This week, we spoke to Lee Bellwood, owner of Major Tom’s Social in Harrogate.

Tell us in fewer than 30 words what your firm does. 

We make fresh pizza and source some of the best beer you can get in the UK and abroad. We do cocktails as well, and in the next couple of weeks we’ll be starting to do lunches and brunches.

What does it take to be successful in business? 

You need a good team behind you, consistency, and a USP (unique selling point). Ours is that we’re a ‘youth club for grown-ups’. We wanted to create somewhere to go where we felt comfortable, and where you could bring your kids. That’s the ‘social’ side of Major Tom’s Social.

What drives you to do what you do every day? 

Basically, I just want to be in a business where I can enjoy work and not have to answer to anyone else. I like food and I like drink, so this is something I really love doing.

What has been the toughest issue your company has had to deal with over the last 12 months? 

My business partner, Toby Smith, left the business to do something else, so I’ve taken it over from him. Before, I was more hands-on, but now I’m a lot more involved with payroll and VAT returns.

I’ve just opened a new bar in Otley, the Curious Hop Bière Café. It’s a bit tricky at times – it’s going well, but I just have to balance my time between the two.

Which other local firms do you most admire, and why? 

I admire any independent business that can keep its head above water after covid. It was such a difficult time.

Baltzersen’s brought out its bakery just as covid was hitting and did very well out of that.

Stuzzi have done well with their gins, and opening a new site in Leeds.

Paradise Tap & Taco is doing very well too – owners Josh and Ellie were both my old managers for about five years.

Lee Bellwood, owner of Major Tom’s Social in Harrogate.

Who are the most inspiring local leaders? 

I don’t really admire any local leaders, to be honest. I struggle to answer that question.

Anyone, locally or further afield, who works to combat racism and climate change, I take my hat off to.

What could be done locally to boost business? 

Any time there’s a big event going on, I find it difficult to find out about it. I normally find out at the last minute. For example, if there’s a craft fair in the Valley Gardens, I may only find out about it the day before, but businesses like mine need plenty of notice about these things.

There needs to be a really good social media group – on Facebook or Instagram – to share information about these events so we can plan ahead.

Best and worst things about running a business from Harrogate? 

That’s quite hard! The people we get in here are really nice and friendly – our customer base is great. We also get a lot of visitors to the town, which helps us, and it’s also great to work above Steve [Elvidge] in Space [the vintage and retro shop on The Ginnel].

The sense of community between all the independents in Harrogate is really nice: Starling, Paradise, Cold Bath Brewing Co, and Thug Sandwich Company. If I run out of pizza boxes, I can always borrow a load from one of the others, and we all have our staff do’s in each other’s places.

The worst? The parking fees. Also, the amount of licences the council gives out to premises nearby. Since we’ve been here, there have been eight or nine places given alcohol licences within 100 yards of here.

What are your business plans for the future? 

We hope to introduce slightly longer opening hours over the weekends, with brunches and lunches, and we want to use the space as more of an events centre. We already have pop-up painting on Sundays, but I’d like to see more exhibitions and talks as well, giving it a real community feel. I want it to be open to everyone too, so it’ll be quite inclusive.

What do you like to do in your time off? 

I love hiking, paddleboarding, travelling, hanging out with my family – and not eating pizza!

Recently I went paddleboarding on Coniston and that evening we saw the Northern Lights. It was almost like a religious experience: the best day ever!

Best place to eat and drink locally? 

Obviously here. Apart from us, though, Paradise is nice, Stuzzi is good, and Baltzersen’s is good for coffee and cakes.

But my favourite is the Wild Plum Café on Hookstone Road. I go there with my mum and mother-in-law. The food is always interesting, with lots of foraged ingredients, and it’s all tasty and inventive.

This is the latest in a regular series of weekly Business Q&A features. If you’d like to suggest someone in business in the Harrogate district for this feature, drop us a line at contact@thestrayferret.co.uk.

Read more:

• Business Q&A: Tim Brown, Brown Trout
• Business Q&A: Natalie Leworthy, Urban Circus

North Yorkshire Council has announced it will not use its voting power to influence ballots on the creation of business improvement districts (BIDs). 

The purpose of BIDs is to boost economic activity within their area, and they are funded by an additional levy on local business ratepayers. In Harrogate, the 1.5% levy raises more than £500,000 a year. 

BIDs are created following a majority vote by these ratepayers, which include local authorities. Because councils own so much town-centre property, they typically wield considerable voting power.

Harrogate BID was first created in 2018 after business ratepayers voted for it, and the result was in part due to the support and votes of Harrogate Borough Council. Ripon BID was created in 2021, also in part due to the support of the council. 

But when Harrogate BID came up for renewal in 2023, North Yorkshire Council – Harrogate Borough Council’s successor – chose not get involved, leaving it to businesses to decide. That vote went through with 76% in favour; the council’s backing would have added a further 12% to that figure. 

In its latest announcement, which was prompted by a vote on the Yorkshire Coast BID, North Yorkshire Council has maintained that stance and formalised it. 

A decision of the chief executive published this week stated: 

“The council is aware that due to its rateable value across North Yorkshire, that if it were to vote there is a risk that it could have a disproportionate impact on the outcome of the ballot. It is estimated that North Yorkshire may hold around 10% of the voting value for the YC BID. 

“The council therefore intends to abstain in the forthcoming Yorkshire Coast ballot, or other future BID levy ballots across North Yorkshire, to limit its influence and ensure it is businesses who determine the outcome.” 

Locally, the decision affects Harrogate and Ripon, where BIDs are already in place, and may in the future affect Knaresborough, if businesses there decide to create one. They narrowly voted against the idea in 2021. 

In Harrogate, town centre businesses will next be able to vote on whether or not to fund Harrogate BID for a third term in 2028. Ripon BID comes up for renewal in 2026.

Read more:

• Harrogate BID to provide grants to upgrade storefronts
• Primark store manager becomes chair of Harrogate BID
• Trading Hell: ‘Report crime so we can cut crime’, says BID manager

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The man who brought the revolutionary hairdressing techniques of Vidal Sassoon to the north of England in the 1960s will be the guest of honour next month, when the salon he co-founded celebrates 60 years in business. 

Peter Harman opened Peter Gotthard Hairdressing at 36 Parliament Street in Harrogate in June 1964, with business partner Gotthard Passager, a Swiss stylist he had met in London. 

Speaking exclusively to the Stray Ferret, Peter said: 

“In those days, it was fashionable to combine the first names of business partners, so that’s what we did, and Peter Gotthard was born. 

“Sadly, Gotthard only stayed a couple of years. He went to Canada and opened an academy in Vancouver – and I was left holding the baby.” 

Peter worked hard to build up the business, sometimes doing four or five hair shows a week, “anywhere we could get an audience”, to spread the word.

Peter Harman at work in the 1960s.

It was in the mid-sixties when Peter learned the skills that would put his salon at the forefront of hairdressing innovation and make Peter Gotthard a by-word for cutting-edge style. He said: 

“I was inspired by Vidal Sassoon – he changed my life, and I attribute a lot of my success in hairdressing to him. He was a dear friend and completely changed hairdressing with his new ethos.  

“I spent a lot of time at his salon in Mayfair in the 1960s, doing advanced courses under his supervision. He threw out the old-fashioned hairdryers and rollers and suddenly it was all about the scissors and the hand-held hairdryer. When I started, it was 100% shampoo-and-sets, but by the ’70s, it was 85% cut-and-blowdrys.

“I was bowled over by Vidal’s way of hairdressing – it was pure artistry. That’s what I was inspired by, and that’s what I wanted to bring to the north of England, which I did.” 

In 1966, Peter put on a two-hour show at the Royal Hall in Harrogate, putting the salon’s name in lights: ‘Peter Gotthard Hair Show’. It attracted 950 people, who came just to see his demonstration of the new techniques. 

The hard work paid off, and the three-storey Parliament Street premises grew to accommodate 35 stations, with separate men’s and ladies’ salons and a beauty salon. 

He opened a second salon on Leeds Road in the 1970s and another on Westgate in Ripon in the ’80s, followed by a fourth on Coppergate in York in the 1990s, and there were as many as “70 or 80” people working in the business. 

Peter Gotthard was even invited to become a member of Intercoiffure Mondial, the Paris-based global network of elite salons. Peter said: 

“It called its logo ‘the sign of the best hairdressing salons in the world’ and only admitted one member per town. 

“When people came to Harrogate from overseas, they recognised the Intercoiffure sign. It was a real mark of excellence.” 

In fact, it was one that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher perhaps recognised when she came to Harrogate to give a speech at the conference centre in 1982. She asked Peter Gotthard to supply a hairdresser to style her hair, and Peter still has her handwritten letter of thanks. 

A letter sent to Peter Harman by Margaret Thatcher to thank him for Peter Gotthard’s services when she was in Harrogate.

But later, in the nineties and naughties, the hairdressing industry was revolutionised again, this time by technology, when everything became digitised. Peter said: 

“I’m a technophobe and I was way out of my depth – it was time to go!” 

So in February 2008, Peter Gotthard embarked on a new chapter when Peter sold it to one of his longest-serving employees, Cheryl Byrne. Cheryl had joined the business as a 16-year-old, straight from school, in May 1981 and even met her husband, Patrick, through a Peter Gotthard colleague. 

Cheryl said:

“Back in the ’80s, Peter was cutting hair most days. He was quite a perfectionist with extremely high standards, and that become the norm for us all. He was a great role model to follow in business, too.”

Peter Harman (back row, centre) and Peter Gotthard’s staff in the late 1970s. Note the Intercoiffure logo on the window.

She added:

“The 80s was an exciting time to become a young hairdresser. Styles were moving on from setting to blow-drying and perming, and then colouring hair took over.

“I watched the salon’s hooded hairdryers disappear one by one as blow-drying became so much more popular. But we still have one that we wheel out of the cupboard for our regular weekly clients who have supported the business for so long. 

“Cutting skills came to the forefront of hairdressing as we stopped relying on dressing the hair so much. Short shapes and bobs of all descriptions were popular, and creative colouring was exciting through into the 90s and 2000s, when straightening hair became huge in the industry. Some of the styles, such as the wolf, the mullet and the shag, just keep coming around.”

Patrick and Cheryl, who have been married now for 37 years, are carrying on Peter’s legacy from the Parliament Street premises he opened six decades ago. They have nine stylists, three receptionists and an apprentice, and there are an independent beauty business and a tattoo business under the same roof. 

Despite the longevity of the business – unparallelled in its sector locally – Peter Gotthard still counts some old friends among its customers. 

Patrick said: 

“We’ve got some clients who were coming right at the start and still come now – 60 years later. We’ve got at least 20 who have been coming for 40 years or more. 

“And we’ve still got some very long-serving stylists. Chris has been with us for 46 years, Cheryl for 43 years, and Linda for 40 years. The average length of service among our stylists is about 15 years. That’s very unusual in this industry.” 

Nevertheless, there have been scores of other employees who have gone on to work elsewhere – Patrick says that Peter Gotthard has “probably trained half of Harrogate” – and many of them have set up their own businesses.

Cheryl Byrne (back row, far right) and her staff.

Cheryl and Patrick are hoping that as many of them and Peter Gotthard’s long-standing clients as possible will join them at the salon for the ‘Diamond Jubilee’ celebrations from noon till 4pm on Monday, June 10.

Two guests who are certain to be there are Peter and his wife Brenda, whom he met in 1965, within months of arriving in Harrogate. 

Peter, who moved with Brenda back to his home county of Surrey a few years ago after 50 years in Yorkshire, said: 

“I loved all my staff, and I love Yorkshire – I like to think I’m an adopted Yorkshireman! But my main reason for coming back up here is to congratulate Cheryl and Patrick and to thank them. 

“Harrogate was always the number-one salon and my original ‘baby’, and I’m so thrilled that the Peter Gotthard name is still over the door.

Cheryl and Patrick have kept it up-to-date and modern and it’s still going strong. It’s a fantastic achievement on their part – they’ve done an amazing job.” 

The Peter Gotthard salon on Parliament Street in Harrogate today.

After the party, Patrick says it will be business as usual – he and Cheryl have no plans to turn off the lights just yet. 

He said: 

“Peter was 72 when he retired. I’m 61, so I’ve still got a few years left in me. 

“We’re the current custodians of a name that’s been in this town for a very long time and which most people here above a certain age know. Our job is to make sure the next generation know about it too. 

“Our ultimate aim is to pass the business on in good shape, hopefully to a current employee, just as Peter did.”

Read more:

• Peter Banks: the man withdrawing from Rudding Park
• Geoff Brown steps down as chief executive of Ripon Farm Services
• Harrogate’s Rachel Daly retires from England football

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The MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough has greeted the news of the impending general election with a combative statement and a pledge that he will be “working hard” to win voters’ trust again.

Andrew Jones was first elected to Parliament in 2010 and has won the constituency at four general elections. Unlike 65 of his parliamentary party colleagues, such as Theresa May, Sajid Javid, Dominic Raab and Ben Wallace, he intends to stand again and win a fifth on July 4.

In a statement, Mr Jones contrasted his strong links to the area with those of his opponents. He said:

“I am standing again to be Harrogate and Knaresborough’s MP. I have never stood anywhere else but here. I have lived here since the last century. I have been a local councillor here. I worked in business here before becoming an MP. I have a long-term track record of action and delivery in our community.

“My principal opponents cannot match that local record. One [Liberal Democrat candidate Tom Gordon] has been a councillor in Newcastle, was a councillor In Wakefield as recently as last year and has stood for Parliament twice already in other seats. The other [Labour candidate Conrad Whitcroft] is a councillor in York.”

The constituency, and the previous Harrogate constituency that included Knaresborough, has been held by Conservatives continuously since 1950, except when the Liberal Democrat Phil Willis was MP from 1997 to 2010. He now sits in the House of Lords as Baron Willis of Knaresborough.

Before 1950, Harrogate and Knaresborough were part of the Ripon constituency, which was held by the Tories continuously from 1910.

Nevertheless, speaking to the Stray Ferret last year, Mr Jones said he’d never regarded the constituency as “anything other than a marginal”, and in his latest statement cautioned against change. He said:

“Nationally, the choice has become clearer as the economy has turned a corner. We embed that progress and build on it or we risk it all on a Labour party with no plan for our future and no policies.

“On 5 July we will wake up with Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister or Keir Starmer. No other outcome is possible. And there has only ever been a Labour Prime Minister when this constituency has elected anyone other than a Conservative.

“Choosing that local champion combined with choosing our next Prime Minister is the responsibility that lies with us all on 4 July. I hope that Harrogate and Knaresborough residents will choose me again and I will be working hard win that trust once more.”

Other than Mr Jones, four candidates have so far declared their intention to stand for election as MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough: Tom Gordon, Liberal Democrats; Shan Oakes, Green Party; John Swales, Reform UK; and Conrad Whitcroft, Labour.

The general election was called yesterday (Wednesday, May 22) by the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and will take place on July 4.

Read more:

• Who will be standing in the Harrogate district at the general election?
• As it happened: Labour’s David Skaith wins North Yorkshire mayoral election
• The MP aiming to win his fifth election in Harrogate and Knaresborough

This week, we spoke to Natalie Leworthy, aerial athlete and business owner of Urban Circus in Harrogate.

Tell us in fewer than 30 words what your firm does. 

We’re offer fitness classes for adults and children. We cover aerial and pole fitness – basically anything off the ground. Anything not too conventional!

It’s loosely rooted in the circus tradition, but I’m not – I’m a fitness instructor. I started with the pole, then went on to the aerial hoop (or lyra), aerial silk and hammock.

What does it take to be successful in business? 

Good question – when somebody answers that for you, tell me!

We’ve been around for over a decade and we’ve survived entirely through word-of-mouth. If you have a good product and a safe environment, it sells itself.

Having a passion for whatever it is you do is very important. Also, when you’ve been doing something for a while, it’s very easy to think ‘I’m the master of this now’, but that’s not how it goes in any business. It’s always evolving. So I’ve scoured the internet over the years to find courses to learn more, and I’ve grown with my industry. It’s important to keep up with the times.

Natalie (centre) with her instruction team at Urban Circus.

What drives you to do what you do every day? 

I really, really enjoy it. Not many people are excited to go to work, but I am.

I also love the impact what we do has on people who do it. Women often walk in here so self-conscious and embarrassed, but within a few weeks they come in wearing fewer clothes so they can grip the pole better, and they’re just generally more confident and sociable.

I have two daughters, and I love the fact that here they can be in a really positive, female, empowered environment.

What has been the toughest issue your company has had to deal with over the last 12 months? 

Keeping up with inflation. Our electricity bill has gone up by 500% over the last year – it’s crazy.

My biggest struggle, though, is being a mum at the same time as trying to be a businessperson. Finding that balance is very challenging!

Which other local firms do you most admire, and why? 

There’s a business near me in Claro Court Business Centre called Atlas Fitness – it used to be called Schofield Fitness. They try to change people mentally as well as physically, so they grow in confidence. I like their ethos.

Who are the most inspiring local leaders? 

One person I find super-inspiring is Tim Broad, headteacher at Western Primary School in Harrogate. Nobody works harder than him.

Both my nephews have autism and one has ADHD, but they’re both thriving there, and that’s due in large part to the effort Mr Broad and his staff put in.

I’ll also mention a teacher, Miss Ward, who has gone above and beyond, doing research in her own time to learn more and put in place better systems to help the boys. She doesn’t have to, but she makes a huge effort.

Training on the pole builds up strength, fitness, flexibility and confidence.

What could be done locally to boost business? 

There could be easier access to support for small businesses. I got in touch with North Yorkshire Council about grants for leisure businesses but I didn’t hear anything. I was bounced around different departments but I’m still waiting!

Best and worst things about running a business from Harrogate? 

For me, the worst is that I’d like to expand the business, but I can’t find suitable premises. There are lots of offices and large industrial units, but not many light industrial units in between. Every so often I’ll see one, but every time it turns out it’s been bought by a developer to turn into something else.

The best thing is that I like the community in Harrogate. I’m terrible at social media, so my business survives on word-of-mouth. Everybody in Harrogate and Knaresborough seems to know everybody else in Harrogate and Knaresborough, so once you put something out there, people talk and tend to find out about it.

What are your business plans for the future? 

I’d love to expand. We offer children’s classes and birthday parties, but we don’t have the space to accommodate them all. I also want to get into primary schools, doing taster days. We did  it last year, introducing children at Grove Road Primary School to the pole, hoop, hammock and ground skills, and they loved it.

I think it’s really important that children learn that exercise isn’t just about changing your body – you should also do it because it’s fun and it’s good to move.

What do you like to do in your time off? 

What’s ‘time off’?! I like to run around after my children, and when I’m not doing that, I’m really very boring – I like doing DIY or training.

Then again, if there’s any chance in hell I can get to a spa, I’m gone – you won’t see me for dust!

Best place to eat and drink locally? 

Thug Sandwich Company is the best place in North Yorkshire, if not the country. Everything seems to taste amazing – I don’t know how they do it. I’m a picky eater, but they mix different flavours together that you would think would work, but they do. I also like how cheeky the owners are.

Another good place is Tilly Peppers on Cold Bath Road – it’s really nice to be able to take a toddler in without fear of upsetting anyone!

This is the latest in a regular series of weekly Business Q&A features. If you’d like to suggest someone in business in the Harrogate district for this feature, drop us a line at contact@thestrayferret.co.uk.

Read more:

• Business Q&A: Andrew North, Alexanders Prestige
• Business Q&A: Tim Brown, Brown Trout
• Business Q&A: Hazel Barry, H2K

Chris Powell is a relentlessly positive person, but if there’s one thing he can’t stand, it’s wasted potential. In fact, he’s dedicated most of his working life to stamping it out in Harrogate and the surrounding area. 

Chris is the creative powerhouse behind the Cone Exchange, a community venture funded by his employer, Bettys and Taylors Group, and he’s the reason that over 25 businesses channel their waste towards his workshop in Starbeck. He told the Stray Ferret: 

“We rummage in the bins of lots of places. Once you’ve rummaged in the bins of the poshest place in town, Bettys, people let you rummage in their bin – they don’t mind.” 

The Cone Exchange started 21 years ago, when a boy on a school trip to the Taylors Tea factory saw a cardboard cone being thrown away and asked if he could take it home to make a Christmas tree angel out of it. 

Chris saw the potential of the idea – the cone was actually the bobbin for the thread that tethers a tag to its teabag, and loads of them are thrown away every year – and soon all the cones were being turned into angels. The idea grew, and Chris was tasked with nurturing the new venture.  

He said: 

“I ran a department where we did lots of hand-packing jobs. I was still in production and manufacturing, but I always secretly had a passion for being a Womble and looking in the bin and working out what I might be able to do with things – and then linking that to an external community project. It became a hobby of mine, and then the company saw potential in that.” 

Barrels of sorted waste items donated the the Cone Exchange’s scrap shop for use by crafters.

The Cone Exchange now consists of several operations. The most obvious part of it is the craft-themed charity shop, which sells fabric, braid, ribbon, buttons, zips, papercrafting, beading and books to the district’s craft aficionados. 

There’s a smaller scrap store, which sells waste and offcuts from donor companies, and is the only one in the UK owned and run by a private-sector company. 

Crucially, there is also a sizeable workshop, which provides work experience opportunities for young people from special schools and colleges around the district, including Horticap, Henshaws and Springwater School. Chris said: 

“Whatever’s trending, we try and jump on it. At the moment, we’re making wind-chimes, desk-tidies and picture-frames from disposable vapes.” 

Many of the items they manufacture are made with reclaimed materials cut into shape by machines hand-operated by the students using metal cutting dies designed by Chris. These include handbag tags made with discarded lanyard clips and offcuts: Remembrance Day red poppies, white ones for peace, purple ones for the animals killed in war, and yellow sunflowers for Ukraine. 

Chris said: 

“We’re always looking at what new materials are coming in. Who would have thought we could help Ukraine by repurposing bouncy castle offcuts? It’s ridiculous, but they make fantastic sunflowers.” 

Sunflower and poppy handbag tags, made by special school students from lanyard clips and industrial offcuts.

One particularly successful venture is the Cone Exchange’s stand at the annual Knitting & Stitching Show in Harrogate. It sells bag-making patterns along with material from fabric samples books donated by local upholsterers – all designed and packaged by a volunteer army of local ladies. The stand is routinely mobbed, and last year made £11,400 in just four days. 

The Cone Exchange also helps bereaved relatives clear homes, directing unwanted items to their own workshops or to other organisations that can use them, such as Essential Needs, Artizan, Harrogate Homeless Project, Harlow Hill Men’s Shed and Resurrection Bikes. Students at Horticap make garden furniture and composters out of the wooden pallet-toppers donated by Bettys & Taylors, and the organisation even took delivery of a stainless steel kitchen that had been donated. Recently, Starbeck charity Inspire Youth received a snooker table and a table tennis table that the charity shops didn’t have the space to accommodate. 

And because the Cone Exchange’s small but highly dedicated team is funded from Bettys & Taylors’ profits (Chris says: “I have a rich Auntie Betty and Uncle Taylor”), every penny made by these commercial ventures can be used to invest in more opportunities for the students. Chris said: 

“I often get asked how many thousand pounds I think I’ve raised over the 35 years I’ve been involved. I wouldn’t be able to tell you, because to me it’s not about the money – it’s about the magic. We work with people with disabilities, because they’re a big chunk of our local communities. It’s about those students having a feeling of self-worth and feeling that they’ve achieved.  

“This branch of the business was never set up to be about money. It’s about being able to plant trees, and about repurposing things.” 

The Cone Exchange has won a number of awards over the last two decades, and Chris himself has even been to Buckingham Palace a couple of times, once in 2008 to collect an MBE. He said: 

“I was working with children at Forest School at the time as a business adviser, and I told them I was getting an MBE. Some of them got it into their heads I was getting a BMX bike. So when I took the medal to show them, they were quite disappointed – they wanted something to play on in the playground. So sometimes, what they get is not what they want, but it was fun!” 

Ten years later, he received the ultimate accolade after appearing on Britain’s longest-running children’s TV show: a green Blue Peter badge “to go on my BMX”. 

Chris’s journey to the Palace started “60-and-a-few” years ago, when he was born in Starbeck. After school at Wedderburn (now Willow Tree), Woodlands and then onto Granby High School (now Harrogate High School), he left without qualifications. He said: 

“I got ‘distracted’, shall we say, quite a lot. I still do. So I never expected to achieve anything really. I’ve spent more time in school since I left that I ever did when I was there.” 

He took a job at Harrogate grocery institution Standings (“It had been there for 100 years – I was there for three and I managed to close it down”), before being hired by his current employer. Since then, he and his band of staff and volunteers have facilitated 70 work experience placements in the last five years, raised over £250,000 from sales in the shop and events in the last 10 years – with almost £60,000 in the last year alone – and planted 2,000 trees with the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust. 

He has become a community champion, at various times becoming a governor of Springwater School,  a business adviser for Young Enterprise, and a trustee for Jennyruth Workshops, the Ripon charity that works with adults with learning disabilities. 

He’s also in demand as a speaker for groups such the Women’s Institute, Probus and Rotary. He does about 50 talks a year and is booked till the end of 2026. 

Chris Powell, founder of the Cone Exchange, in the craft-themed charity shop.

Less conventionally, he’s spent some of his time in the job going to speak to schools dressed as “Captain Rummage”, a pirate on a mission to rethink rubbish and get kids to do the same. 

He said: 

“The best day ever was when I applied for this job. I just love what I do. I get out of bed every morning and I rush to work, because I just want to get here and get onto the next project. To be able to have that opportunity for the last 20 years of my working life has just been amazing.” 

Sadly, he had to retire the Captain a few years ago. He said: 

“He doesn’t roam the area anymore, unfortunately. If I’m really honest, I can’t get into the outfit anymore – I was a bit inactive during covid and I’ve grown out of it.” 

But Chris himself has no plans to retire anytime soon. For someone who doesn’t drink tea or coffee and can’t eat gluten – ruling out bread, cakes and pastries – he’s remarkably keen on staying at a company that deals in little else. But that, he says, is all down to its ethos: 

“Bettys & Taylors have Investors in People, and that’s what they’re really good at: seeing potential in people and investing in that potential. And if it has nothing to do with making cakes and tea, that’s not the point of it. If it makes a difference, or it can have a positive impact, that’s what we want to be doing.” 

As a guiding principle, it is remarkably attuned to his own life’s purpose. With a deep-seated aversion to wasted potential, Chris has spent decades seeing the potential in waste – and the potential in people – which is one reason why he’s so attached to the firm that gave him a career. He said: 

“Career? I’m not sure I’ve had one of those. I’ve had a job, rummaging in the bin… The thing that I’ll always be grateful for is someone seeing potential in me.

“I wasn’t written off at school, but I wasn’t given a lot of time. But here, they saw something in me and invested money in my ideas, which was madness, really.

“I never saw myself working for a large corporate business – but then, I never foresaw that I’d be a paid pirate. Who could have seen that happening?”

If you know of a business whose offcuts or waste materials the Cone Exchange could use, please contact Chris with the details.

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