Meet the studio holders: Studio 63, The Electric Barge
Continuing our ‘Meet the studio holders series’, we caught up with Simon Ryder, CEO of the Electric Barge, who when on dry land, can be found in studio 63 at Great Western Studios.
Simon tells us all about their social enterprise, talks about being an electric vehicle trailblazer and shares some top sustainability tips.
Firstly, what exactly is the Electric Barge?
The Electric Barge is a unique, fully electric floating venue on the Grand Union and Regent’s Canals, offering unforgettable cruises along one of London’s most scenic waterways. Equipped with a bar, an array of catering options, powerful sound system and space for up to 60 guests, the barge is perfect for special occasions, parties, and of your, your next team away-day!
As a social enterprise, every booking directly supports their charity learning project, The Floating Classroom.
Where did the idea for the Electric Barge come from?
The Floating Classroom charity came first. The charity has been around in Paddington since 1938 and we took over in 2001. We’d always done a bit of commercial hire to supplement the grant funding that was our main source of income. However, the austerity policies that the government implemented from 2010 meant that the competition for grants became incredibly fierce. We realised that we had an asset – the boat – from which we could generate a lot more of our own income through commercial hire, making us much more self-sufficient and a lot less reliant on charitable grants.
What is the Floating Classroom?
The Floating Classroom is a 22m-long, purpose built electric wide-beam barge on which we provide learning and enrichment activities inspired by the ecology and heritage of London’s waterways for children and young people as we travel along the Grand Union and Regent’s Canals from our mooring in Little Venice near Paddington Station.
The learning activities encourage curiosity, take a delight in discovery and are imbued with joy. We think people learn best when they are enjoying themselves, so we keep things lively, fun and hands-on. For many of the children we work with, it’s their first time on a boat, so we want to make sure it’s a memorable experience, in which they connect with nature and develop a sharper sense of place.
We’ve welcomed just under 60,000 children and young people on board for learning and enrichment activities since launching in 2001, and reached schools in 18 of the 32 London boroughs. Our focus now is very much on our community in North Paddington – despite Westminster’s wealth, the city contains some of the most deprived parts of the UK and many of these are within a stone’s throw of GWS.
How could people get involved in supporting the Floating Classroom?
This will sound horribly mercenary, but the best form of support for the Floating Classroom is money! Running a boat is ridiculously expensive; mooring and licence fees, insurance, power, and maintenance costs come to about £50,000 each year.
We meet these costs through a combination of grants and the money we earn ourselves through our social enterprise. However, we always need to keep our eyes open for other forms of support, and one we’ve discussed is corporate support or sponsorship.
Beyond cold, hard cash, support can come in the form of time, expertise and skills to fill the gaps we have in such a small team. For example, our social media presence is pretty limited because we lack the resources in-house to grow and maintain it in the way we’d like to. Similarly, our websites could do with a refresh and support with that would be really helpful. In general, I think we could utilise technology more effectively than we currently do – it would be good to tap into the insights of people and companies with expertise in these fields.
Another way that people could support us is by becoming a trustee of the charity. We have some skill gaps on the board, so if anybody with the appropriate expertise and experience is interested in taking on a role like this, we’d be very happy to talk to them about what it entails and what we need.
What advice would you give to someone setting up a social enterprise business?
I think the first thing is probably to have absolute clarity about your purpose: what change is it, that you’re trying to bring about in the world? Being clear on this will really help when all the other things start to crowd in.
Just as important, is to know how your business will enable you to achieve the change you’re seeking. What you do and how you do it has to be consistent with your charitable or change mission.
It’s also important that your social enterprise should stand or fall as a regular business. Essentially, don’t think that customers should give you any additional leeway because you’re doing business for a good cause or a higher purpose. What you offer should be as good as it possibly can be, you should be tenacious about making and keeping it so, and in this way you’re more likely to have a venture that will keep generating income for the cause you’re pursuing
Why did you choose to locate your offices at Great Western Studios?
The key thing is the location: it’s right on top of the canal and it’s only about a 10-15 minute walk to the boat’s mooring. It’s also located very close to about 15 of the schools we work with regularly on the boat, so it means we’re sharing the same the same space as them. Nurturing a sense of place and a strong connection to your environment is a big part of what we do on the Floating Classroom, and being based in GWS in North Paddington reinforces that.
We also loved the Studio building itself and the mix of makers, artists, and creatives that were here. It’s a very different environment to office spaces we’d previously occupied, and to the ones charities or voluntary sector organisations normally find themselves in. For reasons I can’t quite articulate, that feels right for an organisation that’s half charity and half social enterprise.
Sustainability is obviously incredibly important to the Electric Barge – please can you share some of the measures you take?
Big clue in the name of the boat: we’re electrically powered – the boat is propelled by 72 batteries that operate silently and with none of the diesel discharge that other vessels on the canal produce. It’s operated like this since launch in 2001, so we’ve have been blazing a trail for electric vehicles for a very long time.
We’ve eliminated the use of single-use plastic completely from our bar stock – everything we offer comes in glass bottles or aluminium cans.
Hopefully we don’t sound like killjoys, but we ask guests not to bring glitter – when decorating / dressing the boat – on board because of its twofold (production and risk of entering the waterways) negative impact on the environment.
All of our cleaning materials are environmentally friendly – we source everything from Green My Business.
It’s not strictly about sustainability, but we’re also a London Living Wage employer – the manner in which we do business and in the way we work with each other is incredibly important to us.
Do you offer any discounts to Studio holders looking to book team events?
We certainly do. Please get in touch through the enquiry form on our website or swing by Studio 63 to say hello, and we’ll gladly invite you aboard with a 10% discount off our venue hire!
Discover more about The Electric Barge here.
