Social & Cultural Inclusive Networks, Critical Knowledge Production

C Teeling ltd
The business is community gardening and ecotherapy/social and therapeutic horticulture (STH) service for marginal or disadvantaged groups, e.g. people with mental health support needs or learning disabilities, where they can work and learn with the local community to develop and conserve green space. Payment will be derived from local authorities and additional services sold to private individuals, e.g. horticultural training courses, and products grown in and made from materials from the garden. The primary driver is to make the business successful for environmental reasons but it also aims to contribute to the debate in order to improve acceptance and understanding of this type of mental and physical health intervention, whilst running a profit-making, socially responsible enterprise. We welcome collaborators who can help to further develop the idea of ‘ecotherapy’ as an intervention in mental health care, expose links and improve engagement with health services and clinical groups to access/track knowledge and data. We also aim to develop a communication tool to position, promote, target and build the overall offer.

Borroclub
www.borroclub.co.uk is an online sharing platform enabling local communities to share items that they have in their house and wish to keep but do not use that often.

We deliver benefits to the community in 4 areas:

1. Connect the community

2. Environmental benefits

3. Earnings potential for the owner

4. Savings potential for the borrower

Our hope is that people can visit our site find an item they need that is a short walk from where they live so they can avoid driving to purchase an item from a store. Whilst I have received positive feedback from people actually getting them to post their items onto the site is still a challenge. I would therefore like to have open feedback on the following topics:

·  Is the idea valid/appealing?

·  What would stop you using the service time/trust or something else?