A Community Greengrocer is getting closer
After a brilliant response to our recent publicity drive, the team working to take over Blooming Fruity to run it as a community business has been very busy behind the scenes and we now have some exciting developments to share with the village.
Firstly we have had our formal offer for the business accepted and hope to finalise the purchase in the autumn.
We are now officially registered as a Community Benefit Society, Haddenham Community Enterprise Limited.
We know many of you have already pledged your support, but if you haven't yet, please visit our website, where you can tell us your views and let us know how much you would be prepared to invest.
You can also drop into the shop to pick up a paper copy of our survey.
We were delighted to receive pledges totalling around £80,000, but we hope to raise at least £100,000 in order to cover immediate costs and leave a decent amount of working capital. Any more could be set aside for longer-term developments.
We need to finalise a few more details before launching the share offer, but for those who have already pledged, we hope to raise the funds in July, and will be getting in touch shortly to let you know how to buy your shares.
One of the attractions of the Community Benefit Society model is that everyone who invests has one vote, however many shares they buy, so will be able to have a say in how the shop is run.
It also ensures that any profits that aren't invested back into the business or used to pay interest on the shares will be allocated to community projects.
We believe this will ensure Blooming Fruity becomes even more of a thriving community asset and hub for the village.
And finally, we have successfully expanded our project team so we now have many more willing hands to cover the significant amount of work involved in the takeover. You'll see many of us in the picture, and we look forward to meeting as many of you as possible at future events. The next of which will be a pop-up stall at Vale Harvest in the Village Hall from 9-12 on Saturday 1st July, so please come down and say hello.
The Haddenham Community Enterprise project team
