Target reached!
We will use additional funding over our original target to produce a big welcome bac...
Saving The White Swan
Aylesbury, England, United Kingdom
Aim
The global COVID-19 pandemic has created a very uncertain landscape for the White Swan and we need your help to continue to survive.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has created a very uncertain landscape for millions of British small businesses, which is going to make it very challenging for businesses to survive. Pubs are being particularly hit hard and the earliest we are likely to be able to open is July and even then it is not certain and is likely to be very restricted.
We miss you all and miss the very essence of what our pub is about - socialising!
People is what makes our business work and what makes each one of the team love what we do, so taking the very heart of or business is what is hurting most.
But cash is also a big part of what we all need to survive and ours was literally turned off like the beer tap overnight. With so much competition and the likes of Just Eat and Deliveroo in the town centre becoming a takeaway was not a financially viable way to see this situation out.
As many of you also know, the pub is for sale by the pub company, Star Pubs & Bars, and as such any financial support and investment is simply not going to happen. Star did immediately defer payment of rent, but you'll notice the word defer not cancelled. In addition, bills continue to come in as the building sits empty and stock goes out of date and is poured down the sink and food destroyed. All of which will need to be replaced to reopen.
Star have now started to ask for rent before we can even trade expecting rent and associated costs to be paid in full and the deferred payments are also now due, despite no opening date in sight.
This makes it increasingly difficult for myself and the team to be positive and see light at the end of the tunnel. We also know that when we do return, pubs are unlikely to be the same as they were and social distancing measures, restrictions of numbers and provisions of service are likely to apply for a long time. The talk of social screening, PPE and screen divisions in-house and removing the social setting all have a cost attached.
Pubs have not for decades been cash rich and so do not have huge reserves to survive long periods of closure, let alone reduced services limiting income, when we do open.
With no financial support from the pub company and the government grant almost all eaten up on bills, we have to look honestly at what the future may hold. Certainly we do not wish to re-start the pub with huge debts which is how the governments latest plan to 'help' works - by asking business to take loans from it and pay interest for five years after an initial one year interest free period.
It is with this in mind that we have started this crowdfunding campaign and want to ask for your help in bringing the pub back to life when we are able to do so. We expect to need £6000 to get through to the end of July and to pay for restocking and this is the target for our funding however any excess will go towards making improvements on the pub itself and producing a big welcome back live music event.
We fully appreciate we are not alone and that many of our customers are facing challenges similar to those we are facing and have also had their income affected. So we've set this page with that in mind and set the levels for rewards from just £10.
You can choose your reward from t-shirts or dinner vouchers to beanie hats or bottles of wine and champagne to a private exclusive party night or opportunity to perform as headline act on one of our festival nights.
Thank you for your time reading this and thank you for your support.
Kyle and all the team xx
Crowdfunder are offering up their platform to allow all UK small businesses to use their platform for free for this Coronavirus fundraising activity and no fees are deducted from your pledges.
We ask project owners to honour their rewards wherever possible but please note that all pledges are donations and there is no guarantee that you will receive any rewards from the project owner. Please see Crowdfunder's Terms of Use for more information regarding rewards for pledges.
This project successfully funded on 9th June 2020