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Press Release 13th July 2022

VISIT BANBURY CIC ANNOUNCE DECISION TO CLOSE SOCIAL ENTERPRISE AND CEASE ACTIVITIES

Banbury-based social enterprise Visit Banbury Community Interest Company today announce that further to a quorate meeting of board members, the decision has been taken to close the legally constituted social enterprise “Visit Banbury Community Interest Company” within the next few months and to immediately cease all community-based activities.

The volunteer-lead organisation (Paddy Patterson, Tanya Collins, Kirsty Leahy, Steve Gold and Tim Tarby- Donald) which has operated as a CIC since March 2019 with a founding group of eight directors, all local people, which subsequently became the five main board directors above, has built on the work of the Visit Banbury unconstituted volunteer-lead organisation founded in April 2014 by Tim Tarby-Donald and officially launched in February 2015 at their Banbury Positivity Summit.

That event set the tone for the organisation’s activities to date, promoting everything positive about Banbury, organising activities and events within the town, connecting and bringing people together, collaborating as a partner with a range of groups such as Age Friendly Banbury and working to bring business and local community together to create social action, to improve life for those in the town and the immediate area around Banbury.

In addition, the CIC has worked to promote kindness in the town, most notably launching their “Banbury Circle of Kindness” during the first lockdown to bring kind donors together with local businesses who needed extra income, in order to provide items for local recipients who were helping Banbury residents or were local people supported by local charities, plus lots of random acts of kindness for Banbury people.

Whilst very sad to be closing the organisation, the Visit Banbury CIC team are determined to do as they always have and to accentuate the positive by reflecting on the impact of their volunteering efforts over the last seven years and in particular the last three as an official social enterprise.

“The work we have done in recent years is well known in Banbury so we are not going to list the projects here, but the recent collection of winter coats for local people in need, the Banbury Circle of Kindness and our work with Age Friendly Banbury and Brighter Futures in Banbury are some of our highlights, along with the unforgettable “The Night Market” organised in partnership with Banbury Presents back in 2015” the directors commented.

“These, alongside our relentless positivity about and promotion of all things Banbury using #VisitBanbury, have been defining values for us, as we consistently encouraged people both local and further afield to “Be Positive About Banbury, even making a promotional video as a Valentine’s gift to Banbury back in 2015”.

The Visit Banbury CIC team wish to express their thanks to every person who has volunteered alongside them in the many projects they have done, the very generous donors who provided funding to run many of those projects and the huge number of organisations who have collaborated and partnered with Visit Banbury / Visit Banbury CIC over the last seven years.

“We truly hope that we have been a positive force for good in the town and that we, as local people, have shown that even with busy lives, normal people can have a positive impact on our hometowns and that we don’t always have to wait for others to act to help improve places” commented Mr Tarby-Donald.

Following a period of administrative activities to wind up the organisation, Visit Banbury CIC will cease to exist, but the directors hope that other organisations and people will continue to advocate positively for Banbury to help make it the best place possible to live, work and visit.

If you would like to contact the Board of Directors for any reason, please email hello@visitbanburycic.org.uk

Ends


Visit Banbury Community Interest Company
Registered Office: 82 Queens Road, Banbury OX16 0ED Company No.11901758
Registered in England & Wales

Visit Banbury CIC Year 1 Report

https://www.flipsnack.com/8AF95AFF8D6/visit-banbury-community-interest-company-year-one-review-for.html

We hope you are all well.

We’d like to share this link with you which shows the report which is part of the submission we made to Companies House a few months back as part of our first year of operations as a social enterprise.

We were delayed by the pandemic in putting this together but hopefully it will bring back some positive memories for many of you – it certainly does for us !

However, it appears things are gently opening back up and so we will try to be more visible in the coming months with projects such as The Welcome Garden for Age Friendly Banbury (which is back in planning) and 100 Winter Coats (which we will be distributing to those in need very soon).

We’ll hopefully be joining the Age Friendly Banbury team on Thursday 30th September in the market square for a pop up and will also be at the Age Friendly Banbury event at the Town Hall on 1st October to celebrate the partnership’s work as part of International Day of the Older Persons, so if you are around please come and say hello.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has been involved in Visit Banbury CIC in its inception year, including Sarah, Neil and Andy who helped us launch as a social enterprise and who subsequently had to step down as Directors for a variety of reasons. Their help in getting VB CIC up and running was invaluable.

Also, all of the collaborative partners, volunteers and supporters who enabled everything to happen.

One final sad note – we would like to dedicate this to our lovely friend and volunteer Becky Moyce who sadly passed away recently – she was an exceptional human being and we send our love and best wishes to all of those who were lucky enough to know her.

Take care.

Tanya Collins
Kirsty Leahy
Steve Gold
Paddy Patterson
Tim Tarby-Donald

Directors

The Banbury Circle of Kindness – Press Release

VISIT BANBURY CIC LAUNCH THE “CIRCLE OF KINDNESS” & APPEAL FOR LOCAL DONORS TO SUPPORT LOCAL ORGANISATIONS BY SPENDING WITH BANBURY BUSINESSES IMPACTED BY COVID-19

Banbury-based social enterprise Visit Banbury Community Interest Company today launches an appeal aimed to connect kind financial donors – who may not have been financially impacted by the Covid-19 crisis and who may want to share this good fortune – to good causes, but in a different way from simply giving to charity, and at the same time supporting local businesses who are under severe financial pressure.

Many organisations are appealing for support during this difficult time and many people are experiencing hardship, isolation, and loneliness due to lockdown conditions.

However, many of our much-loved local businesses are also really suffering as they may have been forced to close and to try to operate in alternative ways. For many of them sales have plummeted, and their money is tied up in stocks of products they are unable or struggling to sell in great volume.

To address this, following requests to the organisation to connect people wanting to help others, Visit Banbury CIC have created a way in which those donors can help others in need whilst simultaneously supporting local businesses and promoting community kindness.

In short, donors offer a minimum of £100 each, Visit Banbury CIC brings together a group of them, identifies a local organisation who needs something (e.g. art packs for elderly people, personal care products for NHS staff, goodie bags for “looked after children” etc) and with the support of Banbury BID will identify local businesses who need support and who have products which can be included.

A single bulk purchase is then made, the donors pay the business directly and the business sends the items to the organisation.

Visit Banbury CIC and Banbury BID want to make this transaction very simple and so the new ShopAppy platform for Banbury https://shopappy.com/banbury/ will be used for the donors to pay the business directly and then the deliveries will be made via the new service provided by Carriage Company.

Kirsty Leahy, Director of Visit Banbury CIC said, “We know many amazing organisations are doing incredible work right on the front line and we cannot dream to emulate that, but we can do what we always have and that is connect various groups, support local community-based organisations and businesses and work with partners like Banbury BID to help spread some kindness”.

Jo Holland, Banbury BID Manager said “The BID has been talking to 100s of businesses over the last few weeks.

We have been struck by so many stories of businesses who were forced to close and have not been able, for a variety of reasons, to continue to trade in alternative ways. This could be a vital lifeline to some businesses, who can generate much needed cash flow from selling their bulk stock, and at the same time being able to help others is a wonderful idea. The BID is proud to be able to support the Banbury Circle of Kindness.”

If you are a donor who would like to get involved please email hello@visitbanburycic.org.uk or contact Steve Gold on 07932 164663 or Paddy Patterson on 07455 007293 and if you are a business who would like to be part of the initiative, please contact joholland@banburybid.com.

Look out for #BanburyCircleOfKindness on social media for more information.

The Time Is Right – June 2019

When people question the viability and appeal of Banbury we often share this with them and they are amazed to see all that is happening in our part of Oxfordshire.

Whilst like all towns we have our challenges driven by uncertainty, changing consumer behaviours and nationwide company decisions, we have a huge amount to feel optimistic about and if you live around Banbury but haven’t been for a while (or ever!) then why not take a look at all there is to offer and #VisitBanbury soon !

You’ll find lots of lovely green spaces, heritage and the canalside, a huge number of independent shops and businesses covering art, creativity, household items, fashion, cookery, books, comics, gifts and party items, not to mention a local butcher, a growing number of antique shops, a craft beer pub, a range of fab cafés and bars, a wonderful museum and arts centre. There is also a large number of high street shops and a shopping centre offering a full range of retailers and some surprises like a ping pong parlour and free soft play for the kids – everything you need for a great day out.

Why not stick around and have a meal in one of the range of pubs and restaurants Banbury has to offer, from Thai to Dutch to Japanese to Steaks and wings to Italian, Polish and Indian food, or just good value tasty pub food or a growing number of gluten free, vegetarian and vegan options in venues such as Little Amsterdam, Pinto Lounge and the Rustic Bean, to mention just a few.

Just 10 minutes walk from the railway station or 5 minutes from the canal-side into the centre of town.

Visit Banbury CIC The Time is Right June 2019 V4

The Eden Project Communities Big Lunch Community Walk Visits Banbury

 

Visit Banbury; a look back to move ahead

road sky clouds cloudy
Photo by Gratisography on Pexels.com

Visit Banbury has existed as a volunteer-led community organisation since April 2014.

Founded and driven forward by Tim Tarby-Donald, the organisation has fortunately benefited from the help and assistance of many people, Steve, Marta, Barry, Kate, Jacqui, Neil, Iain, Geri, Tina, Karen, Dewi, Rachel, Kerry  to name a few, donating their time and resources freely along with many others, plus amazing collaborations with a variety of organisations.

We’ve had great support from many areas, from local councils and their teams, local businesses and media organisations.

However, we hope we have contributed lots and have played our part as a purely voluntary organisation as we have always tried to connect people, to build relationships and to drive a closer community network.

Here is a pack showing the range of activities Visit Banbury has been involved with, to remind you just what we have done as volunteers.

Visit Banbury Activities

We have learnt a great deal since officially launching at the Banbury Positivity Summit on Friday 13th February 2015 and finally we have reached the stage we promised to, way back then.

We are bringing together a Board of Directors and a group of core volunteers to help launch Visit Banbury as a Social Enterprise, a business which will be for profit – but not for personal profit.

We feel that the time is right for some of us to participate in Visit Banbury as part of our regular work, but it will be our community and town more widely which profits as we can do more this way.

This will happen early in 2019 and we think we will be the first social enterprise in Banbury – please tell us if there are others as we’d love to collaborate!

We have an awesome group of people coming together but there is room for more so if you are interested, please get in touch.

We have lots of ideas for income generation and for social action projects and what we do will depend on the people’s time and resources we have available to us – and of course the need in our community to facilitate or do something.

So, please take a look back at what we have already done and then help us look forward and guide our activities for the benefit of us all, as the Time is Right !

The Time is Right July 2018 V2

Have you been to Banbury recently?

Have you been into Banbury recently?

The old town is flourishing with interesting independent shops. If you like antiques, there are a number of shops in and around Parson’s street and an excellent new artisan café called The Rustic Bean with amazing cakes from Cotswold Baking.

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Banbury is fast becoming an antiques, collectibles & one off furniture item emporium – check out the various indie businesses in Banbury’s Old Town when you #VisitBanbury

One recent addition is Antiquemodernmix which not only has an interesting & eclectic mix of antiques & more modern furniture items but also is a hub of creative arts & oh so fashionable (once more) vinyl records.

They have a final couple of available studio rooms if any creative types wish to have a pop up shop or craft studio to work in & sell from.

Check out all that they have to offer at 62 Parsons Street Banbury OX16 5NB

They have an Etsy shop too but don’t miss visiting in person.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/AntiqueModernMixUK

Banbury #OX16 – it is Your Town

Earlier in the year we noticed some posts on twitter about a proposed National Town Day to be held on Sunday 23rd September.

The tweets were by @YourTown https://twitter.com/yourtown which is a CIC (or Community Interest Company, a type of social business).

You may know that Visit Banbury is going through the process of becoming a formalised social business so we were keen to understand more about what they were looking to do.

Following some social media conversations with the founder Mark White it was agreed that as part of Your Town’s tour of 50 towns in 60 days, they would come to Banbury to meet up with me.

So during one of the coldest days of the year at the end of February (it was -6 !) we had a meeting in Pinto Lounge then went to set up by The Fine Lady Statue in front of Banbury Cross to record a short video about Banbury #OX16.

Then, as Your Town’s main concepts are built around running and wellbeing as well as celebrating our towns, they went off to the other partner in Banbury énergie fitness to do a 5km run around the town (very brave of them!).

Then over the last couple of months, working together with Mark, Ben Trickett manager of énergie fitness and Tim from Visit Banbury have agreed to try to make something special happen in Banbury on Sunday 23rd September, the date of the first National Town Day.

National Town Day 23.09.18 (Nationwide)

In short there are two elements of the proposed idea:

  1. A celebration of the Town Centre – hopefully shops & cafés who don’t normally open deciding to open and showcase their unique, independent offerings plus a range of exciting sport, art and retail focused activities – still all to be worked out, resourced and funded (where necessary) – but with the express intention of encouraging people to come into Banbury Town Centre who maybe have not ventured in before or not for a good while;
  2. A “Get Together” to start the day – this is a well established social 5km run, walk or cycle for people to take part in, which we hope if all comes together as we would like, it will start and finish outside The Wild Lime / HMV in Banbury. A unique element of this is that the event acts as a crowd funding activity for a local good cause or project. We hope, subject to the decision at the end of July, that the first one will be in aid of Banbury & District Community Bus Project but this may change.

In order to try to get the message out to a wider group of people associated with Banbury, Visit Banbury agreed to sponsor the Summer drinks for the latest Business Buzz town centre based networking event on Wednesday 25th July and the weather was very different to that freezing February day!

In glorious Summer sunshine we networked and chatted and the mocktails provided by The Wild Lime were deeeelicious and went down a treat on such a steaming hot day:

Importantly, we made the announcement about the partnership between Your Town, énergie fitness and Visit Banbury with an introduction video from Mark White:

It was effectively a soft launch as we still have much to do to make it happen but we have some positive feedback from Banbury BID, Your Letterbox plus others and so we really hope we can make it happen.

What we need to know from you:

  1. do you want to celebrate our lovely town?
  2. what could we all do to make that happen?
  3. what would you like to see happen on that day?
  4. could you help us make it a reality by getting involved to offer an activity, a special offer in your shop, to provide some sponsorship / funding, or to help recruit others to take part in the Get Together or simply to #VisitBanbury on the 23rd September?

This project is a work in progress – but we are putting lots in place, as you can see from the landing page Your Town is building for Banbury, so help us fill the gaps and celebrate everything positive about Banbury on Sunday 23rd September.

#OX16 https://www.yourtown.community/banbury-ox16/

Thanks to Katrina, Lisa and James for a fab launch meeting and to everyone who supported the event on Wednesday and has expressed interest so far.

Want to know more or to get in touch?

Mark White    mark@yourtownuk.co.uk

Ben Trickett   Ben.Trickett@energiefitness.com

Tim Tarby-Donald   VisitBanbury@aol.com

 

 

 

 

 

The time is right

As part of the preparation for the Visit Banbury kick off meeting, I decided to try to map all of the main influencers on Visit Banbury as a project and I came up with a first draft.

I subsequently realised I had omitted the growing creative and arts quarter in Banbury Old Town, the numerous free family events run by Banbury Town Council and the interesting new developments at St Mary’s Church as it is reinvented as an additional location for arts and culture as well as spiritual wellbeing, so these will be added to the final version for the 1st March.

However, in the meantime I thought I’d share this version just as an example of the range and scope of the really exciting things happening in and around Banbury.

VB The Time Is Right