Who we are

A group wanting to change the system for the common good

We are a group of community organisations who have come together to catalyse and invest in connections in communities so they can create for themselves, drive forward and understand what works in developing community economic development plans, new initiatives and social enterprise, in order to grow local, economic, social and environmental resilience for their neighbourhoods and to influence the local and regional mainstream system.

We are working with the Thirty Percy who have initially funded our Network, and Centre for Thriving Places who are helping us with a significant 2-year evaluation using existing national, local and locally designed metrics and building on their nationally and internationally recognised work with other leading council areas.

As we look to new opportunities, we want to work with organisations that are:

1. Place-based– the organisation should have a clear geography that it serves

2. Community ownership– the organisation should be able to demonstrate how they have worked with the community

3. Collaboration- organisations should have a collaborative mindset and be able to demonstrate how they do this

4. Learning culture – organisations or groups should be prepared to take an open-book approach to use of funds and evaluation of impact

5. Track record of delivery – organisations should be able to demonstrate that they have had an impact on the community at whatever scale makes sense for them e.g., more people have been fed who needed support or the community now has the capacity to deliver for themselves

Want to find out more? Get in touch via email:

hello@gloucestershirehotspots.org

Meet the Network Members

  • GL11 Community Hub- Indigo Redfern MBE

    GL11 Community Hub in Cam started 20 years ago when local mums staged a sit-in to save their family centre. Now a thriving hub, GL11 is the centre of a comprehensive community network, supporting residents to find and enact local solutions. Before Covid, GL11 had 50 courses and activities each week, volunteering, community café, social prescribing, employment support debt advice: then switched to comprehensive COVID response and recovery activity. GL11 is a key partner in NHS, district and local authority working groups and hosts the Stroud District Know Your Patch forum.

  • Gloucestershire Gateway Trust- Mark Gale

    Gloucestershire Gateway Trust guided by local citizens set up and part owns Gloucester Services on the M5. The Trust is pioneering bottom up community economic plans, community building and resourcing play, environmental action, community cafes and neighbourhood organisations in Gloucester and Stonehouse. CEO Mark Gale is a former UK Social Entrepreneur of the Year ‘ and has received special awards from Cotswold Life and the Western Daily Press for his contribution to food and farming as well as helping launch community businesses such as Community Foster Care, the Furniture Recycling Project and a number of community shops.

  • Fair Shares Gloucestershire- Reyaz Limalia

    Fair Shares Gloucestershire- Reyaz Limalia

    Fair Shares Gloucestershire set up the first Fair Shares Gloucestershire set up the first time bank in the country and has been innovatively leading the timebanking movement in the UK for the past 25 years. We run timebanks in Gloucester and Stroud and work with an incredibly diverse range of participants from all ages and backgrounds. In particular we work with many people who wouldn’t take up traditional volunteering opportunities but instead through Fair Shares find a new way to get involved with community activities – Many of our participants are those living with long term health conditions and instead of being passive recipients of services are now actively contributing to the lives of others and the wider community, and through the two way nature of timebanking also then receiving support and help from others in Fair Shares.

  • Gloucester Community Building Collective- Miranda Eeles

    Gloucester Community Building Collective CIC works with local residents to build community capacity on issues that matter locally, with a mission to bring about people led action at small neighbourhood level building on people’s dreams and passions for themselves, their neighbourhoods and communities running ‘test and learn’ initiatives and championing more citizen-led change

  • The Venture: White City- Dawn Barnes

  • The Grace Network- Will Mansell

    The Grace Network is a social enterprise development body that owns and manages 11 CICs with 70+ staff across a range of sectors.

    We want to ensure a diverse cross section of people are running the business world, and finding creative and sustainable solutions to real problems. Our Hub at Brimscombe Mill has become the culmination of this vision, and is now a safe space for human connection, personal development, and for social enterprises to start up.