I can't give you any advice on actually 'running' a community orchard but can tell you what we've done on our site with a couple of areas which aren't suitable for individual plots.
On one we planted some Hazel saplings about nine years ago and coppiced part of this last year for pea sticks - the roots have made lots of new growth during the last year and we will cut again next February - the rest of the hazel we will leave as its very attractive. We sold the bundles of pea sticks for our field funds. The adjoining area to this we have developed as a wildlife area (and planted some more hazel last year) and it has some fruit trees on it, also planted about 9 years ago - there's a lovely plum tree which fruited heavily last year and people took a couple of fruits or so to eat immediately as they were passing, an apple tree which also fruited well and the children had the fruit from this, and a Damson the fruit of which one of the plot holders had (after asking our field committee if anyone else wanted them - they didn't) for making jam. We've just planted some more fruit trees in this area - cherry, apples and pears and the eventual fruit will be for anyone who wants it.
On the other area (which has only recently had years of dumped rubbish removed) we have also just planted fruit trees - plum, damson, apples, cherry. Our main reason for planting fruit trees is not for the fruit but to show that these areas are 'cultivated' so that rubbish is not dumped on them and also to improve the look of our field. We have a very good community spirit on our field and these areas are (will be) maintained by working parties from time to time - our previous working parties have always been well supported - about 25-30 volunteers each time from about 100 plots.
