Rural Start up Fund with The Royal Countryside Fund

Forest news

31/05/22

Rural Start up Fund with The Royal Countryside Fund

Did you know? We donate 10p from every hot drink that we sell to support people with business ideas in rural areas, through a business start-up grant programme with The Royal Countryside Fund.

We love supporting Britain’s rural start-ups

Forest Holidays and The Royal Countryside Fund are proud to help new rural businesses across the UK address the unique challenges they face through the Rural Start-Up Fund. This year, we’re excited to support NaturesGems Tours of Kendal, Cumbria, West End Barns and Dolomite Brewery of Bolsover, Derbyshire.

Mentoring workshops for our winners

Since receiving their awards in January, the winners of this year’s Rural Start-Up Fund have now completed their core mentoring workshops—a key and exciting component of the joint-initiative.

Each of the five workshops were led by a member of the Forest Holidays team with expertise in each topic and focused on developing each business’ skills in areas including branding, finance and digital marketing.

What our winners have to say

Huw Trevor of Dolomite Brewery said: “The sessions provided by Forest Holidays have been hugely beneficial to Dolomite Brewery in how we think, how we communicate, and how we act in terms of creating a brand and culture that will represent our values and promote good practice throughout our business.

Vicky Smith of West End Barns said: “The mentoring sessions have been great. They have covered all the right topics and the specialists leading the sessions have been really helpful. They have all offered their help outside of the mentoring session too to follow up on questions or issues we want to discuss in more detail, and I’ve got a lot out of it so far.”

We’ll continue to support the winners as they grow their brands and develop their business.