Social Firms UK

Pluss (www.pluss.org.uk) is a Star Social Firm which provides employment, development and equipment services for people with disabilities in South West England.

  Travel Matters Enterprises Ltd is a fully bonded travel agency offering a comprehensive range of travel services. They can arrange anything from domestic flights to worldwide tailor-made holidays, and are not affiliated to any individual tour operator or airline so can offer independent advice when arranging their customers' travel plans. Travel Matters also provides training and work experience opportunities for individuals recovering from mental health problems in a real work environment.

  Six Mary's Place was created 22 years ago when its Acting Chairperson, Andy Hunter, gave Edinburgh Community Trust (now Forth Sector) a soft loan with which to buy the premises. It is an extremely comfortable and beautifully refurbished Georgian (1829) town house with a warm, friendly ambience, based in the heart of Edinburgh. It offers Bed and Breakfast accommodation and Private Business Meeting Room Hire and has been given a rating of three stars by VisitScotland and four diamonds by the AA. The hotel recently won the prestigious Scottish Thistle Award for Outstanding Customer Care, was the only new entry in Edinburgh in the Which 'Guide To Good Hotels 2004' and has won a Green Tourism Silver Award.

  NPS is a printing company based in Dorking, Surrey. It was set up in 1993 following the closure of Netherne Hospital For the Mentally Ill, which had run its own occupational therapy printing unit. Under the auspices of Priority Enterprises (part of the then Surrey Oaklands NHS Trust), Netherne Printing Services evolved into a print and finishing Social Firm, operating on a commercial basis and meeting almost all of its running costs through sales to both the public and commercial sectors. NPS now continues to create full time employment for disabled people as well providing therapeutic but meaningful production work for a number of volunteers. In November 2006, NPS became an independent business by externalizing from the NHS Firm.

  Electroville became an independent Social Firm on 1st June 2007, having grown out of the Disabled People's Electronic Village Hall (DP-EVH). It exists to provide employment for disabled people through providing high quality ICT services to voluntary organisations.  Electroville provides a wide range of ICT services:

• ICT technical support
• Management training in developing ICT strategy
• Website production
• Broadband.

They employ four disabled people out of a total of five full-time employees. Over 95% of Electroville's income comes from trading income.

  Café Nova Interchange (CNI) is a catering firm and coffee shop that since 2001 has been located at the interchange between the Thameslink railway station and the underground and buses at the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre. It began in 1997 as a sandwich round provider known as LAM Catering, but was gradually built up to provide food for functions such as weddings and meetings.

Solstice Nurseries (www.solsticenurseries.co.uk) is a wholesale grower, nursery and garden/site maintenance service based in Aberdeenshire. Solstice Nurseries exists to provide work experience and training in horticultural nursery and garden maintenance work for people who have experienced mental health problems and who have a desire to return to or gain open paid employment.  Clare Neville, of Social Firms UK interviewed several employees of Solstice at the Social Firms UK Conference in July 2007. Here follows a transcript of their conversation.

Clare: How do you feel about working at Solstice?

Andrew: I enjoy it because I’m treated as a person and everybody else helps me if I need help, and it’s good, brilliant fun.