James Alcock, CEO reflects on his time at Anthropy, an annual event held at the Eden Project.
Back at the beginning of November, I had the privilege of attending Anthropy UK with Claire, Harriet and Laura from the Plunkett team. As well as attending many events and networking activities, we hosted a panel discussing our vision for a thriving, resilient and inclusive British Countryside.
If you haven’t yet heard of Anthropy UK, it’s an incredible three-day conference exploring what it takes to inspire a better Britain for people, place and planet, and takes place at the at the Eden Project in Cornwall. The event is attended by over 3000 leaders, including 500 speakers across 200 session and offered a fantastic platform for us to fly the flag for rural community-owned businesses.
James chairs a panel discussion at Anthropy 2023
Anthropy’s purpose is to inspire a better Britain, by acting as a unique national convener, dedicated to fostering cross-sector collaboration to address national interests. We focus on facilitating public-private-non-profit understanding and partnerships, bringing together leaders from all sectors.
It really was an inspirational 3 days and provided the Plunkett team with so many opportunities to meet, develop and strengthen relationships with people and organisations doing great things. Many of which we have been following up on in relation to bringing value to the community business movement in 2024 and beyond.
Anyway, I want to offer my thanks and appreciation to our panellists for joining us in Cornwall and for sharing their own contributions. The panel included Thakeham’s, Rob Boughton, Will Dennis from Daylesford Organic, Laura Olver from Appleton Community Shop and Geetie Singh-Watson from The Bull in Totnes.
From sustainable farming practices, community-owned shops, creating jobs, promoting inclusion, and building sustainable homes with community and place-making at their heart – all of our panellists demonstrated leadership and innovation in their sectors. There was certainly some debate on our panel, and many differences in views, but there was also collective agreement that cross-sector collaboration is needed to achieve a thriving, resilient, and inclusive British Countryside.
We’ll be heading back to Anthropy and look forward to working with our partners to inspire a better Britain.
James Alcock, CEO.
