BringBackTheSwanseaCorkFerry – Newsletter April 8th 2009
Positivity spoken here !

Hi!

Some (more) very good news....
or ''With a little help from my friends' (Yes – he's back on song titles again!)

Last night saw a significant milestone in our plans to BringBackTheSwanseaCorkFerry.

More than 140 of the co-op shareholders packed into the West Cork Hotel in Skibbereen to hear Conor Buckley and the co-op trustees present the new plans for the ferry.

After an hour-long question-and-answer session, the meeting unanimously voted in favour of setting up a formal co-op, electing the Chairman and Officers, and giving the go-ahead to purchase the Julia.

For more details of the meeting and some photographs – take a look at the website (www.bringbacktheswanseacorkferry.com)

 

Ticket to ride....
The new ferry company (Fastnetline) will be setting up an online booking system to sell tickets for the new service in the very near future.

In the meantime, if you'd care to leave us your name and email address on the website at www.fastnetline.com then we'll contact you the minute the new booking system is up and running.

This website went live at midnight on 7th April – and more than 200 potential passengers have already signed up within the first 12 hours!
We know how much you want to travel on the new ship - and we're pulling out all the stops to make it happen!

 

The long and winding road
It's nearly 12 months since this campaign began..
On 11th April 2008 I emailed John Hosford

"…..The ferry ceased just after we arrived - but, by all accounts, the lack of the ferry is having a significant impact on tourism in the region - and I wondered whether a 'Save the Swansea Cork Ferry' website might be in order. Apparently there's significant impact on the Welsh end of things too. I'd be happy to produce a website to highlight the problem - maybe with an online petition - if you thought it might make any difference??"

We've all come a long way since then - and even though we're not quite there yet – we've all been amazed and delighted over the last 360 days by the brilliant response that we've received from all of you – and it's an honour to be involved.

It was great to shake hands with some of you at the meeting last night – it's a tribute to you all that you can see further than the doom & gloom, and you're prepared to do something positive to improve things for West Cork and South Wales. Thank you!

 

Help!
You help is precisely how we've got to this stage – and we're very grateful to all of you who have provided financial support.
If you've not yet got involved – our Pledge Investment scheme is still open to new investors – with syndicate shares from €1k (one thousand euro) and full shares at €10k (ten thousand euro) – but if you want to join in then I'm informed that the price of a full share is set to increase in the next couple of weeks – so act now!!

Here's the link to our Investment Page – you can either pledge online, or contact Paul O'Brien (his phone details are on the website).

We have had a massive response to our appeal for Pledge Investors – and it's thanks to you kind folks that we've been able to negotiate to buy the ship.


 

Can't buy me love
Many of you have already made good use of our online Donations scheme – and have given us donations of up to several hundred euro each. Many thanks !!!

To become an investor, you still need to find a minimum amount of €1,000 – but if you can't commit that amount we now have a new 'Donations' scheme on the website. This is set up via Paypal, so that you can instantly and securely donate any amount of cash, that will then be administered by the co-op to help defray the quite substantial costs associated with setting up the co-op and the negotiation process.


 

Here comes the sun...
As I type this it's a glorious West Cork spring day – full of promise and optimism.
Let's hope that all this hard work bears fruit – and we can succeed in our aim of reintroducing the ferry service by late May / early June.

After all – if you can help us to raise €3m in seven weeks – then everything is possible!

As Conor Buckley said last night at the meeting

“I am extremely proud of the region and of all those who have pledged their money and support to this great cause which holds the key for the future of the South West”.


 

As always – watch the website for the latest news – and we promise to keep you updated with further developments on the ship and the new ferry service as they occur.......

Thank you for your support – without it we couldn't have got this far!

Adrian – Campaign Co-organiser

PS
It seems that the Beatles (ask your Mum!) also recorded a song called Julia
– now there's a strange coincidence !