Plunkett Members and Recommended Suppliers, MCFT, have had their new Training Facility in Reading opened by HRH The Princess Royal. Her Royal Highness began by touring the training classrooms of the commercial kitchen equipment maintenance specialists. She met with a cohort of apprentices and spoke to both trainers and trainees. She showed a keen appreciation of the life journey that learners are engaged on – joining with minimal experience, from a variety of jobs, undertaking a Level 3 technical apprenticeship. The Princess Royal’s visit ended a momentous day for MCFT – that morning they received an award as No 1 SME apprentice provider at the House of Lords alongside other businesses from the UK.

The Campaign to Save The Ship Inn, Portloe (Cornwall) is going from strength-to-strength, with residents fundraising over £400,000 through a highly-successful community shares offer. The group hopes to get the pub – which dates back to the 18th century – restored and up and running in time for Christmas.

The Wigtown Ploughman (Dumfries and Galloway) can continue holding its popular monthly Memory Café thanks to a generous donation from the town’s shop. The funding provides a huge contribution to set-up costs and covers running costs for the next year. The Memory Café is a brilliant meeting space which welcomes people living with memory loss, and their carers. It is run by fantastic volunteers, with help from Alzheimer Scotland, and takes place on the 2nd Friday of each month.

The Black Lion in Skelton-on-Ure, near Ripon (North Yorkshire), is getting closer to opening after a period of renovation and with tenants now in place. They are due to fully open in November. The pub has already opened during the daytimes as a café run by volunteers. The photo shows the ‘Buy a Brick Scheme’ wall, and all the people community with a stake in the pub.

The traditional Tattie Day was marked once again in Morebattle (Scottish Borders) in mid-September. The community-owned Templehall Inn was at the heart of the action with 64 buckets of potatoes grown by local residents emptied and weighed in the pub car park, and then turned into fresh chips by the pub’s chef.

Come and get your great-value, eco-friendly herbs and spices! Trawden Forest Community Shop (Lancashire) offers a refill of oregano for just 20p – and this bargain is not a one-off. The shop seeks to reduce packaging and avoid single-use plastic. It has 50 herbs and spices refills, as part of its brilliant ‘Filling Station’, which is dedicated to zero packaging with over 250 lines including laundry products, tea and coffee beans where customers can buy just the amount required using their own container.

Coverack Community Shop (Cornwall) opened on 13 August 2025 after six months of hard work! Its mission is for Coverack to have a sustainable village shop serving the local community, second homeowners, visiting holidaymakers and other village stakeholders. It will provide an outlet for everyday value groceries, together with local artisan foods and crafts.

The George at Wickham Market (Suffolk) held their grand opening at the start of September 2025. Winners of Plunkett’s ‘One to Watch’ Award, the committee has raised £2.5 million and spent more than 10,000 volunteer hours rebuilding the pub which was damaged in a fire 12 years ago.

The New Clarence in Hull reopened on 6 September 2025 as a community-owned pub, two years after it had closed. The group campaigned successfully for it to become an asset of community value, raising about £250,000 through the sale of public shares.

Meet Ben – he has been volunteering at Gawsworth Shop (Cheshire) now for three years, in a partnership with the Rossendale Trust.

Annie has been a local supplier of cakes for Draycott Community Shop (Somerset) for the last seven years.

Fourteen-year-old William has been volunteering at Ilmington Community Shop and Café (Warwickshire) at part of his Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. He is already a valuable team member!