Wednesday-Saturday July 14th-17th 2010

3½ days: 1000-1700; 0930-1700; 0930-1700; 0930-1400

Cost £595                            Book a course now

 

Click here for a full list of Course Dates and Costs

 

We may have the credit crunch to thank for demonstrating the limitations of personal consumption as a driver of general wellbeing. New ideas are emerging and people are coming together to tackle big problems with small, local actions.

One such idea is Community Supported Baking. Borrowing some insights from Community Supported Agriculture, CSB aims to overcome the commercial obstacles to human-scale, neighbourhood breadmaking.
Part-time or full-time, all volunteers or some waged, social enterprise or sole trader with help from some friends – the ecology of community baking is diverse and resourceful. The common features are these: people give up-front support by committing to buy neighbourhood bread regularly; there is a mix of competent bakers and learners so that skills are passed on; and the community regains control over its daily bread and some joy in the making.

Baking for Community ran for the first time in 2009 and has been extended by half a day this year. It is designed for people who are already involved in collective baking ventures or who would like to begin the journey. Reconciling the long fermentations that are essential to real bread with the patchwork availability of volunteers and part-timers is one of the challenges addressed by the course’s mixture of practical baking and collaborative planning. We deal with the space and equipment needed to get a simple baking venture off the ground and discuss the interplay of commercial realities such as regulations, costings, margins and production planning with the ethical aspirations that lie at the heart of this kind of project.

After three and a half days of baking, listening and talking, students will take home some shared wisdom, a clearer idea of how to make community baking a reality, recipes for real bread to get a project going and a bag full of their own delicious baking.

 

'I’m very glad to be part of the first Baking for Community and really believe that it is the start of something great!

Thanks again for a really useful and enjoyable course.'