Another Incredible resource

Developing from a group of friends doing Incredible things into a formally recognised group can be a paperwork filled process.  To help with this, we’ve added a new section to our Toolshed about Legal structures and governing documents.

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to sign up to the website to access this, along with an array of other useful information to help your run your Incredible activities.

When you’ve been inspired to be Incredible, you want to get out there and talk to people, make things happen, create kind, confident and connected communities.  You probably didn’t get involved to fill in paperwork and think about processes.

And don’t worry, when you first start out as long as you think carefully about risk, safety and who you’re involving and where, then you don’t necessarily need to start with paperwork.  But at some point, if you’re going to fully establish your Incredible Edible activities, then it’s important for you personally, and for the group, to put down on paper what your group’s purpose is and how you’re going to organise yourselves.  This might be called a constitution or a memorandum of articles, and, depending on the wording you choose, it can have different legal implications.

Our Toolshed provides advice on the benefits of developing a governing document, and then provides links to a series of resources to help your group decide what sort of governing document could work best – we don’t provide advice directly on what a group should do as our groups are independent and make their own choices.  Next we provide some useful tips on organising that first formal meeting of your group, with some handy check lists to download to help with your planning.

Incredible Edible groups are amazing, and when other people realise this, sometimes a group can get invited to do many things in their local area.  This might lead to a group needing to employ staff, or enter into a contract, which could mean the group needs to change its governing document.  So for more established groups, our digging deeper section provides some probing questions to help gather the information you’ll need to decide on the next steps, plus a series of links to organisations with the experience and expertise to provide you with advice and support.

Governing documents might not sound very Incredible, but they are as important as your spade and packet of seeds to achieving Incredible things in your community.  Sign up to our website to access all this information and more.  And if you’d like to share your story and lessons learnt from how your group has developed its governing documents, then please do get in touch.