Business Startup

For Jennifer Lauruol, the decision to become self employed was prompted by her own family circumstances. She was working as a full time carer for her daughter and younger son and this effectively prevented her from taking a conventional nine-to-five job.

“I’d been working as a carer for the last 28 years,” explains Jennifer. “There was no way that I was going to find employment under the terms I needed to fit with my family commitments and, since I didn’t want to spend my life on benefits, the logical alternative was to start a business of my own.

“Enterprise is about taking control of one’s life and having the will to make things happen. It’s easy to let circumstances overwhelm you but I try to be a survivor and make the most of whatever opportunities come up. That was the philosophy behind my first new company – a garden design consultancy called Carpe Diem Gardens. Carpe Diem means “seize the day”.

Over the last three years, the business has thrived and Jennifer now works with home owners, schools, community groups, hospitals and a host of businesses. However, never one to avoid a challenge, she recently turned her attentions to social enterprise.

Through her business, Jennifer had become increasingly interested in the issue of ‘re-localisation’ – supporting the development of small local businesses and facilitating the production of locally grown food. Consequently, she met with an Entreprise4All adviser to discuss her plans for a new social enterprise that will seek to enable local people to grow their own produce.

“I’m working with a local organic farmer – Phil Wilcock – to develop a facility where people can use part of his land to grow food or medicinally useful plants and use these as the basis for launching businesses of their own. The role of the social enterprise will be to help people to set up, say, a new enterprise growing and selling apples for sale in local markets and corner shops. Others could be using some of the land as allotments to grow fruit, vegetables and herbs.

“There are many benefits to this approach, both social and environmental. Economically, too, it makes a valuable contribution because it acts as a springboard for people to develop their own small businesses and it encourages them to develop new skills - like growing and selling their various products and services.”

Jennifer is now looking at the use of useful and edible plants within landscaping schemes. Commercial nurseries don’t usually supply an extensive range, so Jennifer is considering using a section of land to propagate them. A wide range of edible plants, well suited to the local climate, could then be grown in hedgerows, gardens and within the built environment, providing a source of food for people and wildlife.

“There are so many ideas that can spin off this,” notes Jennifer. “The new social enterprise will be about helping people to start new ventures of their own. I’ve been working with Enterprise4All to develop the business plan and to build up new contacts, and the support I’ve had from them and from other organisations such as Business Link has been fantastic. They’ve helped me work through some complex issues and now I’m ready to go. It’s very exciting.”