With front line activism on his resume and a concerted effort to diverge from his familial farming and retail heritage, Chris Ennis embarked on a path of his own only to find himself at the front of the socially progressive 10 acre urban farming, retail and educational enterprise CERES Fair Food and now CERES Fair Wood in Melbourne's North. As you guessed it, an urban farm and retailer. Seems you can't escape what's in your blood... but you can reframe it to suit our times and cultural needs which is exactly what Chris has done as a social entrepreneur.
SHOW NOTES
- What is a social entrepreneur? Caring about all the parts of business that aren't about money
- Enterprise stacking = an ecosystem of diverse enterprises that fit together
- Make up the rules of business! You can decide what the workplace looks like and how that fits with your life
- Different ways of being a farmer even in the city
- Having faith in kids to take their seeded habits and make them bounce in later life
- From fair food to fair wood and possibly fair anything
- Stacking diversity in life to ensure multi-purpose uses
- Not subscribing to traditional channels of business or being pigeon holed
- Why he refers to ‘founders’ as weeds
- Planning for business succession with the right types of people
- The long game versus short-term-ism
- The importance of seeing the pathway as having value
- The value of generational knowledge in business
- Yearning for indigenous wisdom
- Being comfortable to ask uncomfortable questions
- Embedding ritual as the social fabric of life
- Practical positive activism is nourishing and fulfilling
- Aim for deeper change, it’s more potent than flashy shallow initiatives
- If in doubt - go out!
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