About Seagulls

Seagulls is an environmental social enterprise working to promote and develop a community resource centre in Leeds.

The project arose from the bin yards of Burley, LS6, Leeds back in 2001 when Cat and Kate the Founders met whilst volunteering for a community project. They bonded over their passion for social justice and the need for increased recycling and reuse awareness (This was back in the day when residents of Leeds didn’t even have a green recycling bin).

 

Our Aim has therefore always been...

.. to tackle the issue of waste in the Leeds area by finding positive and effective ways to encourage people to reuse with a focus on promoting community participation through the renovation and reuse of waste materials, applying creative means to provide the sustainable use of resources whilst offering training , support, volunteering and job opportunities for local people.
 

Over the years we have developed three main strands to the business: Paint, decorating and community arts. With the main emphasis and bread and butter coming from Paint reuse (a messy job but someone has to do it!).

Seagulls Paint Store - We remix and reuse leftover/unwanted paint. We have a contract with Leeds City Council to collect paint from 8 of their household waste sites. The paint is then sorted, remixed and sold as a value alternative particularly for lower income customers.

Redecorate - We offer a full painting and decorating service: high quality, affordable, with community and environmental benefits built into its daily operations.

Mosaic and creative arts - Artists and volunteers teach and support local community organisations, facilitating the creation of public art.

 

2001 - Seagulls founders (Cat Pearson & Kate Moree) met whilst volunteering.

2002 - Cat secured a grant from Millennium Awards and we moved to Kate's kitchen (with Barry the cat as MD) and began to research ways to provide effective solutions to the waste problem. From the beginning we were very clear that we wanted to function as a social enterprise. We didn't know an awful lot about it, but from our experience of volunteering we had seen firsthand how stressful and time consuming it was having to constantly fundraise. We knew that we wanted to find a means to combine our social aims with a way to become financially sustainable.

2003 - Funding had started to come in enabling us to get ourselves some training and learn about Social enterprise. In the early days it was all about networking and finding the right people in the council to harass!

 

2004 - We found a small office space with a damp cellar and started plans to collect paint from council waste sites. We negotiated a payment from Leeds City Council (LCC) per paint collection.

2005- With the support of LCC we began collecting paint from Pudsey HWSS (household waste sorting site). The paint scheme took off really quickly and it soon became apparent to us that there was going to be a huge demand for affordable paint. We were also successful in a lottery grant application and began searching for a larger nest. The search proved fruitful and in September we moved into Aire Place Mills a large draughty mill building with holes in the roof and a need to wear long johns in winter!

2006-2008- Added paint collections from 3 more HWSS’s

2008 - Painting and decorating service Redecorate established. Two qualified Seagulls volunteers are employed to get it up and running.

2009 – 2 more HWSS come on board.