Real-life Tales of Earning - Opportunities Without Limits

Providing training and selling services

Since 1997, Opportunities Without Limits (OWL) has been helping people with learning disabilities to realise their full potential in the community.  In an interview, conducted in April 2004, OWL Director Gill Riley talked to Chris Lee of the Sustainable Funding Project about the origins of the project, which is based in the south Cambridgeshire village of Sawston.  They discussed the early community video project which introduced OWL to local residents, and how the growing organisation then refurbished three converted garages, started building racing cars , took on two gardening and repair contracts , and is now running a £500,000 café and training centre. They discussed how the member-led nature of the OWL programme is reflected in the social activities of the organisation. Gill also shared some lessons learnt along the way .  Here is Chris's report of the day.

Wise words from OWL

It is the first day back at school after the holidays and, unwisely, I try to drive to the back of the Sawston Village College campus in South Cambridgeshire to visit OWL - Opportunities Without Limits.

The driveway is awash with school students from the college strolling from one building to another. I decide to turn around, park on the road, and return on foot. As I approach OWL, a building site comes into view and steamrollers rumble along somewhat faster than the students. A new arts block for the college is only weeks away from being opened by the Duke of Gloucester.

The first impression is one of purposeful activity; the building of people and places for the future. And this proves to be an equally appropriate image for OWL itself. Opportunities Without Limits exists to support adults with learning difficulties in three areas: employment, learning and leisure.

I am meeting with OWL Director Gill Riley, who in April 2004, had been with the project for just over 4 years, overseeing some dramatic changes including two building projects of their own.

I first visited OWL in early 2000 and, like most people, I took away a lasting memory - a guided tour of a racing car under construction from a boy whom the school system had apparently failed but who proudly showed me the car he had helped to build.  More than 4 years on, Gill explains how that particular project has developed:

"We don't make racing cars any more. The purchaser of the first one we produced immediately wanted it turned into a road car. So we learnt how to do that first conversion (at his expense of course!) and we've now almost finished a second car for the road."

The high profile car project that put OWL on the map for many, has now been joined by a second major project - a £500,000+ community café and training centre in Sawston (population 9,000) to train people in catering and much else besides. After 7 months, income from café sales are covering the cost of ingredients and overheads.

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The origins - OWL is born

But back to the beginning. I wondered who or what had been the spark that ignited the whole venture when it started. In 1996 it was an idea, arising out of a Kings Fund 'Changing Days' project, setting up 6 pilots around the country. The days being changed were those of people with learning difficulties who until then had been 'bussed' to and from day centres away from where they lived. This meant, as Gill explained, that these people were "invisible in their communities and had low expectations for their lives after leaving school".

The Kings Fund were looking for alternatives to this kind of day care, and places to pilot new ways of meeting a very real need. It was probably no accident that they found their way to Sawston for a public meeting at the Village College to explain the project to the community.

In the audience at that first meeting were Kevin and Angela McMullen; Kevin at that time was principal at Sawston Village College, the father of four daughters, one of whom has learning difficulties. The alternatives being proposed by the Kings Fund attracted the McMullens. The blue touch paper had been lit, and Kevin was to become instrumental in starting OWL and continues to inspire others as chair of the organisation.

At the start, OWL ran a series of sessions asking people what they wanted to do. But people with the experience of day centres didn't really know any alternative. So taster sessions followed and all sorts of people contributed to the project's development, including Gill, at that time the county's Arts and Disability Coordinator and then, as now, a local resident.

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The video project - a first milestone

Gill's interest was in using a Community Arts Project as a vehicle for raising awareness about OWL in Sawston. A £5,000 Arts for Everyone lottery grant funded a community video project. 'Desperately Seeking Sawston'.

OWL's focus is on creating employment, learning and leisure opportunities for people with learning difficulties and the video project combined all three. The video was made by people with disabilities. A community video worker and volunteers found out what each person in the project wanted to do or learn and then found ways to develop those interests.

Historically, Sawston has been associated with leather work and paper making. One OWL member, a boy, had always wondered what went on at Sawston's leather works - one of two in the village. So he interviewed the managing director at the works, on film, to find out. Clearly it wasn't just the boy who was impressed by the experience; the managing director is now a tutor with OWL, having previously been both a volunteer and a trustee!

A major lottery grant to employ a full time coordinator for 3 years was the next major step forward in late 1997. But it was seeing 'opportunities without limits' in three derelict garages that developed a flagship activity for the organisation.

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Going places - the car project

'Passion' is something much talked about in discussions around successful and enterprising organisations. It was a passion for cars, shared by Lewis Williams, now the Car Project Coordinator, and a number of OWL members (and one in particular) that fuelled that development. At that time, Lewis and a group of members were gardening around the Village College, but really wanted to dirty their hands with engine oil, not earth.

In north Cambridgeshire, Ron Champion, author of a DIY manual on building sports cars, became an important ally. Living up to his name, he championed the car project with the OWL board of trustees.

Wanting to build sports cars is one thing, having the opportunity to do it is another. At the time OWL was 'nesting' under the stage of a former cinema (on the Village College site) which also housed a youth centre. No space to swing a hammer, let alone build a car. 

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OWL spreads its wings to new premises

Which is where taking opportunities plays a part, as Gill recalls. "While dreaming about cars, Lewis and the members spotted the potential for a derelict school groundsman's unit of three garages and a workshop at the back of the Village College". A deal with the County Council was struck and OWL can now use the buildings indefinitely having raised the money for refurbishment.

We are actually meeting in one of the three garages - a front and back office for staff that's cosy but light. Training and store rooms in the next door 'garage' are equipped with computers from Huntingdonshire Regional College, chairs from a exhibition (courtesy of the Spicers Paper Group) and a donated overhead projector and screen. Donated rolls of wallpaper are used for drawing templates for car parts.

Vocational training (pre-NVQ and the Mencap essential skills course) features in much of OWL's work. Since 2002, Huntingdonshire Regional College have funded four full and part time staff to deliver training to OWL members; essential support for both OWL and the trainees. IT training, including Internet research, has proved particularly attractive to people with lesser writing and reading skills. A newsletter group also make use of the IT facilities.

In the third garage, members and volunteers are 'fishing' with a large magnet to sort aluminium and tin cans for later crushing and sale as part of a new recycling project. This third garage is also used for woodwork and painting. The workshop for building the cars is around the back. A new £18,000 extension, to house a room for OWL members to have their lunch and socialise (and double up as a tutorial room) needs only a final coat of paint.

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Contracts work for OWL

I innocently ask Gill about other ways they combine employment, training and leisure opportunities. She looks up at the office notice board and I brace myself for some furious note-taking.

The Gardening Project includes a £1,000 a year contract with the Village College to look after the beds and boarders. A small source of income maybe, but a reason for the gardening members to work all over the site, bringing them in contact with 1200 young people, while doing something creative and worthwhile. A world away from the day care centre regimes that spurned OWL's birth.

The gardening project is still a growing concern as I later discover a 'secret garden' and vegetable patch tucked away behind the garages.

A second contract with a nearby Parish Council has OWL members looking after the public benches and bus shelters in Whittlesford; a nearby village. The team goes out to repair and re-paint as necessary. The work is practical and rewarding for less able people. Back at the workshop, repair of a wind-damaged notice board is nearing completion. "It's been a lot of work to get it started" admits Gill, "But now we're organised we're tempted to go looking for a second Parish Council contract." DIY skills are learnt and also used to maintain the OWL premises with painting and repairs.

There are work placements as well. One student with a love of animals (OWL used to have its own rabbits and guinea pigs) works at a nearby wildlife park one morning a week. Others go for work experience at Duxford Air Museum, where members of the car project, often working alongside retired engineers, are involved in land vehicle restoration work.

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The new café

The origins of the new OWL Café can be traced back to another café run by a Sawston Charity in 1996, also working with people with learning difficulties. High rent forced the cafe to close, but the trainer and students from that first café project found their way to OWL with experience they had enjoyed and wanted to develop.

Alana Abbott, then OWL Director, visited Sawston Free Church and arranged with the Minster for the members to serve cups of tea in the church hall once a week. From those cups of tea, the idea of building a café at the back of the church site took shape and by 1999 fundraising had started.

By 2000, Gill had joined OWL and a specialist architect was on board - to ensure the café was fully accessible to people with disabilities. In September 2003, the café was opened, employing two fulltime members of staff, following an appeal that raised £520,000 from individuals, major trusts, foundations and other sources. The appeal also benefited from the auction of the first vehicle that came out of the Car Project.

Visiting the OWL café it is easy to see how the money had been spent. A glass roof links the church to the old church hall which had previously stood alone. All facilities are wheelchair accessible, the new café has a capacity of 30, and the whole building has obviously been designed with great attention to detail.

I suggest that spending £500,000 to enable some members who enjoyed café work to renew that interest looks quite expensive to an outsider like me. Gill is quick to point out that the Café, which is open 9am to 4.30pm 5 days a week, meets many needs:

"We want our members to have a natural interface with other people around them. It happens in the school, but now it also happens here in the village. Our idea is that the café should be a training ground; a route into jobs, where possible. For example, one person works in the local supermarket and another in the leather works. Cambridge also has a good number of unskilled catering jobs and some of our members love clearing tables and washing up. So the Café is a training centre, but people must move on."

The Café also boasts two community internet access points and is a good meeting place, non-threatening for members and a place where older people feel secure. The Church, already community-minded, also benefits from the new café. It runs a Saturday coffee morning there and is now able to offer a catering service to users of their refurbished meeting rooms. Appropriately, a first public event using the new facilities is to be a 'roadshow' organised by the Cambridgeshire-wide Social Training Enterprises Group.

It was agreed early on that the Café should offer wholesome food made on the premises. Putting a ready meal into a microwave was not on the training agenda. Two people are employed fulltime - a café manager with commercial experience and a catering manager with a background in school catering. The daily menu features soup and a freshly cooked main meal. Cakes and puddings are also made by staff, members and volunteers. An exception is made for dairy ice cream that comes from a co-operative in Lincolnshire.

In a tour 'behind the scenes' at the café, Gill reveals the story attached to each major piece of kitchen equipment: "The Sawston Fun Run paid for the master oven and, being selected as a 'significant charity' by Robert Sale in Cambridge (a branch of the John Lewis Partnership) means we now have a further £5,000 worth of goods including the washing machine and tumble dryer that provide clean uniforms for staff every day."

A further development of the catering facility is in the pipeline. A hot meals delivery service will re-instate a daily 'meals on wheels' service that was replaced some years ago by a fortnightly delivery of frozen meals. The aim is that the new hot meals service will eventually be self-financing.

The hot meals service is a project that can involve OWL members unable to go into paid work. They will provide company for customers in their homes, increasing the circle of friends for the members and customers, and they will help the volunteer drivers out in the community. The launch of this new service awaits a last fundraising push to provide access for delivery vans at the rear of the café.

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The social side

Leisure is one of the three strands running through OWL's work. Unusually, the project runs two evening social groups. The first group started on Friday evenings for young people with disabilities and school students. A Tuesday evening group for adults followed, but now both groups are mixed by age and ability.

Friday nights can see up to 60 people gathering on the Village College site at the youth centre where a disco, karaoke equipment, table tennis and pool tables provide entertainment. The Tuesday evening group is smaller, with 15 - 20 members, and activities that might include a pub visit, or a theatre trip. Both groups are led by the members.

One morning a week, a sports club meets at the Village College club next door to play soft ball and boules. Some people go to use fitness cycles and tread mills also next door.

The first Monday of each month is flower arranging led by a volunteer from the Cambridge Flower Club. Surprisingly perhaps, this even attracts young lads from the car project. The Village College has asked the group to do the flowers around the school for the Duke of Gloucester's visit to open the new arts centre.

OWL is people-rich with 24 members and four more about to join. Six are accommodated in specially refurbished flats nearby, others live elsewhere in Sawston, the surrounding villages, and in Cambridge. A further 15 - 20 come for evening activities.

The members need a high level of support and the talented and dedicated paid staff team comprises 4 trainers, 2 café managers, 2 part time administrators and Gill, the Director. There are also 15 committed volunteers currently covering the café, gardening and the car project. "Volunteers" says Gill "come out of the woodwork and tend to stay." 

Some of the 8 trustees have been with OWL from the start. They arrive through various routes. Some are members' parents, others have a professional interest. The café also benefits from consultancy provided by two people with their own outside catering business.

Within the community, there are other OWL beneficiaries: café users, volunteers and, eventually, those who will receive a daily hot meal in their own homes. The local economy also benefits as OWL tries to purchase locally.

OWL achieves a high level of user involvement in project planning. The main forum for raising group issues and sharing ideas is a weekly group discussion led by tutors. Problems and issues are also raised in individual tutorials. An annual review with parents and carers picks up on other member interests. Members can also raise issues at board meetings and meet trustees socially before those meetings.

An application for a £10,000 BBC Cambridgeshire Community Fund Award gives a graphic illustration of community support for OWL. Awards were made on the basis of votes cast for nominated projects. OWL was in the top 5 of 100 applicants and, in a final week on voting (a campaign involving the school, local shops, pubs and the petrol station) OWL was elevated to second place with 2,457 votes, just 800 less than the winner, and nearly 2000 more than the third placed organisation.

OWL's award was £3,000 but, equally important, was the publicity on TV and radio and the high level of community involvement.  

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Lessons learnt along the way

It often takes a charismatic person to launch a charismatic project. It was Kevin McMullen's vision that made OWL happen. It was also Kevin's willingness to step back, inspiring others to follow in his footsteps.

Giving freedom to take advantage of opportunities also characterises the way OWL works. Individuals have the space to develop ideas and solicit support later. Such flexibility within boundaries gives staff ownership of ideas and promotes creativity. But it is also about having the maturity to know when it's time to take stock, rather than pursuing new ventures.

Diversification of funding sources is the key. In the early days, funding for training provided much of OWL's income. While payment for training places is still an important source OWL is taking steps to broaden its funding base. Aside for the two capital appeals for the café and extension, Community Fund, European Social Fund and Lloyds TSB grants have been important.

I ask Gill for one piece of advice for others thinking about starting a café.

"Think about why you're doing this. Don't do it for the wrong reasons; for example seeing learning disabled people as a source of cheap labour. Have a clear mission. If you want to be commercial, be commercial. Be clear about your purpose and other parts of the jigsaw will come together."

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