Yesterday I was invited to speak to 6th form students from The Green Room School (GR) at The Swan in Clewer about my career.
I went in my capacity as Tesco Dedworth’s Community Champion, bearing hundreds of unwanted Christmas presents gifted by the community, and joined them for what they call their Swan Elders Visit.
Daniel had asked me before Christmas if I would be willing and it felt great to engage with enquiring minds. Lots of questions, many about local politics, came my way…
The collection of unwanted Christmas gifts was an idea suggested by one of my colleagues, Vikki, who you may know from the checkouts. We collected 10 boxes of gifts and I took them along for the students to decide how best they process them for maximum benefit to the community.
The Green Room School has a new initiative called the GR Enterprise where students pitch ideas and are lent money to explore their initiative and move them forward if appropriate.
It was decided:
- Students would sell some items in the GR Shop they have at The Swan which is open every Thursday.
- Other items would form part of a raffle with tickets being sold on a Thursday and daily through The Swan pub.
- The money raised would be invested in the GR Enterprise and so potentially multiplied a number of times and reinvested in future students’ ideas.
- Students can obviously add to and change the process as they see fit
What a great way to recycle and invest in the future… well done the GR students.
Creating a retail experience within a pub could prove very popular with blokes and ladies who generally don’t do shopping 😉
I’ll report on the development of this project and hopefully it will inspire more residents to give their unwanted presents, to such a good cause, next year.
Best get back to meandering along the river bank, see if I can spot some more green shoots looking to become an idea…
Thank you.
Jon Davey
Community Champion, Cllr, Rotarian and now a Swan Elder
PS Dan, I’ll need a badge for that 😉
