The Big Onion CIC has delivered a range of activities. A Community cafe affordable food and drink at our Bootle Strand hub, creating a welcoming meeting place and volunteering/work-experience opportunities for local people. A Hub and co-working space shared workspace, meeting rooms and facilities hosting social enterprises, community groups, creative practitioners and start-ups, strengthening Sefton's social economy. Business start-up support and incubation one-to-one mentoring, business planning and incubation space targeted at aspiring entrepreneurs who face barriers to starting a business. Training and skills delivery digital inclusion, employability, enterprise skills and wellbeing programmes aimed at people furthest from the labour market. Community events and activities workshops, drop-ins, cultural and wellbeing events that reduce isolation and build belonging. A flagship example is our Our Time, Our Place project, which started in November 2025 with funding from the LiVV Housing Community Grant. The project delivers a weekly programme of activities, signposting and social-connection opportunities for local residents aged 55 plus, tackling loneliness and isolation while building friendships, confidence, wellbeing and new skills. Over 800 individuals benefited directly from these activities during the period. Beneficiaries include unemployed and economically inactive residents, isolated older people, aspiring entrepreneurs from under-represented backgrounds, small community enterprises, families on low incomes, and the wider Bootle community who benefit from a regenerated, occupied high-street unit contributing to town-centre recovery.

Consultation has taken three main forms during this first period. Community feedback and user surveys, informal and structured feedback gathered from cafe customers, hub visitors, training participants and start-up entrepreneurs through short surveys, comment cards and one-to-one conversations, shaping opening hours, programme content and the layout of shared spaces. Co-design of workshops and community events, sessions inviting local residents, social enterprises and beneficiaries to help shape the hub's offer, informing decisions about the cafe, incubation space, training priorities and community activities. Partner meetings and sector engagement, ongoing engagement with Sefton Council, educational institutions, credit unions, health partners and the wider VCSE sector to ensure our activities complement existing provision and address identified gaps. The directors are committed to deepening this consultation approach, with formal annual review exercises planned for future periods.

No remuneration was received

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration