The below article, a letter to the community from the Chair of Weston SOS was shared in the Weston-on-the-Green Village News in the December 24/January 25 edition.
At the time of writing this on the 9th November (after a gracious deadline extension for submission to the Village News – thanks Alex!), we’ve just received the news that Weston SOS has passed all stages of the application process with the Post Office – allowing us to continue operations of the Post Office as a community owned Shop and Post Office within the village. As we’ve shared previously, this was the last outstanding major risk to our plan to bring the Shop and Post Office into community ownership, so it is fantastic and welcome news as the darker evenings and colder days start to draw in.
Allow me to fill you in on our progress over the last few months – at the beginning of August we submitted our application to the Post Office with the help of PO Talent, a company that specialises in supporting prospective postmasters through the application process. They took care of all the hard work of submitting the application forms and presenting our business plan in a ‘Post Office friendly’ way to maximise our chances of success and would also assist in preparing for our interview with the Post Office.
On the 21st October, we received the news that our business plan had passed the financial assessment stage and would shortly progress to the suitability interview stage, which was then scheduled for the 5th November (I’m sure it was just a coincidence that it happened to be on Guy Fawkes night!). Linda and I attended some preparation webinars in the weeks leading up to the interview, and we spent the weekend before preparing, having a meeting with the current owner over a drink in the Ben Jonson to pick her brains over Post Office operations and ‘operational excellence’ (!!) and we even had a ‘mock interview’ with a current postmaster the day before to work on our ‘double act’ to impress the Post Office.
The interview itself was nearly two hours long – quite the grilling – Linda and I are in agreement that we were very glad when it was over – but we both thought that it had gone well and we had shared the passion from the community to ‘Save our Shop’ and demonstrate we had the skills, experience and desire to operate the Post Office.
In the meantime – we’ve been working with our solicitor to progress the purchase – we’ve received the purchase report (as you would when purchasing a home!), and been working with our community funding circle to review and finalise the loan agreements and amounts, allowing us to raise the rest of the funding required to complete our plan.
On the 7th November, we received the news that we had passed the suitability interview and that our application would now be passed back to the onboarding team who would work with us on our Post Office contract, training and setting a transfer date (as the date we would ‘purchase’ the Shop is set by the Post Office). This is expected to take around a couple of months – so please do look our for updates on our website, emails to our members or Facebook page as it’s quite possible that at the time of reading this – we’ll have a date set for the re-launch of the Weston Pantry as a community owned Shop and Post Office – made possible by the generous support of our local community.
I wish to thank everyone for their patience and support – from the current owner for continuing to serve the community despite the delays, the rest of the committee for their support and faith in me as Chair, the current staff in the shop for their understanding, and to our members and community that helped make this all possible.
Sam Sharp – Chair, Weston SOS