Programme Manager

Over the last few decades there has been a burgeoning of cheap but often nutritionally poor processed and pre-prepared food, much of which is high in fat and sugar. At the same time,  the number of fast food outlets per 100,000 people has grown from 47 in 2010 to 61 in 2018.  Consumers know little about where or how these meals are made increasing their disconnection from their food whilst often failing to provide nutritionally balanced, satisfying meals. The impact of this nutritionally poor food can be seen through growing levels of obesity and other diet related illnesses.

Local food projects work in and with communities, delivering social impact by encouraging changes in people’s diets. Historically, they have often focussed on providing growing and cooking opportunities. This project looks to extend their reach into pre-prepared food focussing particularly on improving the diets of those people at greatest risk of food poverty.

The Project

This project brings together four established local community food projects that will trial different ideas for improving the nutritional value of the cooked food eaten by the most vulnerable people in their community. The meals will be produced by trainees drawn from a pool of people identified as struggling to find employment. Commercial sales will be piloted to explore the potential for cross subsidy to create a sustainable model in the longer term.

The delivery partners are Now Group (Belfast), Cyrenians (Edinburgh), Organiclea (London) and Brighton and Hove Food Partnership (Brighton).

The programme will be overseen by The Real Farming Trust.

Coventry University’s Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) will support the partners to help them monitor and report on their social impact. Can Cook, a social enterprise with extensive experience of providing nutritious, fresh, affordable cooked meals to vulnerable groups will provide expert mentoring support to the partners. 

The programme will deliver on four main outcomes: 

• People who have found it hard to gain employment are mentored and trained with transferable skills in catering and helped to use those skills to improve their employment prospects. 

• People at risk of food poverty or insecurity will benefit from healthy, nutritious meals. 

• The potential for cross subsidy of delivery of the meals to vulnerable groups through commercial sales will have been explored and trialled. 

• The project will have a positive impact on the local economy and environment through supporting localised supply chains and producers and through the reuse of food that would otherwise be wasted. 

The role

RFT are looking to appoint an experienced project manager to take on the role of managing and overseeing the delivery of the programme.  

The key tasks and responsibilities of the role are as follows: 

• Develop and co-ordinate systems for managing and reporting on the delivery of the work of the partners

• Maintain excellent financial and other records of the programme

• Prepare regular financial and narrative reports for the funder, RFT Executive and RFT board reporting on the work of the partners and the programme as a whole  

• Manage, monitor and report on the programme’s outcomes and ensure that they are delivered

• Work in partnership with CAWR and the individual partners to develop structures for the collection and monitoring of data to evidence the social impact of the programme

• Coordinate and run project meetings 

• Co-ordinate with our external mentor, Can Cook, to deliver advice to individual partners and the programme as a whole

• Build relationships with, and facilitate learning and sharing between, the project partners

• Build relationships and share learning and best practice from the programme with external organisations particularly those working in supporting people at risk of food poverty and other community food organisations

• Promote and publicise the programme through social, written and broadcast media 

This role requires the following skills  

Essential  

• Proven ability to deliver complex projects on time and on budget

• Experience of running multi-partner projects 

• Track record of building relationships with multiple partners

• Excellent financial management skills 

• Excellent planning, organisational and administrative skills 

• Excellent communication and writing skills including familiarity with using a range of social media platforms

• Attention to detail

• Proven ability to work independently   

Desirable

• Experience of working with/understanding of localised community food supply chains and agro-ecological practice 

• Experience of developing systems and structures for collecting and monitoring data for impact assessment 

• Knowledge or experience of working with people at risk of food poverty

• Experience of high volume catering  

The post holder will report to Clare Horrell, one of two Executive Directors at the RFT. He/she may also be asked to attend some RFT board meetings to present information and update the board about the programme.

Other:  

The RFT does not have an office, so the post holder will be expected to work from home. Regular meetings over Skype will be required so the successful candidate must have excellent internet connectivity.  Travel around the UK with overnight stays will be required.

Equal Opportunities

All of the Real Farming Trust’s work is guided by the principles of agroecology, food sovereignty and economic democracy. Diversity and equality are fundamental to these principles. Our aim is to enable and encourage as wide a range of individuals, groups and networks as possible to be involved with our work.

We aim to be an equal opportunities employer and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or race, or is disadvantaged by conditions or requirements which cannot be shown to be justifiable.

Application  

Please send a CV and covering letter addressing the person specifications set out in the job description above to clare@feanetwork.org.   

The closing date for applications is 5pm on 11th March 2020. Successful candidates will be notified by 18th March 2020. Interviews will take place in London on 24th March 2020. Unfortunately, we are not able to respond to those who are unsuccessful in getting an interview.

About Us  

The Real Farming Trust (then known as the Winged Horse Trust) was founded in 1997, by biologist and writer Colin Tudge and his wife Ruth West. Its focus on “real farming” evolved over time and led to a change of name to The Real Farming Trust in 2014. Its mission is to “support farming and food production projects that are economically sound, democratic, socially just, humane to animals, and promote the long-term protection of the biosphere”. In practice this means supporting projects that adopt agroecological methods of farming; seek to localise supply chains; increase employment and engagement from local communities, revive local economies, protect and enhance the environment and bring about social impact on the local communities that they serve.  We are probably best known for running the Oxford Real Farming Conference. Now in its 11th year, this is a key yearly event for the alternative food sector and regularly attracts over 1,000 delegates. We also run support and mentoring programmes for agroecological food and farming businesses through our FEA Network and were instrumental is setting up, and continue to run the secretariat for, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agroecology which aims to introduce agroecological thinking into mainstream politics. We are currently developing plans for the College for Enlightened Agriculture, intended to provide the intellectual underpinning of the much-needed Agrarian Renaissance.

The project is being funded by The National Lottery Community Fund.