WHO ARE WE?
Banana Enterprise Network is a UK registered Charity (number 1161408). It was set up by Jayne and Christopher Allman after Jayne spotted a gap in provision relating to business startup training. We started as a Social Enterprise (Limited Company By Guarantee number 09133991) in July 2014 and became a registered charity in April 2015. We currently have 10 Trustees (as at December 2024). We celebrated our 10th birthday on 16th July 2024.
We originally set up Banana Enterprise, to help unemployed people explore the idea of self employment. We gradually expanded our training offer to include other training linked to employment/self employment, business management and planning and personal development training. Our Charity aims to help reduce poverty and create positive life experiences for people on low incomes and who live in deprived areas. Many of our clients also have disabilities. Our Charity has supported thousands of people since 2014 either through training, support, community activities or provision of free food parcels during covid.
In December 2019 at a meeting of our Trustees, our CEO Jayne presented an idea to look for a building that our charity could operate from. The intention would be to use it as a community space offering training, education, retail space and a café as well as a business enterprise centre. A Business Plan was produced. The intention would be to generate commercial income to help secure the charity’s future sustainability and to enable the Charity to do more great work in the community.
A friend of Jayne’s had told her about the availability of Rock Hall in Farnworth and so in January 2020, we started our journey to save the much loved (by the community) Grade 2 listed Historic Hall. We began delivering various community engagement activities working with trusted partners. Our aim for the project was to save Rock Hall in Farnworth, acquire it and turn it into a destination venue, creating a multi purpose community focussed and commercially viable building.
When we started our journey to save, acquire and renovate Rock Hall in January 2020, we did not have any previous heritage building project experience, however, neither do many other people who try to save our heritage buildings. Everyone has to start somewhere though, if you are brave enough to try! We did have other relevant and essential experience and skills though, such as bid writing skills, community engagement and business management skills etc. We also have the passion, motivation and resilience skills needed and we work hard. We surrounded ourselves with experts who have delivered Heritage Building projects previously and we became a Member of the Heritage Trust Network.
Sadly in January 2025 Bolton Council informed us that once our partnership agreement for our Heritage funded project for the Hall that was due to “naturally end” on 31st March 2025, would not be renewed. We are now in dispute with the council as there are financial and legal implications of their decision which affect our Charity. We are not able to comment further or be as transparent as we want to be whilst we are trying to resolve the matter with them. The Council had left the hall to the mercy of vandals and decay since they closed it in 2014 and were going to sell it, but we stopped them and we have tiressley and successfully worked on our project to save the Hall for the community since 2020. We had proposed to acquire it on behalf of the community and expand it too. The council agreed to a Community Asset Transfer in 2022 but they have failed to deliver this. We will provide full transparency on this whole matter if we are unable to resolve matters soon. Thanks for your patience.
OUR CHARITY’S MISSION AND VISION
Our vision is for Farnworth’s communities to be resilient, confident and proud of their history!
One of our missions is to make Rock Hall an enduring and vibrant community hub where all local
people can enjoy a wide range of life and learning experiences.
Our values guide everything we do:
- Ethical – we are honest and open in all that we do.
- Inclusive – we want everyone to engage with our work, regardless of their background or circumstances.
- Self-sustaining – we want Rock Hall to be a vibrant community hub for decades to come.
- Caring and Ambitious – we want everyone we work with to achieve their full potential.
- Light-hearted – we want everyone we work with to enjoy themselves and have fun.
EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES. Not all events and activities are advertised online as we often promote them locally to specific groups of people we are funded to support for example some of who dont use social media or have access online. Thanks to our funders such as the National Lottery Community Fund and Heritage Fund and Bolton CVS we are able to deliver some amazing projects.
