Hello! Don't worry, we're still here. A wee update for you below...
COMMUNITY BENEFIT SOCIETY REGISTRATION
We are now officially a registered Community Benefit Society! Our application to the Financial Conduct Authority was approved this week and this means we can really crack on. Next on the to-do list is get the bank account set up, which we can finally do with all the correct paperwork being in place.
BUSINESS PLAN
Our business plan is finalised and we have a strong, viable model for a community-owned pub should we be successful in purchasing the pub. A huge amount of work has gone into this and we would like to say a big thank you to our consultants Faye, Duncan & Nick for guiding us through the process, and the local residents and business owners who took part in the consultation and feedback stages.
SCOTTISH LAND FUND
Our application to the second stage Scottish Land Fund has been submitted. Audrey and Davie in particular have put a huge amount of work into this, and the rest of the steering group would like to say thank you to them for pulling everything together. Now the wait begins, and we hope to have a decision in September.
COMMUNITY SHARE OFFER
We are in the process of creating the prospectus for the community share offer, and we are being supported in this by Community Shares Scotland. The share offer will be issued to Knoydart residents first - the CBS must have a 75% share membership from within the community, so the number of community members will dictate how many non-resident shares we can offer. Given our small population density this number will be low, so as we mentioned before we aim to launch a crowdfund too where more people can get involved (see below...)
CROWDFUND
We had hoped to launch our crowdfund early July but the delays in registering the CBS and getting a bank account have pushed this back. We know there are so many of you who are keen to support the crowdfund and we hope that you can hang in there with us for a wee bit longer - we're going as fast as we can and we really appreciate your support.
