Hope Kitchen Partnership Arrangements

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Connecting Communities Collective
The Connecting Communities Collective is a new partnership set up in the Oban area, thanks to
funding secured from the Community-Led Local Development Fund and Investing in Communities
Fund. It grew out of the understanding that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; that by
working together, essential sector organisations can save resources, share learning, and reach to serve
more people in their communities. In response to this, the Collective came together to address the
challenges facing organisations regarding resources and capacity for partnership work.   
Over the three years of funding, our focus will be on: developing and offering health and wellbeing
programmes and events for community members, especially those experiencing hardship associated
with access to food, fuel poverty and mental health; continuing dialogues with wider partners in order
to identify strengths and gaps; and work together with wider partners to address these gaps and
expand on our shared efforts to serve our communities. 
As part of the bid we have also committed to learning more about Community Wealth Building, which
has been introduced and discussed during workshops and events put on by the Collective. Our sessions
have focused on identifying challenges facing our region, and discussed solutions which will help
redirecting wealth back into the local economy, places control and benefits back into the hands of
local people. We look forward to continuing these conversations at future sessions.  
For delivering on the Collective’s work we’ve employed a Development Officer, Mika Schroder, to help
organise events, link up work between organisations and explore new development opportunities,
including shared funding bids. Her work over the Autumn will focus on reaching out to potential
Partners to share information about a Collective Membership aimed at bringing more groups together
for future collaborations. As part of this work, she’d like to hear directly from what organisations and
social enterprises around Oban want to see happen within the Collective, so feel free to email her
with ideas that can form part of a survey to be sent out in the Autumn. Her email address is
mika@lornhealthyoptions.co.uk 
During the Autumn we will also be piloting our Collective Tickets, through which we will be offering
wellbeing-related experiences to people commonly served by our Partners. We are keen on expanding
the number of experiences, as well as the reach of our Tickets, so please get in touch if you know
people who would benefit, and we can explore ways to make that happen. 
The Partners at the core of the Collective are:  
 Healthy Options works to empower its clients for making positive changes in their lives to
make long-lasting changes to improve physical, mental and emotional well-being; 
 Hope Kitchen provides a safe place for people to get food, shelter and be made to feel
welcome at their café as well as at their Green Shoots Community Garden ;
 ALIEnergy works to address fuel poverty and reduce carbon emissions by promoting and
advising on sustainable energy use and renewable energy generation; 
 Youth Café offers a place for young people to call their own to hang out, meeting friends, cook
and over time build relationships with experienced youth work staff; and  
 Atlantis Leisure runs a community-run facility focusing on supporting a wide spectrum of
sporting and non-sporting needs within the community.