As awareness of the organisation grows and our work with large national and multinational companies is more apparent, people are surprised that our office is not in London. They enquire as to why we are where we are and why we haven’t moved as the organisation has grown.
So why Llanidloes? Simple, the founder of FSC UK lived there. Why haven’t we moved? Perhaps the question should be ‘Why would we move?’ For a charity with forests at its heart, why would we move away from an area rich in woodland and trees, a part of the country with gentle rolling landscapes, and a region home to many talented people sympathetic to our aims – and looking for a job.
I can’t deny that being based a four hour train journey away from London, and many of our stakeholders, presents its own challenges. The 6am train from a tiny station called Caersws is not everyone’s idea of the best start to a day of meetings. But who doesn’t benefit from some time to prepare, catch up on some reading, or even a little daydreaming? Personally, I find this time letting my mind wander often results in my most creative solutions to ongoing problems. When travelling with colleagues it’s an opportunity to develop relationships, to resolve issues that just need chatting through, and to bounce ideas off each other.
Despite the benefits of an extended commute, we are all conscious of the time and cost involved in a trip to the capital. The prospect of an early start certainly makes us focus on gaining maximum benefit from the day – or days.
With appropriate planning, several meetings can be arranged for one day, particularly if you can find a suitable base to minimise travel within the city. For many the opportunity to spend time in London is seen as a bonus although I, for one, always welcome the sight of the Welsh Marches on the homeward journey.
I am often questioned on the difficulties of recruiting good quality staff in such a rural and relatively sparsely populated part of the country. We are fortunate that our organisation is one that many candidates would work for wherever we were based. Our most recent vacancy attracted applicants from across Europe and even as far afield as Mexico. The prospect of living in a town many can’t even pronounce certainly didn’t seem to act as a deterrent.
However, we have also found that there are experienced, well-qualified people on our doorstep. We benefit from these individuals wanting to live in this beautiful area, maybe having turned their back on city life. They are ours for the taking and, with little in the way of similar organisations to tempt them away, often for the keeping.
There’s also a strong financial argument for our location. Office rent and salaries are a fraction of those in other cities and the savings far outweigh the costs of train tickets, hotels – and the all-important latte and croissant at New Street Station.
Rosie Teasdale is executive director of the Forest Stewardship Council UK
