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Bricks and Bread gives Twyardreath locals the confidence to succeed in business
Bricks and Bread gives Twyardreath locals the confidence to succeed in business
Written by
UnLtd employee
UnLtd position
Bricks and Bread gives Twyardreath locals the confidence to succeed in business
Written by
UnLtd employee
UnLtd position
Trudy Thompson is the co-founder of Bricks and Bread, a social venture with roots in Tywardreath, Cornwall. She helps people create micro-enterprises - businesses operating on a small, often local, scale. Trudy’s aim is to get people past the barrier of not knowing how to achieve the things they want to. ‘I left school with no useful qualifications. For various reasons I wasn’t really applying myself, I was just not getting the whole: why should I stay on at school?’ she says, ‘I fell into self-employment as I was more capable than my qualifications. I wasn’t interested in the jobs that I could be given for the level of my education.’ Trudy went on to  have a varied career including motorsport and environmentally friendly building - setting up and running a range of successful businesses. This gained the respect of the people around her, who often wanted to know how she’d made it happen. ‘People kept coming to me for advice, first as friends and then as business contacts. They'd ask how did you start doing this?’ she explains, ‘Most people didn’t believe that I  just started to do it. I had an idea and within a few days I had a business card printed and was doing it.' Trudy started up Bricks and Bread to share knowledge and help people set up their own businesses. Trudy’s co-founder Josh Taylor was one of the first people she supported. Through working together they realised that they had complementary skills and approaches. Trudy & Josh run a “robin hood†model. They charge corporates for coaching retreats and give the same support for free to local residents. The corporates come to the retreats learn a fresh, human-centred approach to tackling their problems, while local residents may be taking their first steps towards setting up a business. ‘We limit the amount of time that we provide corporate work to 100 days. The rest of the time we’re doing our social impact work,’ explains Trudy, ‘Since we’ve been here we’ve recorded 600 people starting micro-businesses with us.’ Trudy and Josh were first backed by UnLtd in April 2015 with a Star People Award. Star People give people in Big Local areas, such as Par Bay Big Local which Tywardreath is part of, help to start a social enterprise and make their area even better. Trudy has recently been given a second round of support from UnLtd to transform their place even further. Now Trudy is aiming to start a buyers club - selling affordable food and fuel to isolated, elderly and unemployed members of the community. Bricks and Bread has had a real impact on people in Tywradreath. Helping local people start micro-enterprises boosts their self-esteem and top up their income. This crucial in an area like Cornwall, where many people are low paid or in part-time work. Many of the people Trudy helps need self-belief - they might be unemployed, have just left school or have additional needs. Setting a micro-enterprise gives people the confidence to either get a job or create their own.
Earlier this year Trudy and Josh made the decision to buy the local village shop and B&B. Both were at risk after the owners decided to retire. Trudy and Josh wanted to make sure that the buildings stayed in local use. ‘We’re saving these enterprises. There’s no doubt they were going to go to residential development. We’re saving the heart of the community.’ she says, ‘So far we’ve raised £200,000 from small loans from over 100 people in the community.’ The money is a loan from the community - which they can take back in two years or turn into shares in the ventures. It’s allowing them to ensure that the shop and B&B stay as assets for the community. ‘Taking over these enterprises lets us build on our other work,’ explained Trudy, ‘It gives us a place to incubate local businesses. There’ll be shelf space available and we’ll be able to help them in a guided way, giving feedback on things like setting the right price point.’ They’re currently looking to employ ten local people. In the spirit of the rest of their work they’re giving employees a choice on how they’re employed. ‘We’ll employ people if they need to be employed,’ Trudy explains. ‘But we'll also offer them the chance to be self-employed and turn what they're doing into a business. It’s essentially a small franchise model - a business within a business.’ For Trudy self-employment is freeing, it gives people independence. She wants to help people have confidence in their ideas so they can give things a go and see where it leads them. In helping people gain confidence and independence Trudy has discovered something she loves. ‘We can change a dozen people’s business lives by sitting and sharing a meal. Sharing stories about how we’ve done stuff, how scared we were and how we overcame that scariness’.