TOPIC:

I know that the supposed motive is to keep the Pack Horse open, but the percentage dividend promised (so long as targets are hit) seems a little on the optimistic side, given the current climate. I seem to remember the Bell prospectus offering 3.5 - not that everyone was looking at it as a financial investment.

The Board decided it wasn't collectively keen

Shame the board isn't collectively keen - despite the structure - it is a local community owned pub which I think The Bell should support. But understand the reservations -. All I can say is that Ive met most of the people involved in this - and they are a good group of people who I trust to do a good job. it would be fantastic to see this great pub opened again - and they are nearly there - only 75K to go to initial target by 10th Sept. And they've done a nice video!

We (the board) looked at this very closely and although not all agreed the majority felt that the structure wasn't good and that the figures simply didn't add up and hence an investment from us would be wasting money.
Clare

Hello from the Save the Packhorse campaign!

We are full of admiration at what you have achieved at The Bell. You are one of the biggest success stories by far of the use of community shares to save a local pub. So I'm sorry that your board chose not to invest in the Packhorse. I know it would have been no more than a gesture of solidarity but gestures matter, particularly in these times.

Having said that, we really appreciate the advice that your current and former CoOp secretaries have freely given us. It's certainly helped clarify our thinking as we've scrambled to seize the sudden opportunity of buying the Packhorse back from a property speculator.

I recognise your unkeeness over the structure and we'll learn from that. Perhaps we should have put more detail into our prospectus about the controls and vetos that our community-owned society has over the limited company that will operate the pub to ensure that it runs the business for the benefit of the community.

Our committee remains convinced that we could not have raised the capital needed to reopen the Packhorse with a pure community shares model, hence the choices we made. And to our great relief and gratitude, our combined share offer has been successful: it raised more than £601,000 from over 200 individuals with more on the way. Indeed, the Society will control about 33% of the limited company and is the largest shareholder by some margin. We'll publish a full report on our web site in due course.

Anyway, thanks for reading -- I'm off to write a grant application -- wish us luck!

@SG Thank you for the update, and congratulations on achieving your initial target.

I'll look forward to taking a trip out to visit the Packhorse, hopefully sometime next year.

Simon.