Beaujolais - a proposal from the Captain

You will have certainly seen the hulk that is Beaujolais and know that it needs a lot of work to put it back into a riverworthy state.  You will not be surprised to learn that the club has no money to repair it: as a result the committee approved in its January 2004 meeting the idea of purchase of the boat by a consortium, ideally of members of TRC, to restore and use the boat.

I've been discussing the way ahead with a number of interested people and we have a plan to allow for the rapid restoration of Beaujolais (in about two or so months).  It will cost in the region of £12,000 and be carried out by Steve Austin and John Russell.  We have already received commitments to the tune of about 20% of the total cost.

I'm now inviting all members to invest in this scheme and outline below how we imagine this may work.  This is still very much an evolutionary process and other suggestions will be welcomed.

We will set up a limited company and consortium members will take shares in Beaujolais Limited. 

TRC's role

At the moment the boat will be made available to the club to use at all times when it is not being used by the company – this should be for most of Spring, Autumn and Winter.  In return we will request the club arranges mooring and insurance.  Shares will be sold back to the club if it has the money or other members of the consortium in preference to anyone else.  How the shares would be valued is a matter to be considered.

Ultimately we may want to give the club the option to buy the boat back.

How to invest

Because we do not want to have a huge number of owners the minimum subscription will be £100. 

I had hoped that we might have people becoming members of the consortium by contributing labour.  Having reviewed the specification carefully it seems that there will only be room for maybe 5 man day's unskilled labour.  If you want to volunteer to subscribe to the company and want to offer labour then please do let me know, but we may not be able to take up that offer and we will still need a minimum monetary investment of £100.  For ease of administration we would aim to favour larger investors to minimize the numbers involved.

We are also contemplating a “Henley Bond” – if people want to put £2,000 to the project they can opt to have use of the boat exclusively during one day at Henley for the next four years.  They would not receive shares if they want to take the Henley option.  If this is of interest please feel free to discuss it with me.  This may be attractive as boats are booked for Henley literally years in advance and cost around £1,000 per day to hire if they can be found.  Days would be agreed by bondholders or drawn by lot. Bonds would be transferable by the bond owner.

The company is intended to run at a profit for the shareholders and this is a business opportunity more than (another) request by the club for your money.  We'll investigate hiring the boat out both to private users, film crews and corporate entertainers, hiring it out to Chas Newens, etc.  There is however no guarantee that this project can or will make money.

What next?

If you are interested in investing then please let me know either by email, leaving a letter at the club or grab me some time.   

There is no commitment to buy shares if you say that you are interested nor does it mean your offer will be accepted, I am simply looking for an indicator as to whether we can raise the funds to restore the boat.

Stephen Dooley - Captain