More good news

Our Fundraiser Extraordinaire (aka Wonderwoman, Jo Songhurst) has been speaking to Midmar Energy and they have very kindly contributed £500 towards our cause. Also, O2, the telecomms company, has expressed interest in the project and we hope to hear back from them in the next few weeks.
Plans are firming up for the Independence Day fundraiser (Friday 4th July, 8 - 11, Brockham School Hall), which is to be a New Orleans Night with Cajun food, Southern Comfort (or wine, lager or beer of course!) and the music is to be provided by the Blue Moon Jazz Band, a six-piece band specialising in Dixieland and New Orleans jazz. So it will be a night with a difference! and great fun. It will also mark the point at which we should meet our initial fundraising target of £20,000. The Auction of Promises catalogue is growing... but we need some more suggestions - nothing is too big or too small! perhaps you don't mind an afternoon taking someone to Heathrow - that's worth at least £50! Perhaps a bit of gardening? Or perhaps your company specialises in something extraordinary we've never thought of? Be imaginative! Please let us know if you can help.

A grant and a cookery party!

We have just received the news that we have been awarded a grant of £2000 by Gatwick Airport Community Trust towards our project. this is fantastic news and takes us much nearer our match-funding target.
Another fundraising idea has come from Liz Knight who is organising a Pampered Chef party in aid of the shop on 18th June, in conjunction with Paula Mitas and Debbie Cawley. For those who don't know what The Pampered Chef is, it is a fabulous range of quality kitchen tools which are demonstrated at parties. Liz can take orders on the evening or you can visit www.pamperedchef.biz/lizknight - Click on 'order products' and enter 'Shop' when prompted. Generous commission to the shop, plus free raffle with all orders. If you wish to attend the cooking show on 18 June (it's at 7.30pm; they're very sociable events so please bring a bottle) please ring Liz on 844032, Paula on 842468 or Debbie on 844315.

Latest total

We have received a pledge of £1000 from the Poland Trust - a fantastic contribution. This brings our total of contributions and pledges to £15,260, and the number of shareholders to 399 (however, there is someone not too far from here who turned 18 on Wednesday and has resolved to buy a share now she's come of age! so we can say we have 400 now).
We are working towards our next open morning on 7th June, and also our New Orleans night on 4th July, plus we intend to have a stall on the village green at the Village Weekend on 11th July. So it's a busy time! Darren Flashman has very kindly offered to lend a hand with the project management when we get to the building stage. Once we hear from Mole Valley about the new shopfront etc, and assuming we reach our financial target which is less than £5000 away, we shall be able to start
planning the build.

Local support

Great news on the fundraising - Brockham Bonfire Committee have voted to give us £500, Unum have sent a cheque for £100, and last night the Brockham Women's Institute handed us a cheque for £100. These take our total to approximately £14,750. Also last night, Michael Smallbone arrived with a double stainless steel sink and worktop for our kitchen. Now all we need is a plumber!
Thanks so much to everyone involved.

Latest fundraising total

The total of funds received and pledged to date from the community is just over £14,000. That's less than £6000 to go, to receive our match funding of £20,000!
The number of shareholders is 394, and we hope to increase that to 400 within the next few days. This is a huge number, definitely one of the best-supported community shop schemes in the country, and shows what a committed and caring community we live in.

A huge success!

The Open Morning on Saturday 3rd May went far far better than we expected. We reckon about 200 people came through the door at various times during the morning (and for a period of about two hours we could hardly move!). The takings were £700 and on top of that we sold another £250 worth of shares. So that is a staggering total of £950 in three and a half hours!!!
Many thanks to all those who contributed - either by your generous gifts of cakes, plants, garden produce, books, magazines, sweets - or by joining us to sit in the sun and have a cup of coffee and a croissant.
Our bake-off oven worked perfectly and we were pretty impressed with our first effort to bake croissants (even if we say so ourselves!). Slight panic when Alan Wyle turned up with loads of stuff straight from a Sussex farmers market, as we didn't have a fridge, but Amy (upstairs) rushed off and found us one!
we sold a lot of freshly made Sussex butter and cheese, and the local ice-cream went very well too. We were very lucky with the weather, and people's enthusiasm for the project has left the committee very buoyant and ready to crack on.

Thankyous

Last night was a busy evening in the shop - we generally make sure the committee has a presence in the shop on Thursday nights, 5 till 7, when the fish and chip van is outside! Lots of people came to visit and chat, and quite a few came with armfuls of donated goods.
A big big thankyou to Adrian's Electrics - Adrian spent four hours of his own time in the shop yesterday morning wiring in the bake-off oven (we tested it last night on some danish pastries!) and making safe some of the electrics elsewhere in the shop.
Also a big thankyou to David Jacques (and apologies for incorrect spelling of his name in the last blog) for organising the chiller cabinet pick-up for today. we are crossing our fingers that the move goes okay and that the equipment survives the rest it has had for a couple of years, as well as the move.