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The Old Forge Community Benefit Society

Community Shares are LIVE!


At long last our community share offer is live. Our goal is to raise £204,500 which will go towards acquisition costs of the pub. This is no mean feat and below we'd like to explain a few things about our share offer as it may differ from others you have seen.


The key point to note in our share offer is about membership. We have two membership categories: - Type A members are those on the electoral role and normally resident within our defined boundary (see the Society Rules), and - Type B members who are non-resident individuals, groups or corporate organisations.


Our society rules require 75% of membership (shareholders) to be Type A. This ensures that management of the society and the pub is always led my a majority who live and work within the community the pub serves. With a population of only around 100 people total, this means that the number of non-resident members we can have is significantly limited ie. If we have 70 Type A resident members we can only have around 17 Type B non-residents.


This created a challenge for us - how do we raise over £200k from such a small pool of potential investors? The solution we came to, with support of Community Shares Scotland and other advisors, was to make the minimum investment amount for Type B members significantly higher. You will note in our prospectus that minimum investment for Type A is £25, and Type B £10,000. (It is also important to note that group applications are available for Type B membership.)


Having crunched the numbers extensively, and received expressions of interest from within and out with the community we concluded that, while ambitious, this is a target we could reach.


The share offer prospectus, business plan, society rules and application forms are now available to view and download via our website: www.theoldforgecbs.org/invest.


CROWDFUND

Given that our share offer will only be able to offer a small number of non-resident member opportunities, we still plan to hold a crowdfund before the end of the year. Once we have a decision from SLF (hopefully within the next 2 weeks) and close the share offer we will be able to finalise our fundraising package and identify any gaps - that's where the crowdfund will come in.


But aside from the financial aspect, we are so aware of the support being shown to this endeavour and that there are so many of you who want to be involved. Our crowdfund rewards will focus on you being able to put your own stamp on the pub, and have a lasting piece of it that is special to you. So, if you are unable to take part in our share offer please stick with us and wait for the crowdfund.

As always, thank you for your continued support.


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