Love Yeovil aims for more investment into the town with new CIC status
Released On 30th Nov 2022
Exciting news, Love Yeovil has become a CIC! What does that mean we hear you ask? Well, quite simply it means that Love Yeovil are eligible to benefit from more funding opportunities, which in turn brings further investment into the future prosperity of our town.
Aren’t we lucky?
Love Yeovil is a group of dedicated volunteers (along with one paid member of staff) who all come together every month and brainstorm ideas for future events in our town. Everyone who comes to the meetings wants to build on the previous successes of Yeovil and make the town events even better.
Let’s not forget…
Yeovil is built on its heritage of leatherwork (come on the Glovers!) and in more recent history, the growth of Pittards, Leonardo and Screwfix as three of the major employers in the town. And, let’s not discount all the other businesses which have chosen Yeovil as their base to launch their commercial ventures. Add to that the growing number of independent shops in the town centre and the Quedam, and then the leisure complexes, and our award-winning country parks and we have a lot to be proud of! Local food and drink providers are the cherry on the top. To list all the positives in our town is quite the challenge – and we at Love Yeovil are hungry to give our residents all of this, and more!
What does CIC status mean for Love Yeovil?
Love Yeovil will now be a special type of limited company which exists to benefit the community rather than private shareholders. We will be applying for more funding which in return means that we have legally promised that all of our monies will be used for social objectives – we will invest all proceeds from Love Yeovil events back into the future prosperity of our town. Marketing & Events Co-ordinator, Alice Edmonds says, ‘Love Yeovil has been around for a number of years, working to improve the town centre and market Yeovil in a positive way. I truly feel that we are a unique organisation, filling the gaps in the current provision for the town. The decision to become a CIC was an easy one as we wanted to become more financially sustainable, going for other pots of funding for specific projects which will help us to do more good within the town. I’m keen to help people change the way they think about Yeovil. We, as residents, are the best and worst at promoting where we live, I just want to remind people to love where they live and share that love with others.’
What’s on?
Following previous successes of events run by Love Yeovil, there’s a lot in the pipeline for 2023. Take the ‘Yeovil Together’ event as a prime example. Next year will be the third year of that collaborative event and there are some very exciting things in store for all Yeovilites! Jusna Mustafa, the BAME Community Engagement Officer at Somerset Diverse Communities works with the large group of volunteers to help organise the ‘Yeovil Together’ event which embraces food, dancing and music from across the world. ‘People come in their cultural
clothes and show how proud they are to be part of the global community and part of the Yeovil community. Yeovil is different now, it’s OK to be different. Let’s welcome and celebrate these new communities. Let’s be proud of Yeovil!’
Want to know more?
We always welcome new ideas, if you’d like to be involved as a business or a resident please do contact us. Head to our website to find out more about Love Yeovil, and follow us on social media #loveyeovil to be kept up-to-date for all future events in our energised town.
Photo credit: Len Copland
Category: Standard
