Business name: Carreg Adventure
Based: Swansea
Website: www.carregadventure.co.uk
Person nominated: Ceri Butcher
My partner, Ceri, has spent the last two and a half years working to realise Carreg Adventure.
She has just project-managed the renovation of Stouthall, a grade II Georgian mansion and turned it into an adventure centre and wedding venue.
Ceri spearheaded complicated negotiations involving two local councils, the Welsh Assembly government, the freeholders, dozens of agents, lawyers, surveyors and an emotionally-invested local community.
Where dozens of well-connected business leaders, organisations and celebrities failed, Ceri succeeded in creating a solution to ensure that everyone was represented.
Ceri took on as much of the work herself as she could. She qualified as a project manager, learned to plaster in lime, completed a full listed-building planning process without the use of consultants, among a million other jobs.
Alongside the renovation, Ceri has overseen the creation of Carreg Adventure. Carreg Adventure is a startup moulded around Stouthall. The company offers residential activity holidays and festival weddings (two products that no one believed would work together). From Ceri begining the work on her dining room table, Carreg Adventure has grown to a company of eight full-time staff with many more part-time, casual and seasonal staff yet to join.
Carreg Adventure is backed by former chairman of the House of Fraser, Don McCarthy. On top of all of this, Ceri celebrated her own wedding in March 2015, the first wedding to take place in Stouthall in 145 years. She is a truly inspirational business woman.
