Holy Shuffle Batman!

Filling the Gap Community Café is now officially on its way to being a registered Community Interest Company (CIC)! Slightly giddy with excitement, Renee and I did the final signing, checking and taking of photos (to be uploaded later), yesterday and I set off for the Post Office with the surprisingly light, despite their emotional weight, forms in my backpack.  Eager to distract myself from hyperventilation, I put in the headphones and flicked the iPod to shuffle and was greeted by the wisdom of the Gallagher brothers:

“Maybe I will never be all the things that I want to be,

Now is not the time to cry, now’s the time to find out why” (Live Forever, in case you are wondering).

Lightbulb!

This caught the moment and set it in amber for me; seconds before Renee and I had been enthusing about more fantastic ideas, such as the potential to use local suppliers and food cooperatives alongside recycled food.  Keeping it local, ethical and giving people a real alternative choice.  These are the things we want to be, the change we want in our world, is there any reason to doubt that they can be achieved?   Renee is strong in living out her ethical ideals, her hopes and plans for our business are our inspiration and driving force. Plus, the response from our community has been amazing and humbling. So very many friends have offered skills, support and patronage when our doors actually open.  With is kind of backing and enthusiasm, why can’t it happen?  Thank you Noel, or did Liam write that one?

Lost in thought, Nas bought me back as he reassured me that I can “be what I wanna be” and then I knew the shuffle could only be the result of divine inspiration!  The elation to anxiety ration shifted and I skipped up to Green Lanes in time with the music (ish)!  What I mean by all this is both WOW and THANK YOU to everyone who has been so encouraging and supportive to us, even in these seedling days of our café.  We will pay you in cake.

To yet further the inspiration, the schools ‘I Love Tottenham’ parade down St Ann’s Road this afternoon was fantastic.  Hearing hundreds of children yelling ‘We love Tottenham’ was moving and elating in equal measure.  I looked like a muppet weeping in the playground, fortunately my littlun, Seth, is only three and is too young to be embarrassed by me.  Don’t’ worry son, there’s still time.

The Batman reference in the title,  is partly because yesterday, our red letter day,  I sent Gideon, my eldest, to school dressed as the cape crusader as part of Book Week , but in truth it is also because I can’t resist a nod to a classic bit of cheesy, camp TV wonderfulness!

Now we wait for the return of the forms…………………………………….

'To be or not to be'

With the dreams entirely established, examined and entertained, we thought it time to actually do something tangible about it!

It was summer, so we undertook exploration separately, family schedules and fun in the, somewhat sparse, sunlight allowing.  Many more dreams evolved alongside the research that brought us both excitement and terror!

The crux of it all seemed to rest on the old question of ‘To be or not to be’ ….…. a charity?!

We have gone back and forth like a pendulum with the pros or cons of charities versus community interest companies.  There is so much to consider.  Yet after much googling, picking the brains of others and, perhaps most significantly, panicking, we have decided to become….pause for effect and imaginary drum roll…………………….a COMMUNITY INTEREST COMPANY.

There are many reasons why this company structure suits us best, but these are my top three:

1.       You must write a community interest statement and report back to it each year, to ensure you are doing what you set out to do for your community – I love a bit of accountability.

2.       There is an asset lock; no one can be looking to get rich quick, as any profit over a certain level must be ploughed back into the community.

3.       There is much less chance of us being imprisoned for accidental fraud because we have mistakenly broken one of the million rules involved in running a charity.

The forms are in the pipeline for ‘Filling the Gap Community Café CIC’.  If the stupid computer had saved them correctly they would already be in the post, but we live and learn the idiosyncrasies of pdf files, don’t we?! 

So now Renee and I are Directors, almost officially.  Or at least we will be soon.  Cue lots of jokes about joining exclusive, generally bigoted London clubs and smoking cigars whilst reading the FT.  Perhaps the fact that the blog, email and food suppliers were all established first is a measure of where are true talents and passions lie! The official admin feels like a necessary evil, I am truly afraid that I will spell something wrong and mess it all up.  We both just want to dive in and get food on plates, but that is still very far away. 

Someone said the joy is in the journey, I hope they are right.