On Friday 12 May BFOE hosted an event to discuss and publicise our Community Share Offer at the Warehouse. BFOE members and prospective investors attended this event. The event started off with excellent flapjacks and wine and once both had been enjoyed Ben took us on a tour of the Warehouse.
On this tour, Ben talked us through the planned changes to the building. At the moment there is a lot of unused space in middle bay on the ground floor. Ben told us how the Warehouse Café would be brought downstairs, allowing the Café to expand. At the moment the space that the café uses can be cramped. Bringing the Café downstairs would allow them to serve more happy customers. The café and other shops would have a much nicer public facing entrance on the ground floor, which would look inviting to members of the public.
Next Ben discussed the proposed lift that we want to install. The current layout of the building has a steep staircase to access the second floor so those with access needs do not have access to the top floor. The lift would change this. BFOE has long wanted to change this problem, but never had the money available to do this. It would also help move heavy objects upstairs, which is a struggle at the moment.
After the tour had finished we sat down in the main meeting room, which is where Sprocket, the bike shop, would move to. Roxanne Green and Richard Bickle delivered a power point presentation, summarising the Share Offer document. Roxanne focused on the campaigns that we currently undertake, ranging from air pollution, to nature, to cycling. If we raise the £240,000 we could expand our campaigns from the increased income that we could charge tenants and groups. We could use the extra income to pay for a second Campaign Support Worker.
Once Roxanne had finished speaking, Richard talked us through the finances of the Share Offer. He told us in detail about how the space in the building could be much better utilised. We could increase the amount of visitors to the building massively. We could make the building more energy efficient, saving on our energy bills and reducing the amount of carbon that we produce.
We closed the session by having a discussion about the Share Offer, in particular about how we can market the Share Offer better. The evening was useful for us at BFOE and hopefully encouraged the potential investors to believe in the project and to invest in our Community Share Offer.
We’ve now had over a £100,000 worth of investment, which is great. We’ve still got some way to go until we reach our £240,000 target so if you are interested in investing or know anybody else that would invest, please check out our Crowdfunder page.
