Town Square is one of six social enterprise hubs for the eScalate business support programme, which we at OSEP deliver in collaboration with OxLEP.
Town Square is a certified B Corporation, committed to helping people to start and run their own businesses.
In September 2019 they launched a co-working community at the Eco Business Centre, based in the eco village of Elmsbrook, near Bicester.
We caught up with Lucy, Community Manager at Town Square to find out more about their work, how they’ve adapted during the pandemic, and how they see the future of work. >>
How has Town Square adapted during the pandemic?
We provide support for people on their business journey. We also strive to create meaningful connections and communities through coworking spaces and networking opportunities. When we heard that the UK had gone into lockdown, we were heart broken. No business plans for zero cashflow and our community of small business owners and early stage entrepreneurs were left feeling disconnected with no idea as to how they would weather the storm. The day that lockdown happened, we took the decision to move our entire support platform online and by Wednesday 28th March, just 5 days after lockdown was announced, we had launched our Startup Club platform. With both enterprise and health & wellbeing support, this gave our members a chance to connect. They were just doing it from the their sofas as opposed to one of our spaces. We ran over 200 workshops in lockdown and have continued the platform after lockdown as some of our spaces are not accessible yet. We also used lockdown as a chance to do some R&D into the future of working. We published a paper, What If Everyone Could Walk To Work? And have, off the back of that, created a survey called Boot the Commute to help raise awareness of how much time and money people spend commuting. Can we lock in some benefits from lockdown and get some of our own time back?
Why did you feel it was important to be part of the team delivering the eScalate programme?
We believe in community and in the fact that a group of like-minded people can do awesome things. There were so many aspects of what eScalate is trying to achieve in Oxford and beyond, that resonated with us and this is why we knew that we had to be a part of it.
What impact do you think supporting more socially conscious organisations will have on our local economy and community?
Supporting the growth of socially conscious organisations can only mean fantastic things for the Oxfordshire economy and communities. Increasing these socially responsible companies footfall, potentially recruiting a better calibre of employee, those who want to change the world and generally raising the morale of these staff members. Also, with more purpose driven businesses in Oxfordshire, one could argue that other businesses may sit up and take notice – forcing change as customers are turned off companies that don’t stand for anything and take their custom to these companies using their business as a force for good.
How has the eScalate programme helped Town Square over the last 18 months?
Not only has it been fantastic to connect with the central hubs in a meaningful way but we have also met numerous purpose driven small business owners who need support and we may not have met if it hadn’t been for the programme. We want to create a network of social enterprises, CICs and charities around Oxfordshire and potentially Nationwide.
Town Square will be hosting The Future Of Work on 20th November as part of POP2020: Power of Purpose Week – a celebration of business as a force for good. In the session, Town Square founder Gareth Jones will be discussing how we can create productive, sustainable environments to work from.
If you would like to join this session, sign up here.
You can sign up to all the POP2020 events on Eventbrite, here’s the schedule >>
