People we've helped

Oxford Cycle Workshop

Category

Retail

Riding on the success of its bicycle repair and recycling shop, the Oxford Cycle Workshop – a workers’ co-operative – decided to set up a cycling training centre which would be run as a community co-operative.

The training centre opened in 2009 with assistance from The Co-operative Enterprise Hub. It hosts workshops, events and training programmes with a strong community focus, providing training and life skills to disadvantaged young people.

OCW already offered some training, and Dan Harris, a director, and other OCW members wanted to build on this. They wanted to engage the local community through cycling and to empower them by encouraging them to take control of the training business. Jonty Semper was invited by members of OCW to help set up the new venture.

"We decided to set up this type of co-operative because we wanted a way to empower the community,” Jonty says. "We wanted to run a business in which the community could become fully involved. The aims of the organisation reflect the needs of the community that owns us."

Dan and Jonty contacted The Co-operative Enterprise Hub when first setting up the training centre, seeking guidance on how to get a community co-operative up and running.

"The Co-operative Enterprise Hub listened to what we needed and really delivered on that," Jonty says. "They put us in touch with the relevant people and gave advice on what we needed in order to move forward. They also helped us to focus on our aims and objectives as an organisation, and how relationships with members and our legal structure would reflect these. This gave us a solid foundation from which to begin growing. It really made us realise how important it is to recognise how decisions made will relate to our aims and objectives."

Now in its third year of trading, OCW Training employs X full-time and X part-time employees, as well as offering X apprenticeships. There are around XXX members of the co-operative, who benefit from weekly workshop access and all of whom have a stake and a say in the running of the business.

HOW WE HELPED

We advised Oxford Cycle Workshop on an appropriate legal and governance structure for the community co-operative.
We assisted Oxford Cycle Workshop with business planning.

Jim Pettipher, Hub adviser, said: “The Co-operative Enterprise Hub can offer a steady hand in terms of guiding the business in the right direction - sometimes businesses can lose sight of what they are trying to achieve, and we try to minimise this. It’s also very different from a private business - we are able to provide a support network, and can encourage relationship building with our available contacts.”

For more information please visit www.cycleoxford.coop