Today marks two years since Grapevine transitioned to an Employee Ownership Trust. We celebrated last Thursday, with our annual ‘Co-owners’ meeting, looking back on our last financial year and sharing plans for 2025, followed by drinks and pizza from Da Mario.
In addition to the experience in-house as an employee owned business, a big part of the adventure over the past two years for me has involved meeting and getting to know others in the EO community, some of whom feature in this selection of photos. Thank you all for your support, encouragement and guidance!
In our 2nd year I was honoured to have been asked to contribute an article on employee ownership for Dorset Chamber’s Business Focus magazine, speak on a panel at one of Salad’s excellent EO events, join a session of the ‘Help to Grow’ management course for Bournemouth University (sharing insights on our visions, values and company culture as an EOT) and was recently interviewed for the ‘Why Small Business Matters’ podcast.
In addition to this, I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to represent our co-owners at the EOA Annual Conference in November and the South East meet up last month in London.
Employee ownership is such a rewarding business model, and my experience so far, much like most things in life, is that you get out what you put in. My mission for 2025 is to support others in making the most of an open door policy for engaging with and embracing everything great about EO.
Liam Toms 