Hi

Emailing on behalf of the South Norwood Community group. We are a bunch of people getting together to create a community pub on South Norwood High Street.

We had our first meeting Friday and will be having a second meeting on Saturday morning.

We're looking for people to volunteer in getting the pub up and running. They're hoping to buy a lease on a pub or shop on the High Street but are seeking to operate in the same way as the Ivy House pub in Nunhead.

We will raising money through Crowdfunding and grants to open the pub. It will be a CAMRA pub serving good beers (real ale and simple but good quality food).

To find out more get in touch by visiting [Link]

Our website went live four days ago and we've already had 1,000 hits and 40 people attended a meeting to discuss volunteering - despite us only posting the meeting up with three days notice.

As well as volunteering, it would really help us out if you could spread the word to anyone who might be interested in helping. We really want to fight back against pub closures in the area.

we're also currently looking for a solicitor or accountant to offer free advice as the set up of a community pub is very complicated.

Agree it's a good idea but for a lot of us who follow Palace, we have moved away from the area. Would possibly use it on a match day.

Good luck with the project

could you take over one of the derelict pubs or is that too much of a job?

Best of luck but with the best will in the world, I think your chances of raising enough money through crowd funding will be next to none. I invest and have also raised finance through crowd funding and from my own experiences would say that people are looking for new, dynamic and most importantly, scalable business opportunities. With respect, a pub represents none of these. Investors are not seeking social enterprises but are looking for returns (often investing in a wide variety of high risk/reward start ups in the hope one may make it big).
Pubs in general have had a very bad time of things over the past decade and in particular, pubs located in areas with dwindling white English populations (like South Norwood).
Sorry to sound negative - just don’t think this has been thought through as much as you think it has. Good luck with everything and if you get it off the ground I will patronise on match days.

"It feels much better than it ever did, much more sensitive." John Wayne Bobbit

The old sereved could be from locally grown and sourced ingredients to help the local community even further.

"We love you Palace, we f@cking hate Man U, We love you Palace, we hate the brighton too, We love you Palace we play in red 'n' blue, so f@ck you, and you ...

The closure of the pubs around the ground demonstrates a sad fact, you can't run a viable pub that relies significantly on something like a football club which although you see a huge influx of people into an area, it only happens every couple of weeks.

Back in the day (ok over 20 years ago now,) I moved to Selhurst and within 5 mins of my flat there were 4 pubs. (2 Brewers, White Horse.Selhurst Arms and Woolpack.) Extend the circle and add another probably 10 boozers. Sadly (and I like a pub or two,) that was too many. No surprise there are now about half that number.

Some pubs close for a reason. They aren't that good. But for every closed pub there is a failed business, someone has lost their livelihood and that's sad.

I remain unconvinced community pubs are the answer. It's hard to be all things to all men and you still unless you have real financial backing end up in the clutches of the big breweries/pub co's - probably the cause of the said pubs last failure.

I wish you well but it's a long hard road.