The Ride for Plunkett

The ‘Ride for Plunkett’ ride on Monday 10th October will start at the community creator’s head office and end at their Thames Valley office.

Nine Thakeham staff will attempt to cycle over 50 miles from Thakeham head office in Billingshurst to the Wokingham office to raise vital funds for the Plunkett Foundation and support awareness of the role community businesses have in tackling issues like social inequality.

During the challenge, riders will call on three established community businesses in Slinfold, Wonersh and Shackleford that have received the support of the Plunkett Foundation on their journey to become thriving community shops. Each of these successful community businesses offers a best practice example of how local people collaborate to create thriving businesses that create social value whilst contributing a vital local service.

For Thakeham, Rob Boughton, CEO said:

The ‘Ride for Plunkett’ Cycling Challenge is a wonderful event that will raise awareness for the very best community businesses in the region. I’m particularly proud that the Thakeham team has chosen to support our key charity partner – The Plunkett Foundation.

Together Plunkett Foundation and Thakeham Homes are creating community businesses within new Thakeham developments across the South East of England. We share a vision of creating vibrant, resilient and sustainable places to live and work by empowering communities through community business.

If we can raise awareness, and even a little money along the way, we can help communities to help themselves through inspiring even more community business success.

Thakeham’s partnership with Plunkett Foundation reflects the long-recognised importance of creating cohesive communities and investing in services and assets. It sees community business as a vital mechanism to achieve their ambition of building sustainable communities.

The community business model will be used to create sustainable and vibrant community hubs that can potentially include retail, café, meeting rooms, office facilities, allotments and accessible green spaces.

For Plunkett, Gemma Sills, Engagement Manager at Plunkett Foundation said:

Plunkett is incredibly grateful to the team at Thakeham for supporting rural communities with their ‘Ride for Plunkett‘ sponsored bike ride challenge. The community shops the team will visit along their 50-mile route are just three of more than 800 rural community businesses that Plunkett has helped to set-up and run in recent years. Thanks to Thakeham’s generous efforts, even more communities will be able to benefit from Plunkett’s guidance and support that will empower them to do the same. In addition, their invaluable fundraising will help ensure that Plunkett can be on hand to offer vital support to community groups over the coming months, as they face extremely challenging times in light of the current energy crisis.

Our Journey with Plunkett

A pioneering partnership

The journey with Plunkett started back in 2020 when Thakeham commissioned the Plunkett foundation to establish new community trusts at the very heart of their developments.

The Plunkett Foundation helped Thakeham establish a model on how to create community trusts that are vibrant, resilient and sustainable places to live and work.

95% of Community trust businesses have a long-term success rate, which speaks for itself in how important local services are to bring communities together.

Since then, Thakeham and The Plunkett Foundation have evolved alongside each other to bring forth plenty of exciting opportunities for local communities.

Rural Community Business Awards

Thakeham is also sponsoring the Community Contribution category in this Year’s Rural Community Business Awards 2022. The annual Rural Community Business Awards celebrate the UK’s community-owned business sector and are organised by The Plunkett Foundation.

The community contribution category in the awards, sponsored by Thakeham, will recognise UK individuals involved in community-owned businesses, who are going that extra mile for their community.

The Walk for Plunkett (hyperlink to walk for Plunkett article)

The Ride for Plunkett is not the first time Thakeham have come together to support this amazing charity.

Last year the Volunteers across the Thakeham family walked over 155 miles to support communities across the UK who need Plunkett’s help to save a local shop, pub, farmland, or woodland through community ownership.

The Woodgate Hub 

Through teamwork and collaboration, Thakeham and Plunkett are working towards bringing a state of the art community hub our flagship Pease Pottage development.

Plunkett has been on hand at every step to help build the community, engage with local residents to ensure the hub flourishes on completion and echo the community values that underpin the ethos of the whole development.

About the Plunkett Foundation

The Plunkett Foundation has over 100 years experience in supporting and establishing community businesses across the UK. The community business model has a current 95% long-term survival rate, proving it to be a resilient model to provide and retain vital local services that bring a community together.

Get involved with the Ride for Plunkett

More information about Thakeham’s ‘Ride for Plunkett’ cycling challenge is available from

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/thakehamrideforplunkett .

You can find all Thakeham news here