Proper Job

[Jon Lawrence]

Proper Job: A history to 2017 by Nicky Scott

In 1992 various conversations, over the monthly skip service, by those salvaging useful stuff leads to Nicky contacting County Hall to see if they could bring a shredder up to make the woody stuff more useable and divert it all from landfill. Nicky was told to form a group first and get some kind of status. So a small group, Jo and Eric Hodges, Keith and Sarah Williams, Andrew Wood, Nicky Scott and others – Dhev and John Hooper were also in there – was formed. Over the winter of ‘92, many bureaucratic discussions were held with Borough, County, Parish and some funders leading to in the spring of 1993, the launch of Chagford Community Composting Project with a spanking new shredder and a trailer to collect compostables from the car park every month.

Early meetings of the voluntary group, often fuelled with homemade alcohol which led to the most appalling lack of minutes and a hazy grip on what we were supposed to be planning eventually led to the formation of the cooperative called Proper Job in 1995. During this time we also moved the compost from the top of Nicky and Yuli’s allotment and built proper wooden bins down near the gate along with a shed masterminded by Eric of course.

The co-op was launched in the spring of 1995 and people were invited to Jo and Eric’s house to meet the first directors and see what plans were afoot and to invite people to join in! We expected a handful of people. My memory puts it more like fifty but I’m probably exaggerating as usual. There definitely were not enough seats and people were lounging against anything they could find. At this meeting we were offered the ‘Courtyard’ premises by Linda and Peter to take on as a community shop. The shop was finally opened on 9 September 1995 after extensive decorating efforts led by Susan Spencer. Jo and Nicky were the first managers. Jo did Monday to Wednesday and Nicky did Thursday to Saturday. Jo did the books on Sunday. We started with loans and donations to buy the first stock to fill the shelves and the shelves were pretty bare after the first Saturday of trading! We had extra staff that day, I remember working alongside Liney, (now moved to New Zealand) and Jo. I do know the takings were not as good as that first day for a very long time.

Jo and I had innumerable meetings with West Devon Borough Council in 1995 eventually securing our first really major bit of funding which enabled us to really start to put into action the exciting plans we had formulated.

1996 – 1999: We started market gardening in 1996 at both Gledswood House and Yeo Farm, we had to apply for planning permission to put up a polytunnel at Gledswood and we ran a very successful permaculture day at Yeo Farm with our trainer Marina Brown (who has now opened the Apricot growing site at Dartington) and the newly made compost sieve was put to great effect. Many no-dig beds were created straight on the grass. I got into a lot of trouble with the directors for going behind everyone and ordering up 30 tonnes of Eco-Sci compost one load at Gledswood and one load at Yeo. This gave us a really good start on the season and meant we were selling mixed salad packs in the Courtyard three months later. Those salad packs were amazing at the time! We also ran an NVQ in organic horticulture at the Gledswood site with an external trainer. I had to forgo the comfort and cappuccinos in the Courtyard and get back to shovelling compost and growing, assisted by Trevor Mortimore and Tim Pearce as the main two stalwarts of the day.

The Courtyard continued to attract a huge amount of staff and volunteers. In the early days we were assisted by volunteers and that created a whole load of challenges, but as the shop became more professional and started to turn a profit then people started to be employed properly. The composting and growing sides of the business always struggled. We would get some income from sales and from Recycling credits when they came in and from sales of produce which went to pay Trevor and Tim principally. I found I was doing far more hours than I was actually paid for and in the end I took the job as coordinator of Devon Community Composting Network alongside co co-ordinating Proper Job with Jo. That coupled with two small girls at home started to get a tad stressful so sometime in this period I stepped down as a paid employee of Proper Job but continued as a director.

In 2000 the Market field was bought through another successful fund-raising effort from Jo and Richard Gomme was appointed as site manager and oversaw all the building work. Chris Park was heavily involved and was responsible for the Segal building and Jack Everett ran a building course which resulted in the straw bale barn being built. Tara and Simon took over the growing for a short while but then the land at Gledswood was needed to build a new house for James and Melissa. By 2005 Arran was manager and with Emma an ambitious celebration event was held at the site and in the Market field with all manner of entertainments. Things became very tough financially though and Proper Job went through some difficult years.

2005 to April 2017. We had to make Proper Job financially viable and this led to many discussions and strategy sessions. Reluctantly the polytunnel was taken down and sold and portacabins were put up. Firstly the Book cabins that Craig has been organising so well for so many years and also the clothes cabins that so many have had a hand in from the early Arthur and Martha’s with, amongst others, Danielle, Angharad, Christiana, Suzi, Hannah and so many more. And we have had so many working and helping that it’s a struggle to remember them all! Diana Dench of course ran the site, as did Janis after Jo left, Seth, Mark, Daniel, Ollie, Spyder, and Juliette who has helped us right from the first days and still helping! And then of course Alison, Nick, Phil, Rosie, Ian and then Alison’s sister Tish and Andy.

Meanwhile the Courtyard has had so many people working there I’ll never remember the half of them. During the last ten years or so we have had many struggles with the planning on the site but finally after years of enforcements and building work largely undertaken by Jasper and Tim the site feels like it has largely settled down and all the major headaches are, at least for the moment, out of the way. Proper Job is always looking to the future and there are now ambitious plans to completely transform the site.

Postscript September 2020. Since this brief history was written over three years’ ago there have been many changes, not least Proper Job gaining charitable status and setting up the highly successful Uptown shop in the Square in Chagford. The years from 2017 start a new chapter for this unique community enterprise and that history is yet to be written.

• This topic was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Jon Lawrence.
• This topic was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Jon Lawrence.

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