Hello everyone! 👋

We realise that there's been a lot going on that we haven't had the opportunity to share with you yet. To address this, we are holding a village hall meeting on Thursday 19 November to report on the outcome of the feasibility assessment, summarise how the project might move forward and, most importantly, to call for additional team members to help make this a success.

  • 🗓️ Date: Thursday 19 November
  • 🕕 Time: Doors open at 6pm, for a 7pm start
  • 📍 Location: Blackawton Village Hall - The bar will be open!

We are now at a stage where we need more people to join our team and take on key roles in order to move forwards. We need to ensure that our team has the relevant skills required to purchase The George Inn, and set up and manage a successful community owned pub business.

⚠️ Without more volunteers, we cannot continue. ⚠️

We're looking for people with skills, experience or enthusiasm in the following areas:

  • A CBS secretary - See role description
  • A CBS treasurer - See role description
  • Knowledge/experience to cost and oversee remaining required renovation work at the pub
  • Lead our search for a suitable tenant publican to run our community owned pub
  • Define the community share offer (the process by which local people and supporters invest in the Community Benefit Society to help fund the purchase and running of the village pub) including producing the prospectus, administering the offer and data control
  • A community facing role to drive the share issue initiative
  • Develop, document and maintain our policies and procedures
  • Get involved with, and represent the CBS's interest in, any short-term opening of the pub
  • A legal eagle to work with Barchester & lease/sublease development

Some of these activities could be sub-divided. For example, someone with book keeping skills could take on part of the duties of treasurer. In a similar vein, some of these roles could be combined.

This list is not necessarily comprehensive. If you want to help, and have specific skills that you think we need and are willing to provide, do let us know.

Going forward, anyone who joins us is not joining a talking shop (to find out what's going on) but is committing to personally take on a role. 💪

If you'd like to know more before committing, ask away. We're happy to chat!

Together we can secure a future for The George Inn as a pub at the heart of our community. 🍻

We look forward to hearing from you!

From Steve Thomas, Andy Gimpel and Nic Crane, the Save Our Pub team!