Building Budget and Considerations ● Planning Support : we had a grant writer, architect, engineer, and builder on our volunteer team; this made everything dramatically easier and less expensive than if we had to hire people. ● Building Labour : we had help from a recently retired mason, five local carpenters, skilled community members, as well as a few runners and general labourers. Our initial oven and roof overhang structure was 95% built by volunteer labour. ● Building Materials : our different budget options were between $20,000 (bare minimum oven and basic shed design covering it) and $50,000 (unique building design); we landed somewhere in the middle (our finishings are not done yet, so we don’t have final costs). We asked for quotes from various builders to get our numbers. ● Prepping the ground : If in a public place, check with the local municipality about water lines or buried power lines. We had two options for the “foundation” to build the oven and surrounding building: a concrete foundation or Helical screw piles. Our oven and building needed to be technically moveable if the library were to expand there, so we opted for helical screw piles. In 2019, screw piles were $250 per screw (installed) and we needed 12 of them for our building and under the oven. If you are using screw piles, we recommend designing the building to minimize the number of screw piles you need to save money. Because of our soil type, and because of the weight of our oven, we had to install concrete around the perimeter of the oven and building to hold the screw piles in place, as the ones under the oven were a little loose in the soil over time. This is very uncommon, but worth noting to your engineer if your oven is near an ocean tidal area. ● Community build : If you do a community build, make sure to budget for food, coffee, and hydration for the volunteers. We had very happy volunteers who got to have pizza, hot from the oven, before anyone else in the community did. Operating Budget and Considerations Here’s a sample financial projections and expenses from our budgeting in year one when the budget was supplemented heavily by grants; it does not include our social enterprise activities. If you’d like more information about this, please contact Duncan or Adam at the contacts below. Yearly Operating Costs: ● Insurance - Our most significant yearly fixed cost. The Front Street Community Oven is insured for Bodily Injury, Property Damage, and Personal Injury by Anderson McTague through Gates Insurance as the broker for $2,000,0000 per occurrence. (See the full breakdown of what the Town of Wolfville requires in the appendix.) Our insurance costs are approximately $1350/year. ● Firewood - Needs to be seasoned and to be stored somewhere convenient. We budgeted $750 for 3 cords of wood in our first year. We ended up getting all of our wood donated for year one. ● Volunteer Coordinator/Operations Manager - It’s encouraged to have a paid coordinator to manage bookings, schedule volunteers, coordinator events, and to keep track of what is happening at the oven. The Front Street Oven funded this position through Canada Summer Jobs and a small programming grant in the first season. In year two, the Front Street Oven plans to fund at least half of this position from revenue and sponsorship. The grants in year one were not enough to fund the amount of work that needed to be done and we relied heavily on the board of directors to complete the season. From other oven projects, we hear that volunteer burnout and board burnout happens frequently when there is no paid staff member. Events/Activities To build the oven community and have regular attendance, it is essential to have events where there are no financial or skill barriers to try baking/cooking in the oven; this is much easier if you’ve already built the relationships with chefs, foodies, and people in the community who already organize food events. We recommend finding one to three
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