Our new shop is open!
New Galloway Community Shop opened in its refurbished premises on the High Street on Tuesday 14th August 2018. Come and see us ‘back home’ and view our wide range of products including many locally sourced supplies. You will find we have our familiar range of basics plus treats and surprises. Look out for the fresh fruit and vegetables on the ‘glut’ table donated by local gardeners.
Our opening hours are
- 08:00 – 13:00, 13:30 – 18:00 Monday – Saturday
- 09:00 – 13:00, 13:30 – 16:00 on Sundays.
- We close for lunch everyday from 13.00 – 13.30.
Our telephone number is 01644 420 620.
Our Community Engagement Worker, Sam Rushton, will shortly begin operating out of the office behind the shop.
Meanwhile renovation work is continuing to convert the attached house into two two-bedroom self-catering flats for rental to the tourist market and to family and friends visiting the area. Work on the flats is scheduled for completion in October 2018.
Refurbishment begins!
After the excitement (and massive volunteer effort) of the move into Kitty’s, the refurbishment of the shop begins on the 3rd April 2018. Exciting times!
Welcome Sam Rushton, our Community Engagement Officer!
We are delighted to annouce that Sam Rushton is starting in post as our Community Engagement Worker from the start of January 2018, on a two year contract. She will be working to enhance the social and economic wellbeing of New Galloway, and is looking forward to getting to know everyone in the community, Welcome Sam!
New Galloway Community Shop opens!
New Galloway Community Shop opened its doors to the public on the 14th July 2017. Lynsey Hogg, our General Retail Manager is shown here waiting to welcome our customers in!
Purchase Date confirmed!
Exciting news! The lawyers tell us that the purchase date is confirmed as the 14th July 2017. We will be operating short transition hours over that weekend and then the new extended hours and staff will start on Monday 17th July. Come in and meet the team!
Share Offer closes – thank you!
When the Share Offer closed on the 28th April 2017, we knew we had met our £20,000 target after a late surge in pledges. But on final counting, we now see that we raised just over £24,000 in the 6 weeks! This is fantastic news, and the Big Lottery have confirmed that they can release the main funds to us in the light of this.
New Galloway Community Enterprises is now owned by 268 members, 180 (67%) of whom live in New Galloway and 75% in the Glenkens. This means we are truly community-owned and community-managed, and we look forward to welcoming our new members at the next AGM, if not before!
We also raised over £1,600 from a couple of fantastic fund-raising events – thanks again to Jim McPhee for the Ragtime concert in the Town Hall, and to Dave and Marion Briggs of the Smithy Tea Rooms for a very lively dinner! If you missed them, don’t worry – a big part of this project is bringing the community together more often and there will be many more where they came from.
Big Lottery grant awarded!
The Big Lottery Fund announced today (22nd March 2017) that New Galloway Community Enterprises is one of 10 projects across Scotland to have been awarded a ‘Growing Community Assets’ grant.
This grant will allow us to purchase Hopkins Shop and the house attached to it, convert the shop into a modern Community Shop, and create self-catering flats for tourist letting in the house. This means that the shop can continue to be at the centre of village life, and the flats will provide a sustainable income for New Galloway for many years to come.
The grant also covers some operational support for the shop in the first years, to assure sustainability, and the salary of a Community Engagement Officer for 2 days a week for 5 years. They will be based in the shop premises and their role will be to work on community projects and to support people within the Burgh as needed.
It’s been a long road to get here, with many community consultations and a lot of hard work, but we’re delighted that the Big Lottery supports our vision for the future of New Galloway so whole-heartedly.
We’d like to thank everyone who joined in the community consultations and helped us shape the plan, our own volunteer members of the Management Committee who have worked so hard on this, our old and new Members, the Plunkett Foundation, Community Shares Scotland and of course the Big Lottery.
Watch this space for updates as we have them, and follow us on Facebook (search for New Galloway Community Shop) if you can.
Share Offer launches! Sunday 12th March
As part of the plans to save the village shop, New Galloway Community Enterprises is raising money by selling Community Shares. By buying a Share, you can join in the future of New Galloway. Come along to our Launch Event on Sunday in the Town Hall to find out more, or look out for the Share Offer Brochures around the village from Sunday.
Open Meeting 29th September
Bid submitted!
That’s it! The 100-page application form and our detailed Business Plan were sent to the Big Lottery on the 29th August for their assessment and decision. Now all we can do is wait! We should hear back by the end of the year – and if it’s a Yes, the purchase and renovation work can begin immediately. Fingers crossed!
Post Office
Our initial expectation was that we would move the PO into the shop, and the Postmaster was very happy to do this, on the basis of a package being offered by the main Post Office.
However, as time went on and the discussions progressed, it suddenly became apparent that the Post Office had changed the rules and that no package would be forthcoming.
In this light of this, and after detailed (and very cordial) discussions with the Postmaster, the following strategy has been agreed:
- The PO will continue in its existing location as the Postmaster’s business, exactly as at present.
- The renovation of the shop will be done with due regard to receiving a PO Local in due course.
- In the mean time, the shop will not compete with the PO, and will in fact work together for mutual benefit as laid out above.
- As and when the Postmaster decides to move on from the Post Office (which would ordinarily be a time of very high risk for the future of the service), the community shop will inform the main Post Office that they would like to take the service over, and would have an extremely good case for doing so.
New Galloway Community Enterprises 