I am Political (through the Green Party) and political (with a small p): about how we live our lives. Many have spoken of the duplication of effort, need for consolidation, working together, one of the reasons for setting up OLAN. UK has largest number of voluntary organisations per capita, largest amount of money given to charities, a heritage of voluntary work. Lots of money given to charity, in spite of that, some ways, lots of people re-inventing the wheel (e.g. IT problems), lots of us attached to web, lots of energy setting up organisations, systems, find funding, been done many times before. I have set up this organisation to plug the gap; many groups/ people contacting me about how they can do something. The information and resources are not available.

Key objectives of OLAN: Support, finance, advise individuals and groups involved in ecological and social sustainability.

Trust will operate by managing different strands
1. Charity: obtain funds from other trusts, local funders: redistribute them to smaller organisations, who need them to invigorate communities; have already helped groups get funding from regeneration organisations, but funding pretty low; funders give funding for what they want to see, not what the community wants to support, especially to meet targets of local councils. We will also provide grants, advice.
2. Advice: grown out of ad-hoc advice given to others (legal, planning, incorporating, problems encountered); rural councils block innovative projects with the land. Web-interface, web database, for legal and planning advice, one onboard solicitor: Storm has legal experience, legal process; service tailored for social economy, activism, eco-groups (70's leading lights not into helping small groups anymore, rather concentrating on the big cases)
3. Subsidiary Company: community interest company (with a community asset lock) to attain property that will remain in the community domain; it will deal in land and property in urban and rural areas; many people have great ideas (teaching skills, setup cafes), need a space to run their services from (benefiting the community), examples like OAP, Arthouse. Voluntary groups get turned away by banks and big institutions, who only want to deal with big boys (e.g. big Housing Associations); if you're doing something out of the ordinary, monkeys cant deal with it. The company will get its foot in to negotiate. Otherwise these projects are doomed to short lets, unstable landlords, squatting; all unsecure. With short licences, most people don’t want to put in too much work if they are going to lose the licence, they build up no financial standing, financial institutions are very wary/ unwilling to deal with voluntary organisations, small social enterprises. Investment Company will get the financial standing with financial institutions, hold land, get property off Local authorities; with this company one is able to get a foot in the door, leverage, more standing. This commercial property investment company will be used for acquiring land for community, nature reserves (under threat), cheap land, pick up streets of houses where affordable. The properties will be used to support community enterprises such as social centres which will be run for the community. It will be done without local authorities, who are generally bad news (many co-ops have been forcibly absorbed by Councils). The buildings will also act as a catalyst for housing co-ops, helping those in low paid or voluntary work to support their way of life. Where opportunity for cheap property in an area, the Trust will encourage local people to set up co-ops.