3. Operations Plan
Day to day operations in the short term
These would occur gradually, each following on from the last as human, time, or financial resources became available.
Initial priority: Acquire a site.
This site will need to have land, first and foremost. As much as is available within the budget., even if it's only 5-10 acres at first.
Also some sort of building that can serve as an office and headquarters.
Once the site is in place, next steps are:
- Link up with the local council and work as much as possible in partnership with them
- Recruit wildlife & garden design expert to design the space
- Make links with other rewilding and nature charities to utilise their experience and expertise (Woodmeadow Trust, Heal Rewilding, Woodland Trust, Plantlife etc)
- Campaign to recruit volunteers from the local community
- Approach universities to identify and recruit under graduate and post graduate research students who are looking for opportunities to work with us (eg social media students, anyone researching climate change and anything related, also students researching new technology)
- Identify sources of funding - local and national government, international funding / grants, private companies for ESG or CSR objectives, carbon mitigation requirements, any other pots of money available
- Run a campaign to recruit individual donors, ensuring benefits / rewards are in place - primarily through social media
Launch event and several fundraising events and campaigns can be organised on site over the ensuing months as the project progresses
Start planning provision of activities, picnic tables etc for the public to visit for days out, and other ways to gain interest and traction amongst target groups
When funds are available, start organising guest premises eg rooms in the house, planning permission for eco cabins, caravans or mobile homes, to have guests which are necessary for income.
When the site has been designed and planting begun, and funds have started to come in, we can begin to think about next steps:
Ex offenders:
For this stage we would need to ...
- Start making connections with prisons and any ex offender support organisations or charities
- Ensure compliance with legal requirements, licences etc is planned and in place
- Start looking for a house to rent in a nearby town or village, to house the first 3-4 trainees
- Ensure there is an indoor space allocated for training on site, or find a suitable structure that will serve until something permanent is available
- Start discussing application process and designing the route, in partnership with the prison(s)
- Get income ready (ex offenders and vulnerable groups of people are eligible for elevated funding when support is provided)
- Recruit the first tutor(s) / trainer(s)
- Test and finalise the application process, and recruit the first 2-4 trainees
- They would work on the Wild Magic site, learning relevant skills, and undertaking emotional intelligence courses (already in place)
- Consider partnering with local college if key skills needed. Also other vocational, self employment support or young people's support organisations such as the Princes Trust, etc (for those trainees that qualify)
- Risk assessments to ensure any associated risks are avoided, dealt with or mitigated
- Build up numbers slowly as accommodation, work, tutors and space become available
- In the future, we may aim to provide or support with trainees attaining full NVQ or other nationally recognised qualifications
Once the ball is rolling, we can gradually start to introduce the support businesses that will provide a wider variety of vocational training for the ex offenders, as well as additional income for Wild Magic
We will look to partner up with other organisations as much as possible for this. Eg
- Jamie Oliver for cooking (once we have a Visitor site and catering facilities), and preparing food from wild / native plants
- Rowse Honey for their apprenticeships in beekeeping (as long as keeping domestic honey bees does not interfere with wild bee populations)
- etc.
Longer term goals
Acquire a full sized site
Assuming the first site is a smaller flagship / demonstration site (for affordability purposes) then we would need to find a full sized site.
Ideally, requirements are for 1-200 acres minimum, within 60 miles of London and Birmingham.
Other long term measures are:
- Decide on target visitor numbers
- Supporter / donor numbers (especially regular or monthly donations)
- Numbers of ex offenders (or homeless) who have completed with us, moved into a positive outcome and maintained a stable life - 30-50 per year within the first 6 years.
- Addition of a young people’s facility for young adults
- Number of areas around the country or total amount of land we have worked on to increase biodiversity, eg unused land, unwanted brownfield sites, corners of parks, or patches within parks, hedge planting, any large gardens, hotel gardens - there is almost no limit to where we could introduce a little patch of biodiversity
- Numbers of wildlife gardens sold and installed (planted)
- Establishment of a garden centre specialising in native or wildlife rich plants (providing food or habitat)
- Links with a college or university so our courses for ex offenders are accredited
- Our emotional intelligence / kindness training recognised as adding to the overall knowledge of what works to interrupt / reduce recidivism and improve wellbeing
- How many competitions we run or awards we hand out to people around the country who make a positive difference regarding wildlife and biodiversity near them, eg making their garden more wildlife friendly, turning their lawn into a flower meadow, having a mini wilderness in their garden, or a local park, planting native plants in their local area, working with their local council or a school, running a hedgehog campaign, replacing fences with hedges, etc
- Quality and number of testimonials - number of people leaving inspired to make positive changes in their life, such as stopping plastic use, starting a compost heap, insulating their home, installing solar panels following a visit to WM, not buying products with palm oil etc
- Introduction and adoption of a national grading system (like houses and appliances are now) which rates other products like food, shampoo and other consumables for their environmental footprint, including carbon footprint or ingredients, impact of harvesting, production, packaging etc.
- Make a substantial addition to the voice of other charities calling for the government to ban single use plastic, stop the import of palm oil or any products causing deforestation, etc. Hopefully some of the general public who visit us will take the opportunity to vote or get involved with some of these campaigns, if they so desire
- Making progress towards sustainable or free range / cruelty free meat / eggs / dairy becoming cheaper than factory farmed meat / eggs / dairy