PEER Support

Rossendale has never really enjoyed the funding bonanza that many of our neighbouring districts experienced. Instead we have had to get used to doing a lot more with a lot less and generally recognising that it’s largely up to us to help ourselves. PEER Support’s place in all this is to support, and often bring together, people who want to do something to make Rossendale a better place. We have found this makes a massive difference. People don’t feel like they are trying to do something alone, but rather have all the contacts and knowledge that they need to make something happen. Projects like PEER Support are the missing link needed to release the enterprising potential of a community.

How Does PEER Support Work?

PEER Support is essentially a big network of people from across Rossendale, volunteers from all walks of life, who are ready and available to help enterprising people and ideas. Within that network is a huge amount of creativity, skills, experience, local knowledge and connections. Added to this is the experience and skill of our trained volunteer mentors who can work directly with individuals and groups to help make things happen. We have found that this is a potent combination and the results speak for themselves.

PEER Support Impact

The impact of PEER Support has grown year by year and more than 600 businesses have been helped since we started life in 2003. Of those around 70 per cent were new businesses, the remaining 30 per cent are existing businesses who were seeking to grow.

Our definition of start-up business help is where we can show that PEER has provided substantive support. In other words, we only count those businesses which would not have started without our help. Likewise expansions are only counted where a business has undergone a step change with help from PEER Support.

Sometimes, because PEER Support is long term, this can be more than one step change. The figures also throw up some interesting facts. For example, well over 50% of our clients come from Rossendale’s most deprived wards. Our community approach means that we have enjoyed notable success with what are often termed ‘hard to reach’ groups. The figures also show that 47 per cent of our clients are women.

Of course, helping business is our aim but PEER Support has also been effective at bringing different individuals and communities together through our enterprise board. More than 100 business people and community activists have been board members and remain part of our extended network supporting enterprise in Rossendale.

Another area where we’ve enjoyed success has been in connecting business support in the area. Representatives of Business Link, Pennine Lancashire Enterprise Trust and Rossendale Borough Council are all PEER Support members and our meetings will often be the forum for joined up action.

PEER Support has proved particularly effective in supporting Social Enterprises — they make up some 17 per cent of our clients. It’s no surprise therefore to find that in surveys carried out by Lancashire County Council Rossendale has by far the highest concentration of social enterprises per capita in the county.

Contact PEER Support

PEER Support: Rossendale

Everywhere in Rossendale there are passionate people with ideas for businesses or projects that can improve their lives and the lives of the people around them. We have to listen very carefully to hear them, because they don’t shout about their ideas. They only talk about their ideas to people they trust – usually to family and friends.

PEER Support has built and maintains a listening network across Rossendale, so that these ideas can be heard and helped become reality.

Everywhere in Rossendale there are passionate people who want to help others in their community to succeed. They might run a business, they might work in a school or for the Council, or they might be involved in community projects. They come from every walk of life, every creed, all ages, man, woman and child. Their passion for where they live or work is obvious. They may have never had the opportunity to work together.

PEER Support helps local people work together for the benefit of Rossendale.

PEER Support has a group of trained volunteer mentors who provide free, confidential business management and networking support and guidance to local people with an idea for starting or expanding a business or project. Local leadership is essential to PEER Support’s success. Without local ownership, understanding and management, nothing will happen.

PEER Support increases the enterprise potential of Rossendale by providing easy local access to confidential, high quality, open-ended, free of charge help for anyone in Rossendale that has an idea for a business or a project. 

Contact PEER Support

PEER Support Volunteer Profile: Greg King

Born in 1946 in Bedfordshire. Moved North with my parents and eventually 7 siblings in 1960 to the Chester area. Educated at Chester Grammar School and later qualified as a Quantity Surveyor at Liverpool Polytechnic, now John Moores University. My part time jobs before qualification included the assembly line at Vauxhalls, a bus conductor and a council labourer.

Worked as a QS in the construction industry till 1981, then set up Kings Paints at Cloughfold, Rawtenstall with my wife in 1982 and our business is still going strongly.

Married in 1972 to Linda, and we have 3 children and 7 grandchildren with another on the way.

Lived in Britannia, Bacup since 1978. Spare time hobbies included playing rugby union till I was 58 and playing badminton. Holidays are usually spent disappearing in our campervan anywhere in Europe.

Have been treasurer of Rossendale Sports Club since it was built in 1989. I was a board member of both SRB projects in Haslingden and Bacup with Stacksteads. I was a founder member of PEER, formed near the end of the Bacup SRB project to continue helping enterprises in Rossendale.

I recently retired from day to day running of Kings Paints and currently help with the community events held at Bacup Hub, now under private ownership.

My son Daniel runs his own accountancy practice at Kings Paints and helps run our business with part time assistance from my 2 daughters and 4 other employees.

PEER Support Volunteer Profile: Dorothy Mitchell

I was a nurse by profession, forced by adversity into business and now a pensioner with a very low boredom threshold.  I retired as Managing Director of Musbury Fabrics and still a chronic workaholic, work full time for my charitable interests.  Founder Chair of Rossendale Hospice, Rossendale Area Board of Young Enterprise and co-founder with Barry Payton of Haslingden Community Link and Children’s Centre as a pre-cursor to our vision of Rossendale as a Centre of Healthy Living. The advent of PEER Support and Enterprise Facilitation™ brought the goal nearer and defined the missing link. I became a founder member but also our first client.  The urgent necessity for social enterprise to sustain community and charitable projects was becoming more pressing. We needed something that would assimilate the acumen, skill, experience and altruism of local business to develop sustainable enterprise geared to health and economic regeneration in Rossendale. The project was to set up and manage socially useful small businesses that would offer opportunities for co-operative working leading to independent business ownership.  With the help of PEER we succeeded and in Rossendale now have more social enterprises than anywhere else in Lancashire.

I am proud of and enjoy my five children, ten grandchildren and one great grandchild. I do try to retire but keep finding new and interesting projects. Even reading and Sudoku pall after a bit.  I have made many friends and gain great pleasure, fun and satisfaction from what I do.

PEER Support Volunteer Profile: Sheila Sivieri

I used to introduce myself as a serial volunteer being unable to sit on my hands when someone asked for help. This resulted in my becoming a member of the PEER Board, founder member of Valley at Work Network for small businesses in Rossendale as well as member, Trustee, Vice-Chair and then Chair of the Bacup Consortium Trust.

Not a native of Rossendale (born over the hill in Burnley) I moved here in 1992 and have come to love this area more than I at first thought possible. On arriving in Rossendale 7 months pregnant with twins I found myself isolated and spent most of the first three years imposing myself on friends and family back in Burnley. I first made friends here when my children started to attend playgroup and then Nursery and my first volunteer role was as a member of the school’s PTFA.

As Chair of the Bacup Consortium it was my joint honour to sign the lease that enabled the group to develop an outstanding social enterprise at Stubbylee Community Greenhouses. I found myself drawn to the site and spent some happy times as greenhouse manager. The Consortium also offered me the opportunity to train as a mentor in the Bacup Chat programme and I gained valuable skills in data inputting.

In 1999 I set up a small haberdashery and crafts business called Who Dares Pins on Bacup Market. During that time I became a Bacup Representative on the Market Liaison Group and helped the Consortium run it’s Victorian Christmas Market and start the Bacup Booty car boot sale. My business was moderately successful and after a few years I moved it into a shop on Burnley Road.

My qualifications include a handful of ‘O’ Levels, an NNEB (child-care), a wealth of life experience and common sense and a sincere belief that Rossendale is a beautiful place to live and work.

PEER Support Volunteer Profile: Dave Taylor

Having moved only 6 miles in my 47 odd years, I am proud of my local knowledge and contacts within Rossendale.

From an early age I was aware that hard work was essential to happiness and success in life. I earnt my first blue £5 note at the age of 7 , transporting waste paper up a hill at “Park Hotel” , to my fathers Corsair at home. “Uphill” started to be a byword for efforts due to come in the future!

By the age of 11, I was being educated at BRGS but enjoyed my 3 paper rounds and the socialising this brought, too much. Having left school ASAP with a handful of O-Levels , I carried on my part-time work at a pig farm too full time management of such.

Again, socialising got the better of me (girls) and I became homeless and unemployed! Not as bad as it sounds- started living with girlfriend in her Dad’s pub!

From here I was JJ Ormerod’s first kitchen employee and started £25 a week YOP scheme. Within 3 years I had my own home, company car and family earning £12k. I had learnt so much from the people around me and was enjoying life within Rossendale.

After a couple of “valued experiences”, I returned to Rossendale and my first foray into self-employment. Disaster! The Eighties recession and a building fire at Milnrow (my industrial premises within and un-insured) caused my relocation to Rossendale and subsequent bankruptcy.

Life was not looking so good but hey, I still had my kids every weekend and my little old Golf GTi ! Friends and family supported me but idle hands and all that!

Needless to say, 9 montsh later, BnQ beckoned. Not for long though, self-employment beckoned. My weekend commitments, already strained for 9 months, charged me to part with the anti-social hours of these multi-nationals and again impose myself on the paying public.

It was at this time that “putting something back” really embraced me. My children were now young adults and I felt society was becoming un-fair. Within my community, Bacup Consortium started and I joined this young group with passion and commitment. After 12 years I am vice-chair and still as passionately involved as ever with other associated community commitments (REAL and here at PEER).

Along the way I have sat on various LSP boards, mainly around fields my lateral thinking proposed, yet also around good old fashioned “justice” views.

PEER, along with its partners have really liberated my thoughts about my community. The people within our group really “bounce ” off each other and make me so proud to be from Rossendale! (Bacup and Whitworth more though!!)

All I can say to people out there, after leaving school with just a handful of O-levels and manners is -COMMUNICATE ! I have drank with CEO”s of world banks, partied with some of our countries top gangsters, spoke with Cabinet Ministers and enjoyed friends all over the world. From this, you can draw your own passions from within and maybe, like me, help others to fulfil theirs!

Cheers

Peer Support Volunteer Profile: June Kirkham

My motivation is a determination that my grandchildren can have fulfilling jobs here in Rossendale. I am an ideas person with a wealth of practical skills that people find useful. I am a qualified hairdresser and beauty therapist, but my speciality is remedial work for people with health challenges. I am my own most critical client… and my own favourite therapist!

I have been involved as a volunteer with PEER Support since it started in 2003, so I have a very clear take on what is involved in helping people to turn their enterprising ideas into sustainable businesses. I have mentoring experience through the Bacup CHAT program, where I supported local people to overcome barriers to returning to work. My biggest asset is a personal style that allows people to feel safe as I help them solve their problems. If you want a mentor with access to the PEER membership, and without the sense that I know more than you, then ask for my support.

Because I joined Peer Support,  I had the backing to encourage Bacup Consortium Trust to take the lease of the former council run greenhouses where flowers and vegetables are now grown. Because I developed new awareness of my own strengths, I chose not to apply for a paid job writing reports for the NHS when they funded the project for 3 years. This led to wonderful Souta Creagh accepting the post and bringing Incredible Edible over the hill to Rossendale. Because I attended the presentation by Karrimor on the mountain bike project in Snowdonia and its effect of raising the local economy, just as the Eden Project had in Cornwall… I came back buzzing and with back-up we now have the Adrenaline Gateway rated in the worlds best 15 bike tracks..and improving. Because I met Lesley McDowell at a Valley at Work meeting, I went to Woolfest in Cumbria and I want to create a textile school in Rossendale so we can gain skills and be our own designers! I have met some lovely people. Or I could have stayed home with my knitting.

If I won the lottery I would invest in Rossendale!

PEER Support Volunteer Profile: Brenda Peters

I was born in Hyde and went to Astley Grammar School in Dukinfield.

I started my career as a Junior Chemist in the Central Laboratories of the North West Gas Board in Manchester. This was followed by working in the electronics laboratory at Brush Electrical in Loughborough then in the Chemical Engineering Department of Loughborough University, carrying out research into powder technology.  I then worked for Lincolnshire County Council in the laboratories of the Highways Department. My husband was in the RAF and we moved to Cambridgeshire where I worked from the offices of Sir Clive Sinclair and set up a small cottage industry under his sponsorship making Chinese fighting kites, at this time I was also PA to the editor of Mensa magazine which operated from the same premises.  After my divorce, I effectively became a single parent with a baby, a toddler and an eight year old. So I  returned to the North West and went to work for a small scientific consultancy specialising in paint and corrosion problems. On the death of the proprietor the family sold the business and I became a partner with the new owner. After five years the partnership was dissolved and in 1988 I set up my own scientific consultancy in Rochdalewith the help of the enterprise allowance scheme. Eleven years ago I moved to Bacup where I found the ideal property where I could live and also run the business from. In addition during the past fifteen years I have run a small travel company with a colleague in the Midlands specialising in coach travel for private groups and worked as a freelance tour manager and European travel guide for two Midlands coach companies.

I am a Past President of the Institute of Corrosion and secretary of the North West branch. I am President of  the Oil and Colour Chemists Association and Treasurer of the Manchester section.  The Oil and Colour Chemists Association is a worldwide learned society withUK headquarters and a registered charity.  I am Chairman of Surfex Ltd which is the commercial arm of OCCA.

Prior to moving to Bacup, I was a school governor of two Rochdale schools and secretary of Norden Community Council for ten years.

 

PEER Support Has Changed

PEER Support (People Encouraging Enterprise in Rossendale) is a network of people drawn from every walk of life.

Our sole purpose is to help Rossendale people achieve their enterprising ideas.

Established in 2003, we have a well-established track record of success, with:

• Over 600 clients helped to overcome barriers that prevent them achieving their enterprising dreams, resulting in Rossendale’s economy being boosted by:
  • Over 150 new businesses (including 30+ new social enterprises) established, and
  • Over 150 existing businesses helped to secure a future and grow.

Over the past few months PEER Support has changed. So, what remains the same?

PEER Support remains committed to helping anyone in Rossendale with a passion for their enterprising idea, especially those who may not, for a variety of reasons, access existing resources.

The PEER Support service remains a confidential, high quality, open-ended, FREE of CHARGE one-to-one mentoring service to help local people achieve their enterprising ideas.

PEER Support continues to maintain and grow a network of local people with a passion to support enterprising people in Rossendale. This network extends to over 100 PEER Support volunteers. There is also a very large and expanding group of contacts in the private, public and community sectors. Everyone is willing to offer their help free of charge to make Rossendale a better place to live, work and play.

PEER Support remains committed to supporting Rossendale Borough Council’s aim to regenerate and grow local business.

There are still many Rossendale people, businesses and social enterprises that need help to achieve their enterprising ideas.

What is different?

The economy has changed. There is less funding for and therefore fewer business and enterprise support services available. The need for PEER Support’s service in Rossendale is greater than ever before.

To sustain our service, PEER Support has needed to evolve.

PEER Support no longer works through a single Enterprise Facilitator. Instead we have recruited and trained a team of volunteer mentors to support clients.  These mentors have been recruited from PEER Support volunteers, and bring a wealth of business experience together with extensive local knowledge to help our clients.  The volunteer mentors will continue to be supported by the existing and well-established PEER Support network.

As a result, PEER Support is a more sustainable and flexible enterprise support service which is able to respond to the unique needs of individuals and businesses in Rossendale for the foreseeable future.  PEER Support is uniquely placed to offer this free support to small and micro-enterprises which would otherwise not be eligible for support from existing services.

How can I find out more?

Contact our co-ordinator, Ronnie Barker.