One of the best known names on the UK’s high streets is inspiring a new breed of entrepreneur who care about their communities in North Wales.
John Timpson, chairman of the Timpson group of companies, will be one of the keynote speakers at a conference at the Scala Cinema and Arts Centre, in Prestatyn, on Thursday, March 29.
The top businessman has spent a lifetime helping others less fortunate than himself.
The company has more than 800 outlets across the UK and is involved in shoe repairs, key making, photo processing, watch repairs, dry cleaning and other services.
They employ more ex-offenders than any other firm in the UK while Mr Timpson and his wife, Alex, were foster carers for 29 years during which time they fostered 90 children.
In May the family-run firm is also opening a Jamie Oliver-style chef training academy restaurant on Anglesey, where they have a home and currently run an extremely successful restaurant, The White Eagle.
As the boss of a national company which makes healthy profits while putting benefits back into the community, Mr Timpson is the ideal role model for conference organisers WINSENT (Wales Ireland Network for Social Entrepreneurship).
The project has been seeking out Social Entrepreneurs who are trying to breathe new life into communities across Anglesey and Denbighshire, along with the counties of South Dublin, Kildare and Fingal, Ireland.
WINSENT has been identifying social entrepreneurs who use their business skills to reduce poverty and social inequality and creating a network where they can share experience and help others to adopt a more entrepreneurial ethos.
The project has been part funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Ireland Wales Programme (INTERREG 4A).
As the programme comes to an end in May, WINSENT is holding its North Wales conference, WAVE 12, on March 29, which is free for those working in community enterprises.
The MC will be TV personality Arfon Haines Davies who will introduce social entrepreneurs – like John Timpson – who will talk about how they strive to help community enterprises and groups to make a difference to their towns and villages whilst addressing social issues.
Sue Haygarth, of Consultancy Coop based in Wales,who is assisting Denbighshire and Anglesey County Councils in delivering WINSENT for social enterprises, hailed the success of the project.
She said: “John Timpson and his family-owned company are the embodiment of everything we have been seeking to promote within WINSENT.
“In his private and his business life John Timpson has always sought to put something back into the community, to help those less fortunate by giving them opportunities. He is a real inspiration.”
One of his latest ventures in North Wales, the Oyster Catcher restaurant in Rhosneigr, the brainchild of his wife, Alex, will be opening in May.
The former Maelog Lake Hotel has been rebuilt and was inspired by the Jamie Oliver-styled 15 restaurant, a chef school for disadvantaged youngsters who would find it difficult to get a job elsewhere.
The restaurant is a progression from a pub at Rhoscolyn, where Cheshire-based John Timpson, and his wife also have a home.
They completely re-built and opened the White Eagle as a successful real-ale and gastro pub in 2007.
Mr Timspon explained: “All our social entrepreneurship projects we do ourselves as a company, we do not seek outside funding, we are a family business and we do not like attending meetings, we like to get on with it!”.
Even with 800 branches to the family business, making a turn-over of £150m a year, Mr Timpson and wife of 41 years, Alex, have found time to foster 90 children.
“My wife was a nursery nurse before we married and when the last of our own three children went to school she did not fancy having lunch with all the other women and wanted to do something more,” he said.
His son James, chief executive of the company, who lives near Chester, is the driving force behind the company’s involvement in training and recruiting ex-offenders.
“We are in contact with 70 UK prisons and recruit more ex-prisoners than any other business in the UK. We have four prison workshops and the programme is very successful.
“Sixty-two per cent of people who leave prison will be back re-offending within two years. Out of 300 people who came to us we know of only nine who re-offended. Ex-offenders stay with us as long as people we recruit off the street,” said Mr Timpson.
In the last 12 months the company has adopted the charity After Adoption and is aiming to raise £1 million for it.
The charity offers support for families and its programme Safe Base is dramatically helping reduce the breakdown of adoptions, currently running at 20% nationally.
The Timpson company has even bought holiday homes – one of them in Snowdonia – which are free for company employees to use.
The youngsters recruited to work at the Oyster Catcher restaurant have almost completed their basic training at Coleg Menai and the next band of recruits will be picked in about three months.
From the 15 ‘cadets’ – described as having “multiple barriers” to employment – about six to eight are expected to last the course for the chef’s training at Oyster Catcher.
The conference at the award-winning Scala, which has revolutionised business conferencing with its satellite technology,will be attended by social entrepreneurs and support agencies. Appropriately, the Scala is itself a social enterprise helped by WINSENT
Other speakers include Susan Aktemel, Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition’s Leader of the Year and the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2011; also Ray Williams of Holyhead and Anglesey Weightlifting and Fitness Centre and along with Rhiannon Hughes, of the Scala Cinema and Arts Centre.
Other projects in Anglesey and Denbighshire have been as diverse as the Raven Inn at Llanarmon-yn-Ial, developed as a community run pub, including a post office; Marsh Tracks at Rhyl, the only national standard BMX track in North Wales, to Co-options Community Co-op Ltd which through its nine businesses helps people with learning difficulties.
To book a free place at the conference, which runs from 10.15am to 3.30pm, on Thursday, March 29,go to www.scalaprestatyn.co.uk/wave or get further information from www.winsent.eu
