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Let's celebrate

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Barod formally started on 31st January 2013. We started trading June 2013.

This year we celebrate five years of existing.

That may not sound a huge achievement. But it is. We were trying to do something rarely attempted, and never before achieved: a cooperative of equals, all deciding that we wanted to come together as a cooperative, all earning equal pay, all with an equal say in running the company, all colleagues with the same status, despite living in a society that assumes people with and without learning disabilities are not equal.

To everyone who said the idea of Barod was unrealistic or impossible - Hello! We found a way to make it happen. And five years later we are still here to tell the tale.  
To the person in the job centre who said 'starting a business isn't for people like you' - we think you'll find we've proved that it is. 

For five years, we have worked together. We have proved we were all ready to work, ready to run a business together and ready to change assumptions.

From December 2013, we have earned every penny that we paid ourselves.

It's time to publicly recognise organisations who supported us before Barod was incorporated and during those first few months when we existed legally but hadn't started trading.

  • We want to thank All Wales People First, who supported the 18 month working party that led to Barod's formation. 
  • We want to thank the Big Lottery Fund for an Awards for All that met the costs so we could meet up from around Wales and buy laptops before we started trading.
  • We want to thank the Shaw Trust for recognising that some of us needed specialist advice to move from benefits to being company directors and workers - and then subcontracted to the right people.
  • We want to thank the Wales Cooperative Centre who realised Barod was going to be different, so bought in some different business start-up mentoring for us in the form of Phill of the awesomely different Dynamix.
  • We want to thank family, friends and supporters who believed Barod might just work, and gave us the space and support we needed to make Barod a reality.

Our official 5 year celebration and launch of an exciting research project funded by DRILL (see press release) will take place on Thursday 1st February, 2pm to 4.30pm in Swansea. 
If you believe in Barod and you are free that day, get in touch for an invitation to come and celebrate with us.



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