Cafe;

Community &
local business in discussion;
Weds March 12 2008 @The Courtyard

The following points are distilled from discussions with members during the planning of the ‘World Café’ event at The Courtyard, which brought local suppliers together with consumers, and the points arising from the meeting itself.

Next Steps for Greenlinks;

1. What are the aims of Greenlinks?
            To link up and facilitate communication between local/green/ethical businesses
            To use this process to facilitate local, more efficient procurement
            To look at ways to co-operate to take advantage of ‘economies of scale’
............To use joined-up promotion to the local public and visitors to increase sales
            To raise awareness of the role of local economy supporting a vibrant local community
            To present interests of small business collectively at local government level
            To widen inclusivity and grow the membership
            To share best practice and help each other avoid mistakes

2. What are Greenlinks’ practical outputs?
            Interactive promotional and communications website for member businesses
            Printed directory and newsletters distributed round the county
            Exhibitions, public events, trade fairs, and networking meetings
            Facilitating formation of small Business Support Groups for mutual promotion
            Working with other groups, networks (Bulmer Foundation, City Centre, local media)
            Training seminars planned if funding becomes available
............Information sharing for a sample Environmental policy

3. How can member businesses and supporting public help to further this, for mutual benefit?     
            Remembering that until we get funding, mutual help is the only way to keep going!
............Help with distributing directories and newsletters
............Raising awareness that all businesses will very soon have to be ‘green’ due to energy          
............costs and climate change regulations
            Encouraging more local businesses to join
            Buying from member businesses and recommending to friends
            Supporting networking events and trade fairs
            Helping publicize events, and Greenlinks generally
............Encouraging other groups to contact us with ideas on how to support Greenlinks
            Letting us know if web entries are incorrect or out of date
            Contribute to Greenlinks web shopping
            Getting involved – eg organizing a Greenlinks Fair in High Town
            Suggesting opportunities for joined up publicity
            Encouraging business and Council to buy local from Greenlinks members
            Raise awareness that local economy is foundation for local community
            Continue to explore possibilities for loyalty card

2007 World Cafe event @ Cafe Green

The launch of the 3rd edition of the Greenlinks booklet in May 2007 was an opportunity for the ethical business community to get together with its customers and supporters and have a lively round-table discussion on how best to develop the local economy for the benefit of the community and environment.

About 150 people managed to squeeze into 6 different rooms at the Cafe Green complex to explore 2 key questions;

1. How can we develop a vibrant local economy and community in a time of diminishing oil supplies and a need to avert climate change?

2. How can Greenlinks best help this process?

Each discussion group focused on a different sector such as food, transport, waste, and so on. People had the opportunity to move to other groups to seed new ideas across the sectors.

The process ended with personal pledges from participants.

Ideas were collected and later emailed round the mailing list.