The Corks Social Club needs to sell the building to settle its outstanding debts so its current members and board of directors can retire.

Bearwood Community Hub is committed to building on the legacy of the Corks and in working with current users to ensure the building remains a space for them as well as for our own projects.

Ensuring the building can continue to be hired out by members of the community and community organisations is an essential part of our business plan and to the sustainability of Bearwood Community Hub.

We are also interested in hearing from the community (including current users) to help us to shape the future use of the building.

We need to raise over £1,000,000 to purchase and refurbish the building. We plan to raise the money by:

1. Issuing community shares - enabling people to become members of Bearwood Community Hub and invest in the building

2. Applying for Capital Grants from funders like the Community Ownership Fund

3. Taking out a Social Investment Loan to help us cover up-front-costs

Yes!

We need the support of our community to make this happen! You can get involved in anything from sharing or talking about the campaign, to purchasing community shares, to getting involved in the planning and campaigning.

If you’d like to get more involved please email Lizzie at communityhub@bearwood.cc

A Community Benefit Society (CBS) is a type of legal organisation that’s registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). It is a not-for-profit business model which makes it very attractive to funders who offer grants and set aside land and assets for not-for-profit bodies. Membership of a CBS is organised on the principle of one-member, one-vote, so it’s a great structure where there’s a fundamental equality between members which needs to be baked into the business. That’s a big reason why it’s so popular for community ownership of local assets which have meaning and importance for the whole community, such as pubs, shops, football clubs, leisure facilities and so on.

Information sourced from Cwmpas

Assets of Community Value (ACV) form a part of the Community Right to Bid.

It acts as the first stage in identifying and nominating buildings or other assets such as land that have a main use or purpose of furthering the social wellbeing or social interests of the local community, and could do so into the future.

Once listed as Assets of Community Value with the local authority, the local community will be informed if they are listed for sale within the five year listing period. The community can then enact the Community Right to Bid, which gives them a moratorium period of six months to determine if they can raise the finance to purchase the asset.

Information sourced from My Community

This community share offer will invite you to become a member and invest in Bearwood Community Hub so that together we can buy the premises of Bearwood Corks Social Club, to continue and develop it into a single-front-door community centre.

Community shares is a user-friendly name for withdrawable, non-transferable share capital: a form of equity uniquely available to co operative and community benefit societies.

It is ‘withdrawable’ because the investor can take their money out of the organisation if they choose to. However, unlike conventional shares, a holder of community shares can not transfer them to another person and the shareholder has just one vote, regardless of the amount invested and the number of shares held. 

Community shares are a flexible and effective way to raise finance: an incredible 92% of all businesses who have used community shares are still trading.