Crunch mentor comes to Nowa Nowa

It was great to have our CRUNCH mentor Shankar (from Accenture) come visit us in Nowa Nowa today.  He and Neil Smith, Andrea Lane and Gary Yelen had a good chat about what the (f)route enterprise is.

It seems like it is shaping up as a community driven travel bureau. Where a) local businesses and b) tourists are both our 'customers' - paying for the service we provide in creating, marketing and selling (f)route 'packages'  - travel, local  experiences, accommodation, (f)route  breakfasts, supported walks/cyle tours, workshops, local produce ... etc.

A (f)route brand that helps develop local product, then markets the experiences that fit the (f)route ethos.
And continues to seek funding or partners to develop the (f)route experience/product.

TOURISM, FOOD & INCUBATORS

Samara has sent through some great links for us to look at

LA COCINA
The mission of La Cocina is to cultivate low-income food entrepreneurs as they formalize and grow their businesses by providing affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific technical assistance and access to market  and capital opportunities.
http://www.lacocinasf.org/about-la-cocina/ 

WELLS COUNTY

Regional Specialty Food Business Incubator
http://www.ci.bluffton.in.us/foodIncubator.htm 

RUTGERS
Food Innovation Centre 

http://foodinnovation.rutgers.edu/ 

And uploaded this REGIONAL FLAVOUR JUNE 

SUSTAINABLE GIPPSLAND LEADERSHIP

Well. A slight distraction from the CRUNCH PLAN. We had a fantastic 2 days at the 'Leadership for a Sustainable Gippsland' Pilot Program. my take away fact? They built the power station (Latrobe Valley) WITHOUT LIGHT SWITCHES ... so they just burn around the clock. cos no-one cares how much it costs.

Getting started

Well. we've begun our CRUNCH journey.
This seems like a good place to keep track of our progress - and invite thoughts

Our first session felt a bit nuts - meeting our mentors and analyst, without Neil  - the other lead (f)route CRUNCHER - but thankfully Samara McIlroy and Gary Yelen came to find out more about the program - and were suitably impressed with what we've done!

We wrote and presented a summary of our social need and social purpose.